Unbelievably fair and glorious tribute to Mr. Free Market Economics of the later 20th century. It's on PBS, hopefully now playing in your area. It's called Free To Choose or Freedom of Choice, I believe, and lasts an hour and a half. A great show!
Unbelievably fair and glorious tribute to Mr. Free Market Economics of the later 20th century. It's on PBS, hopefully now playing in your area. It's called Free To Choose or Freedom of Choice, I believe, and lasts an hour and a half. A great show!
Put a lid on it! Kiss it goodbye. We gave it away, and apparently thought it made sense to do so.
I have a little problem with Milt Freidman in one area. He wrote that a corporation's only obligation is to pay max dividends to its shareholders -- social consequences bedamned.
While I believe in free-market capitalism, I'm suspect of the Friedmanian notion that owners should be able incorporate, then release their creature like Frankenstein to wander around the countryside to create all manner of havoc, while the shareholders (a/k/a "owners") sit safely insulated from liability and rake in profits.
Nevertheless, that's pretty much the law in the USA.
"Discourage litigation. Persuade your neighbors to compromise whenever they can. Point out to them how the nominal winner is often a real loser; in fees, expenses and waste of time." -- Abraham Lincoln, (1809-1865) Lawyer and President who saved the United States.
"Without opportunities on the part of the poor to obtain expert legal advice, it is idle to talk of equality before the law"-- Justice Chas. Evans Hughes
Perhaps you have taken an attorney's twist to his ideas. Anyway, you ought to see the program. It's excellent.Originally Posted by Okla-homey
Put a lid on it! Kiss it goodbye. We gave it away, and apparently thought it made sense to do so.
No, with all due respect, I've taken a human being's "twist" to the guy's notions. I'm pretty danged conservative, but I feel that just sometimes, shareholders ought be share liability when corporations run amok.
Frankly, it's that "corporate veil" which has for centuries now, allowed investors to pour capital into an enterprise and not have to worry themselves whether that corporation is a good citizen or otherwise engaged in the most heinous of acts, skullduggery or other monkeyshines.
Friedman was the most bottomline of bottomliners. IOW, according to Freidman, as long as the corporation is paying dividends and the shareholders are happy with their investment, the corporations' board of directors is doing as good a job as should be expected.
In fact, Friedman would argue, and did, if a board concerned itself or expended capital on anything else, they were acting outside their authority.
"Discourage litigation. Persuade your neighbors to compromise whenever they can. Point out to them how the nominal winner is often a real loser; in fees, expenses and waste of time." -- Abraham Lincoln, (1809-1865) Lawyer and President who saved the United States.
"Without opportunities on the part of the poor to obtain expert legal advice, it is idle to talk of equality before the law"-- Justice Chas. Evans Hughes
Friedman is best known for his advice and proof of success of free market capitalism, and insistence on democratically elected govts. to maximize economic success and human freedom. He was personally very influential in the economic successes of Chile and Lithuania, and paved the way for the presidency of Ronald Reagan.
As a conservative, I'm surprised you have a distaste for corporations. Did you see the Friedman special I'm referring to?
Put a lid on it! Kiss it goodbye. We gave it away, and apparently thought it made sense to do so.
I dare to miss it.
... that's not food.
I haven't seen it, but I am glad to have the heads up so that I can DVR it hopefully.
While business and economics may not be interesting to all people, one can look at it from a political and social perspective.
I am not that interested in music and have studied it very little, however if there were a special on a great composer that a musician finds very well done, then I would probably try to see it just to learn more about music and that composers influence on music.
I'd rather have a bottle in front of me than a frontal labotomy.
While/After watching the show you will have a very positive, uplifting feeling. It is seriously like watching and hearing one of Reagan's speeches.
I remember when Friedman was on tv a lot, back in the '80's, and really enjoying his commonsense advice. ( and wondering when PBS was gonna pull the plug)
Put a lid on it! Kiss it goodbye. We gave it away, and apparently thought it made sense to do so.
You'd be hard pressed to find anyone more conservative than I am, and I have a natural distrust of corporations. A good conservative distrusts big government; conservatives should also distrust big business. That's not to say I support a governmental role in keeping business in line (I don't), but the free market works best with informed and vigilant consumers who need to hold a business accountable via their pocketbook in order to bring about any kind of change.
It does nobody any good to say that big business/corporations are always good. My biggest complaint is that big business is partly responsible for the destruction of states rights by demanding single Federal guidelines and regulations that overrule existing state laws in order to lower the cost of having to comply with 50 separate set of regulatory laws/agencies.
Look, corporations have their upside and downside.
What enamors me about Friedman is his strong belief in the FREEDOM that is necessary for economic prosperity, including freely elected government, and existence of capitalistic endeavor, of course.
Put a lid on it! Kiss it goodbye. We gave it away, and apparently thought it made sense to do so.
When will the gov't stop sponsoring this so called "public television." I think continued support is an economic folly.
If you're thinking I disagree with that simply because they occasionally run something that's not leftist, you're wrong. Good post!When will the gov't stop sponsoring this so called "public television." I think continued support is an economic folly.
Put a lid on it! Kiss it goodbye. We gave it away, and apparently thought it made sense to do so.
I'm not saying I don't care about the stuff, or that it wouldn't be interesting. I just rarely have an hour and a half to sit and watch tv that isn't an OU game.
Plus I was making fun of the way the thread was titled.
... that's not food.
Glad I'm not the only one who caught the irony of a Friedman special being run on PBS.When will the gov't stop sponsoring this so called "public television." I think continued support is an economic folly.
"The choices we discern as having been made in the Constitutional Convention impose burdens on governmental proceses that often seem clumsy, inefficient, even unworkable, but those hard choices were consciously made by men who had lived under a form of government that permitted arbitrary governmental acts to go unchecked." INS v. Chadha, 462 U.S. 919 (1983) (Burger, C.J.)
as I recall, it's textbook Adam Smith that free markets create social goods and commonwealth....beyond merely the profit margin. Homey is right in a way in the original post. it wouldn't be a hard sell that some token model of public broadcasting would resemble that.
besides if you look at how PBS or even NPR funds itself these days.....it's hardly the withering away of the state or the dictatorship of the proletariat.
Wasn't it Friedman who said something about government funding for the arts is nothing more than prostitution under another name?
"The choices we discern as having been made in the Constitutional Convention impose burdens on governmental proceses that often seem clumsy, inefficient, even unworkable, but those hard choices were consciously made by men who had lived under a form of government that permitted arbitrary governmental acts to go unchecked." INS v. Chadha, 462 U.S. 919 (1983) (Burger, C.J.)
Based on what he wrote, I'm guessing it has less to do with a distaste for corporations than a system that allows the owners of a corporation to profit from a corporation's immoral and/or unethical acts without any consequence other than the loss of their initial investment.
My grandfather is rather conservative, and he regularly opines about "Harvard MBAs" who've brought a culture of maximizing shareholder value at any cost to corporate America. This is a guy who was a VP at a major US mineral company; it's not that he's anti-corp, he just doesn't like the guys running them these days.
Incidentally, he was a lawyer too
Well, I don't know how much liability should attach to a small investor who has little to no say in the business practices of a billion-dollar market cap corporation.
I do, however, like the recent moves by Congress to attach more liability to board members and officers-particularly in the area of financial tomfoolery.
"The choices we discern as having been made in the Constitutional Convention impose burdens on governmental proceses that often seem clumsy, inefficient, even unworkable, but those hard choices were consciously made by men who had lived under a form of government that permitted arbitrary governmental acts to go unchecked." INS v. Chadha, 462 U.S. 919 (1983) (Burger, C.J.)
But if even small investors learned they just might be liable in some way for corporate skullduggery, chicanery or other crimes against humanity, it would make corporate boards sit up in bed at night and think about it. That would be good enough for me. As it is, they needn't even give it a passing thought.
"Discourage litigation. Persuade your neighbors to compromise whenever they can. Point out to them how the nominal winner is often a real loser; in fees, expenses and waste of time." -- Abraham Lincoln, (1809-1865) Lawyer and President who saved the United States.
"Without opportunities on the part of the poor to obtain expert legal advice, it is idle to talk of equality before the law"-- Justice Chas. Evans Hughes
by the by...I stumbled onto a very interesting read on Friedman, his ideas, and their strengths and weaknesses that some of you might enjoy reading.
Some of you, no doubt, will also become incensed that anyone dares call any of his ideas wrong (as this author does).
Regardless, it's a pretty interesting read. Oh, and it's long too, so book some time for it..
http://www.nybooks.com/articles/19857
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