Submitted by Bob Ransdell, Aug 14, 2007 11:25

Milton Friedman was a nobel winning economist and acclaimed in the corporate media as a genius and yet most if not all the countries in which his economic polices were put into practice experienced one degree or other of disaster economically. In Chile', after the dictator Pinochet (For someone who talked so much about "Freedom" his policies were surprisingly popular with authoritarian regimes) imposed Friedman's ideas the economy promptly went down the toilet, then revived in the early 1980's only to plummet again even further. Pinochet finally had to abandon many of The Chicago Boys (Friedman's deciples) policies and the economy recovered somewhat. When the former USSR collapsed Friedman's ideas were applied there in "free-market shock therapy" and the country went into severe economic depression. The U.S. lost 20% of its wealth during our great depression, the USSR under Friedman's policies lost 40% of it's wealth. The IMF forced Friedman's ideas on many countries by with holding loans needed by developing countries unless they enacted "structural adjustment" which were based on Friedman's ideas. They forced them on Argentina in the 1980s and '90's and a few years later Argentina's economy collapsed entirely. His policies couldn 't be forced on the U.S. itself to the extent that they were in so called third world countries but to the extent they have been they have caused a reduction in general prosperity, even the corporate media which were big boosters of Friedman's economic ideas carry stories today about the shrinking middle class, negative savings rates, and skyrocketing family debt. Friedman's ideas were basically recycled Laize Faire, the economic regime pushed by imperial Britain in the late 1800's, and associated with a lavishly wealthy aristocratic class, a relatively small middle class and the great mass of people in having a hard time financially or in abject poverty. With Friedman's policies still so powerful in the media and in the political establishment things are still going in that direction back from our peak GENERAL prosperity in the 1960's and early 1970's. Friedman did have one huge "success" though that explains his high stature in the corporate media and amoung politicians, he made very wealhy people MUCH wealthier. That's undeniable.

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