Note: This is a guest blog by The Ghost of Milton Friedman
Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. First, let me answer the question most on your mind: What is it like to be dead? The answer may surprise you: It is quite satisfying, actually. I can speak now in ways that I could never speak while alive. It makes a free market economist lick his lips with glee, I tell you. I miss food and drink, but I was always more interested in the intellectual rewards of life anyhow.
So, back to economics. Today I was asked to talk about corruption in the Afghan government. My response to that is, what is this "corruption" that everybody is talking about? What I see is simple free market economics in action. Governance is a commodity to be bought and sold on the market, like any other commodity. We should not demonize those who purchase special consideration from government by bribing specific officials who regulate their sector, rather, we should applaud them for their understanding of and embracing of the free market principles that made America great! Similarly, those government officials who accept special consideration in order to rule in favor of a particular party should not be prosecuted for "corruption". No, they are simple entrepreneurs, and to be embraced as the exemplars of American values that they are.
In short, I view the Obama administration's attacks upon "corruption" in Afghanistan as just another branch of President Hussein Obama's socialist agenda. This wanton attack upon the very foundation of capitalism is typical of what we can expect from a President who wishes to embark upon a profound re-invention of America as a Cuba North, a socialist paradise where private property is outlawed and free speech lands one in the gulag or simply earns you a bullet between the eyes. We should be applauding the entrepreneurial spirit that has led Afghanistan to producing 90% of a valuable commodity on the world market, rather than attempting to interfere with Afghanistan's embrace of capitalism. Certainly Afghanistan's implementation of capitalism has been somewhat crude and blatant compared to the U.S. variant, but the solution is not to attack capitalism in Afghanistan, but, rather, help the Afghans learn how to properly implement legislative capitalism. The Afghans have proven quick studies, now is the time to help them refine capitalism to the smooth and transparent transfer of wealth that it is here in the USA. Let us not kneecap Afghan capitalism with misguided socialist programs!
-- Dr. Milton Friedman, Ghost
i bet Milton has tea every day with both St. Ronnie and Jeanne Kirkpatrick --- and i bet the waiter is Jerry Falwell
ReplyDeleteit must be one helluva (so to speak) teabagging event down there
I was astounded, reading Milton's biography, to find out that he had been trying to destroy the public school system since *1950*. This despite the fact that every nation which outperforms us educationally does so with a public school system, not with vouchered private schools. The only other major economy which has a large percentage of private school students is England, and they perform even more dismally than we do. Indeed, if you graph percentage of students in private schools vs. educational achievement, the more private schools a nation has, the poorer it performs educationally in international comparisons.
ReplyDeleteGiven recent events of teabaggers saying "keep your government hands off my Medicare!", St. Ronnie probably high-fived him when he got downstairs. I will certainly have to invite Milton back to explain his fascination with school vouchers.
- Badtux the Snarky Penguin
Somehow, it never occurred to me to think of what we heretofore have, in our pinko-ignorance, called corruption as simply the free market acting in the political arena.
ReplyDeleteThank you, Uncle Miltie, for that insight.
It was, all by itself, worth the price of admission.
(And I had to get my ticket froma scalper.)
Cheers!
JzB the shaved trombonist