Quotes from Milton Friedman (part 4)

John Stossel – Influence of Milton Friedman

When I think of the last 4 years and where the federal government has gone crazy spending our money trying to be “fair,” it makes me realize how wise Milton Friedman was when he talked about how to best achieve equality:

Here are some quotes from Milton Friedman that I thought you would enjoy:

  • Spending by government currently amounts to about 45 percent of national income. By that test, government owns 45 percent of the means of production that produce the national income. The U.S. is now 45 percent socialist.
  • The stock of money, prices and output was decidedly more unstable after the establishment of the Reserve System than before. The most dramatic period of instability in output was, of course, the period between the two wars, which includes the severe (monetary) contractions of 1920-1, 1929-33, and 1937-8. No other 20 year period in American history contains as many as three such severe contractions.
    This evidence persuades me that at least a third of the price rise during and just after World War I is attributable to the establishment of the Federal Reserve System… and that the severity of each of the major contractions — 1920-1, 1929-33 and 1937-8 is directly attributable to acts of commission and omission by the Reserve authorities…
    Any system which gives so much power and so much discretion to a few men, [so] that mistakes — excusable or not — can have such far reaching effects, is a bad system. It is a bad system to believers in freedom just because it gives a few men such power without any effective check by the body politic — this is the key political argument against an independent central bank…
    To paraphrase Clemenceau, money is much too serious a matter to be left to the central bankers.

  • I know of no severe depression, in any country or any time, that was not accompanied by a sharp decline in the stock of money and equally of no sharp decline in the stock of money that was not accompanied by a severe depression.
  • The Federal Reserve definitely caused the Great Depression by contracting the amount of money in circulation by one-third from 1929 to 1933
    • National Public Radio interview (Jan 1996)

One of the great mistakes is to judge policies and programmes by their intentions rather than their results.

April 27, 2012 – 6:27 am Categories: Milton Friedman | Post a comment

Margaret Thatcher (Part 4)

 

Margaret Thatcher is one of my heroes and I have a three part series on her I am posting. “What We Can Learn from Margaret Thatcher,”By Sir Rhodes Boyson and Antonio Martino, Heritage Foundation, November 24, 1999, is an excellent article and here is a portion of it below:

Thatcher

This was the background of the advent of Mrs. Thatcher. Wrong economic theories, entrenched interest groups, and a widespread aversion for the free market had resulted in economic sclerosis, inflation, unemployment, and general decline. She intended to change all of this, and she did.

Her first battle was in the field of macroeconomic policy, where there was a switch from reliance on fiscal policy as a means of managing aggregate demand to the use of monetary policy. In fiscal policy the aim was that of reducing the deficit (PSBR: Public Sector Borrowing Requirement). In the field of taxation, the goal was that of restoring incentives to work, save, and invest through cuts in all tax rates, especially at the highest levels. The underlying philosophy was that the restoration of incentives was more important than the search for equality.

But where she really excelled was in macroeconomic or supply side reforms:

[A]fter the inflation-fighting campaign of 1979-82, [she engaged in] non-stop reform of the supply side — union laws, privatisation, deregulation, local government finance reform, housing, radical tax reform and much else.30

Thatcher also succeeded in taming the unions. Even her detractors concede that that was one of her great successes, one which she shares with President Reagan:

[Reagan and Thatcher] did make considerable progress in shrinking the role of government, and in expanding the reach of market forces in the microeconomy. Both did so, first, by taming the trade union power…. The President successfully broke a strike by air traffic controllers in 1981…. The Prime Minister equally successfully broke a strike in 1984-85 by coal miners determined to impose their leader’s political agenda on an electorate that had rejected it.31

She also succeeded in shrinking government’s direct role in the economy through privatization. It is generally recognized that “Thatcherism’s success in converting state-owned to privately-owned enterprises…[was] a programme so radical in conception, and so successful in operation, as to have won the highest form of flattery from other nations — imitation.”32 Contrary to what people both on the right and on the left maintain, Mrs. Thatcher’s successes do not include a reduction in total public spending: “Indeed, 18 years of Tory government left the state’s overall share of the economy virtually undiminished: 44% of GDP in 1979 and 43% in 1996.”33

To sum up, Thatcher succeeded in drastically reducing inflation in a country that had become dependent on it; taming the power of what were probably the most powerful labor unions in Europe; privatizing a large portion of a bloated public sector; enacting a tax code more favorable to entrepreneurship and investment; and establishing the conditions for long-term economic growth.

She put an end to the “British disease.” She put Britain back to work. Last, but definitely not least, she shifted the focus of political debate on economic issues. Mr. Blair’s economic program would have been considered Conservative in the 1970s. If Labour has been forced to drastically alter its position, this is largely due to Mrs. Thatcher’s legacy. One can criticize some details, but overall hers has been a fantastic success.34

How Did She Do It?

How did she do it? I believe there are several factors that contributed to Thatcher’s “Conservative Revolution.”

Ideas. There is no doubt that Thatcher’s success is largely due to the power of ideas. She acknowledged the important role played by the Institute of Economic Affairs in providing the intellectual ammunition and the inspiration for her program. On the occasion of the 30th anniversary of the IEA, she said:

[T]he Institute began at a time when despite free speech in a free country, there prevailed what I would call a censorship of fashion. Anyone who dared to challenge the conventional wisdom of the post-war years was frowned-upon, criticized, derided and pilloried as being reactionary or ignorant…. You set out to change public sentiment…. May I say how thankful we are to those academics, some of whom were very lonely, and to those journalists who joined your great endeavour. I do not think they ever numbered 364. They were the few. But they were right, and they saved Britain.35

Without those ideas, Thatcher’s revolution would have been impossible. However, let’s not forget that most of them were already available 10 years earlier at the time of the Heath government. It can be argued that in 1979 the justification for a radical change in economic policy was stronger than ever before, but it is still true that ideas alone do not explain the revolution. They were a necessary, but certainly not a sufficient, cause for the change.

Circumstances. It is true that by the end of the 1970s, the evidence of the failure of the statist policies pursued by both Labour and Tory governments was overwhelming. I believe that circumstances did play a role in Thatcher’s success. However, the evidence of the failure of those anti-market policies was already in existence in 1970, even though it was not as conspicuous as in 1979.

Furthermore, let’s not forget that not everybody drew the same conclusions from that experience. Certainly not the Labour Party that in 1979 was as Socialist as ever. And, as far as academic economists are concerned, the vast majority was convinced that there was no need for a change in policy, as revealed by the 364 of them who signed a manifesto against the new policies of the Thatcher government. The evidence was undoubtedly there, and it helped Thatcher’s cause, but it had been there before with no impact, and many educated people still failed to draw the correct conclusions from it.

Interests. The trade unions had abused their power, and this made the case for reducing their influence stronger than ever. However, even this was not new: The danger omnipotent labor unions pose to a free society had been obvious for years, yet nobody had ever tried to tame them.

Leadership. I believe that, while these factors played a role in Thatcher’s success, the crucial element was her personality, her principled and uncompromising leadership. It can be said of her what Ted Kennedy said of Reagan:

It would be foolish to deny that his success was fundamentally rooted in a command of public ideas. Ronald Reagan may have forgotten names, but never his goals. He was a great communicator, not simply because of his personality or his teleprompter, but mostly because he had something to communicate.36

She dared do what no one else had had the courage to do in Britain for decades: challenge the prevailing consensus, the common wisdom, the entrenched interests, and drive a reluctant party and a befuddled country in a radically new direction.

I can testify to her unusual personality. I have had the chance to meet her several times even before I entered politics. Once, in 1991, there was a conference in Fiesole, near Florence, organized by the National Review Institute. During a coffee break, we were walking along the portico of the hotel. Tuscany’s countryside looked magnificent under the afternoon sun. Mrs. Thatcher remarked: “Yours is a beautiful country, with a rotten government.” To which I replied: “My dear lady, the opposite would be much worse.”

Her straightforward, direct way of putting things, so unusual for a political leader, earned her some enemies among other leaders but made for a refreshing contrast with the hypocrisy and vacuity of the accepted political discourse. At times, she probably overdid it. For example, on that same occasion in Fiesole, during her summing-up of the conference, she came out with the statement: “Civilization is the exclusive prerogative of English-speaking peoples.” I was the only non-English, non-American in the room. I looked at John O’Sullivan, who was sitting next to me. He smiled and said, “You have been consigned to barbarism!”

She can also be very kind and thoughtful. When we won the elections in Italy in 1994, she sent me a fax of congratulations. I called her to thank her for her kindness. She gave me her usual pep talk: “You must do for Italy what I did for Britain.” I attempted to explain that we were at a disadvantage compared to her. I said: “You had a Constitution that was written in the hearts and the minds of your people. We don’t. You had an independent judiciary. We don’t. You had a clean and effective civil service. We don’t. You had a single party majority. We don’t. You had those think tanks, like the IEA, that provided you with the right ideas. We don’t.”

“However,” I added, “we have something which you didn’t have.” “What’s that?” she said. “Your example,” I replied.

As to the relative importance of ideas and/or leadership, she gave her own view on the occasion of the celebration of the 30th anniversary of the IEA. After having listened to a series of speeches by distinguished academics, all praising the great importance of ideas, she thus concluded her remarks: “Speaking as the eleventh speaker and the only woman, I hope you will recall that it may be the cock that crows but it is the hen who lays the eggs.”

April 27, 2012 – 6:20 am Categories: Current Events | Post a comment

“Friedman Friday” Milton Friedman and the Heritage Foundation on what equality of opportunity really means

No other issue is more misunderstood today than equality. President Obama has used class warfare over and over the last few months and according to him equality at the finish line is the equality that we should all be talking about. However, socialism has never worked and it has always killed incentive to produce more. Milton Friedman expressed the conversative’s best and I am glad that I had the chance to be studying his work for over 30 years now.

In 1980 when I first sat down and read the book “Free to Choose” I was involved in Ronald Reagan’s campaign for president and excited about the race. Milton Friedman’s books and film series really helped form my conservative views. Take a look at one of my favorite films of his:

Created Equal [1/7]. Milton Friedman’s Free to Choose (1980)

Uploaded by on May 30, 2010

In this program, Milton Friedman visits India, the U.S., and Britain, examining the question of equality. He points out that our society traditionally has embraced two kinds of equality: equality before God and equality of opportunity. The first of these implies that human beings enjoy a certain dignity simply because they are members of the human community. The second suggests societies should allow the talents and inclinations of individuals to unfold, free from arbitrary barriers. Both of these concepts of equality are consistent with the goal of personal freedom.

In recent years, there has been growing support for a third type of equality, which Dr. Friedman calls “equality of outcome.” This concept of equality assumes that justice demands a more equal distribution of the economic fruits of society. While admitting the good intentions of those supporting the idea of equality of outcome, Dr. Friedman points out that government policies undertaken in support of this objective are inconsistent with the ideal of personal freedom. Advocates of equality of outcome typically argue that consumers must be protected by government from the insensitivities of the free market place.

Dr. Friedman demonstrates that in countries where governments have pursued the goal of equality of outcome, the differences in wealth and well being between the top and the bottom are actually much greater than in countries that have relied on free markets to coordinate economic activity. Indeed, says Dr. Friedman, it is the ordinary citizen who benefits most from the free market system. Dr. Friedman concludes that any society that puts equality ahead of freedom will end up with neither. But the society that puts freedom before equality will end up with both greater freedom and great equality.

___________________________

Great article on equality below:

David Weinberger

April 20, 2012 at 10:52 am

New York Times columnist Paul Krugman recently steamed about the lack of equal opportunity in America. In his view, “government falls down on the job of creating equal opportunity.” He’s also huffed that:

When you hear conservatives talk about how our goal should be equality of opportunity, not equality of outcomes, your first response should be that if they really believe in equality of opportunity, they must be in favor of radical changes in American society.

This begs the question: What is equal opportunity? It’s certainly an idea claimed by both the right and the left, so why is it that the right insists it exists while the left stridently claims it has yet to be achieved?

The answer has to do with the two sides’ differing concepts of equality of opportunity.

Conservatives maintain that all humans possess inherently equal rights and should therefore be treated equally before the law. They do, however, recognize that people are unequal in many other regards: People are born into different situations and with different talents and abilities. But no one should face interference or legal obstacles in cultivating his talents and industry.

The great Frederick Douglass eloquently advanced this idea:

If men were born in need of crutches, instead of having legs, the fact would be otherwise. We should then be in need of help, and would require outside aide; but according to the wiser and better arrangement of nature, our duty is done better by not hindering than by helping our fellow-men; or, in other words, the best way to help them is just to let them help themselves.

The left has transformed this traditional understanding of equal opportunity into one where it is not enough that people possess equal inherent rights and receive equal treatment before the law. People must all be given the same opportunities—no one may have more opportunities than someone else. Under this belief, when one is born in a city where some people have more opportunities than others, it is the duty of government to equalize them, by taking resources from the well-off and giving them to the less well-off. As founder Nathaniel Chipman wrote, this violates justice twice:

To exclude the meritorious from riches and honors, and to perpetuate either to the undeserving, are equally injurious to the rights of man in society. In both it is to counteract the laws of nature, which have, by the connection of cause and effect, annexed the proper rewards and punishments to the actions of men. Wealth, or at least, a competency, is the reward, provided by the laws of nature, for prudent industry; want, the punishment of idleness and profligacy.

Utilizing government to equalize groups contradicts the proposition that everyone is equal before the law and possesses equal rights: How can resources be directed toward those with less without implying that they’re different before the law and in the rights they possess?

This worldview by definition cannot ever be satisfied, because, short of socialism, there will always be individuals who own and command more resources than the rest.

Furthermore, equality of opportunity encompasses much more than mere economic condition. Consider natural athletic talent, intelligence, work ethic—are we going to handicap the most talented athletes, dumb down the most intelligent people, and restrain the hardest workers?

The debate about equality is not merely between equality of opportunity and equality of outcome. It’s also about the meaning of equality of opportunity. For the left, it means government must manufacture an equalized starting point in life. Short of socialism, this is impossible. Even so, an equal economic start would be no guarantor of equal opportunity, for that would also require controlling natural talents, abilities, and work ethics, which start on different levels. For the right, equal opportunity is about clearing obstacles and removing legal impediments to moving ahead in life. The difference explains why both sides can claim the mantle of equal opportunity yet be talking right past one another.

April 27, 2012 – 6:14 am Categories: Milton Friedman | Post a comment

Chuck Colson explains how learning ethics at Harvard won’t help

Chuck Colson friend gave 5 million dollars to Harvard for  a center on ethics and Colson told his friend that he wasted his money. Watch this video for the explanation why.

Uploaded by on Mar 30, 2011

Presentation#1 of the “Doing The Right Thing” ethics tour: Dallas, TX, March 26, 2011. –THIS CLIP BEGINS WITH A TRAILER FROM THE VIDEO SERIES, GOES TO AN INTRODUCTION BY ERIC METAXES AND CONCLUDES WITH CHUCK COLSON’S SPEECH. — Introducing a new, 6-part DVD series put out by the Chuck Colson Center for Christian Woldview – to be released early April, 2011. For more information, go to Colsoncenter.org/ethics or to Doingtherightthing.com.

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Remembering Francis Schaeffer at 100 (Part 3) “Schaeffer Sunday”

Truth With Tears – A Story of Dr. Schaeffer Shedding Tears At the Lausanne Congress, 1974 Uploaded by schaefferstudies on Dec 10, 2011 This video is a segment of an interview we did with Dr. David Calhoun of Covenant Theological Seminary where he described a touching moment with Dr. Schaeffer when he sheds tears at […]

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April 26, 2012 – 3:44 pm Categories: Current Events | Post a comment

Obama rule apply to vouchers?

Introducing the ‘Obama Rule’

Posted by Neal McCluskey

In his latest weekly radio address, President Obama featured what will no doubt be a mainstay of his reelection campaign: the “Buffett Rule,” which says that rich people should pay at least the same tax rate as middle-class folks. It’s named after mega-investor Warren Buffett, who famously declared that he pays a lower tax rate than his secretary. President Obama and his supporters have run with that, and are employing it to convince the public that such is the norm for the despised “rich.”

Of course that’s not the norm: Buffett is the rare taxpayer who makes almost all his income through investments, and top earners have much higher tax rates than people earning $200,000 and below. So this is clearly not about fairness — it’s about politics.

Two, though, can play at this game. If the President can engage in class warfare he’s also a fair target of it. So why not implement something called the “Obama Rule,” which demands that lower-income people get at least the same educational options as the President? That only seems fair, right, like the Buffett Rule? Indeed, the President himself noted in his weekly address that “ we…have to pay for investments that will help our economy grow and keep our country safe [such as] education.” So why, then, does the President’s 2013 budget zero-out funding for the DC Opportunity Scholarship Program while his daughters go to Sidwell Friends? Shouldn’t other kids in Washington have access to the same excellent private schools as the President’s daughters?

Class envy is hardly the right reason to demand school choice — the right reasons are freedom, competition, innovation, and specialization – but of course all kids should have the same options as President Obama’s daughters! As the President concluded in his weekly address (though, obviously, he wasn’t talking about school choice): “That’s how we’ll make this country a little fairer, a little more just, and a whole lot stronger.” So let’s invoke the Obama Rule, and give lower-income families the same educational choices as the President! It’s simply the fair thing to do.

Here is the video clip and transcript of the film series FREE TO CHOOSE episode “What is wrong with our schools?” Part 1 of 6.

 
Volume 6 – What’s Wrong with our Schools
Transcript:
Friedman: These youngsters are beginning another day at one of America’s public schools, Hyde Park High School in Boston. What happens when they pass through those doors is a vivid illustration of some of the problems facing America’s schools.
They have to pass through metal detectors. They are faced by security guards looking for hidden weapons. They are watched over by armed police. Isn’t that awful. What a way for kids to have to go to school, through metal detectors and to be searched. What can they conceivably learn under such circumstances. Nobody is happy with this kind of education. The taxpayers surely aren’t. This isn’t cheap education. After all, those uniformed policemen, those metal detectors have to be paid for.
What about the broken windows, the torn school books, and the smashed school equipment. The teachers who teach here don’t like this kind of situation. The students don’t like to come here to go to school, and most of all, the parents __ they are the ones who get the worst deal __ they pay taxes like the rest of us and they are just as concerned about the kind of education that their kids get as the rest of us are. They know their kids are getting a bad education but they feel trapped. Many of them can see no alternative but to continue sending their kids to schools like this.
To go back to the beginning, it all started with the fine idea that every child should have a chance to learn his three R’s. Sometimes in June when it gets hot, the kids come out in the yard to do their lessons, all 15 of them, ages 5 to 13, along with their teacher. This is the last one-room schoolhouse still operating in the state of Vermont. That is the way it used to be. Parental control, parents choosing the teacher, parents monitoring the schooling, parents even getting together and chipping in to paint the schoolhouse as they did here just a few weeks ago. Parental concern is still here as much in the slums of the big cities as in Bucolic, Vermont. But control by parents over the schooling of their children is today the exception, not the rule.
Increasingly, schools have come under the control of centralized administration, professional educators deciding what shall be taught, who shall do the teaching, and even what children shall go to what school. The people who lose most from this system are the poor and the disadvantaged in the large cities. They are simply stuck. They have no alternative.
Of course, if you are well off you do have a choice. You can send your child to a private school or you can move to an area where the public schools are excellent, as the parents of many of these students have done. These students are graduating from Weston High School in one of Boston’s wealthier suburbs. Their parents pay taxes instead of tuition and they certainly get better value for their money than do the parents in Hyde Park. That is partly because they have kept a good deal of control over the local schools, and in the process, they have managed to retain many of the virtues of the one-room schoolhouse.
Students here, like Barbara King, get the equivalent of a private education. They have excellent recreational facilities. They have a teaching staff that is dedicated and responsive to parents and students. There is an atmosphere which encourages learning, yet the cost per pupil here is no higher than in many of our inner city schools. The difference is that at Weston, it all goes for education that the parents still retain a good deal of control.
Unfortunately, most parents have lost control over how their tax money in spent. Avabelle goes to Hyde Park High. Her parents too want her to have a good education, but many of the students here are not interested in schooling, and the teachers, however dedicated, soon lose heart in an atmosphere like this. Avabelle’s parents are certainly not getting value for their tax money.
Caroline Bell, Parent: I think it is a shame, really, that parents are being ripped off like we are. I am talking about parents like me that work every day, scuffle to try to make ends meet. We send our kids to school hoping that they will receive something that will benefit them in the future for when they go out here and compete in the job market. Unfortunately, none of that is taking place at Hyde Park.
Friedman: Children like Ava are being shortchanged by a system that was designed to help. But there are ways to help give parents more say over their children’s schooling.
This is a fundraising evening for a school supported by a voluntary organization, New York’s Inner City Scholarship Fund. The prints that have brought people here have been loaned by wealthy Japanese industrialist. Events like this have helped raise two million dollars to finance Catholic parochial schools in New York. The people here are part of a long American tradition. The results of their private voluntary activities have been remarkable.
This is one of the poorest neighborhoods in New York City: the Bronx. Yet this parochial school, supported by the fund, is a joy to visit. The youngsters here from poor families are at Saint John Christians because their parents have picked this school and their parents are paying some of the costs from their own pockets. The children are well behaved, eager to learn, the teachers are dedicated. The cost per pupil here is far less than in the public schools, yet on the average the children are two grades ahead. That is because teachers and parents are free to choose how the children shall be taught. Private money has replaced the tax money and so control has been taken away from the bureaucrats and put back where it belongs.
This doesn’t work just for younger children. In the 60’s, Harlem was devastated by riots. It was a hot bed of trouble. Many teenagers dropped out of school.

Free to Choose by Milton Friedman: Episode “What is wrong with our schools?” (Part 1 of transcript and video)

Here is the video clip and transcript of the film series FREE TO CHOOSE episode “What is wrong with our schools?” Part 1 of 6.   Volume 6 – What’s Wrong with our Schools Transcript: Friedman: These youngsters are beginning another day at one of America’s public schools, Hyde Park High School in Boston. What happens when […]

 

Free to Choose by Milton Friedman: Episode “What is wrong with our schools?” (Part 4 of transcript and video)

Free to Choose by Milton Friedman: Episode “What is wrong with our schools?” (Part 4 of transcript and video) Here is the video clip and transcript of the film series FREE TO CHOOSE episode “What is wrong with our schools?” Part 4 of 6.   Volume 6 – What’s Wrong with our Schools Transcript: It seems to me […]

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Free to Choose by Milton Friedman: Episode “What is wrong with our schools?” (Part 2 of transcript and video)

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Free to Choose by Milton Friedman: Episode “What is wrong with our schools?” (Part 6 of transcript and video)

Here is the video clip and transcript of the film series FREE TO CHOOSE episode “What is wrong with our schools?” Part 6 of 6.   Volume 6 – What’s Wrong with our Schools Transcript: FRIEDMAN: But I personally think it’s a good thing. But I don’t see that any reason whatsoever why I shouldn’t have been required […]

 

Free to Choose by Milton Friedman: Episode “What is wrong with our schools?” (Part 5 of transcript and video)

Here is the video clip and transcript of the film series FREE TO CHOOSE episode “What is wrong with our schools?” Part 5 of 6.   Volume 6 – What’s Wrong with our Schools Transcript: Are your voucher schools  going to accept these tough children? COONS: You bet they are. (Several talking at once.) COONS: May I answer […]

 

 

April 26, 2012 – 3:30 pm Categories: Cato Institute, President Obama, Vouchers | Post a comment

Video of Chuck Colson’s testimony

I got to hear Chuck Colson speak in person many years ago at Bellevue Baptist in Memphis where his good friend Adrian Rogers was the pastor. Here are videos from a 40 minute talk he gave in 2008 at Columbia University.

Chuck Colson Gives His Testimony (1 of 4)

Uploaded by on Jul 18, 2010

This lecture is entitled “How God Turned Around Nixon’s Hatchet Man”. Chuck Colson gave this speech at Columbia University in 2008.

____________

Part 2

Part 3

 

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April 26, 2012 – 2:21 pm Categories: Current Events | Post a comment

Concerning Joe Francis:Did Senator Mark Pryor’s office know what was going on? (Updated)

I really don’t know the answer to this question but evidence is constantly coming out. Senator Pryor claimed that his office was not involved at all in this bid process that Joe Francis said they were involved in. (The Arkansas Times Blog and The Tolbert Report both had good articles on this.)

Comments ( 48) | Published April 26, 2012
 

Updated on April 26, 2012 at 10:00 AM.

Girls Gone Wild creator Joe Francis, who says he bought a Senate summer internship in a charity auction, now claims the deal was brokered by a lobbying firm with a DC office: Brownstein, Hyatt, Farber, Schreck. Also, he told The Washingtonian this morning that the auction item, a four-week summer internship in the office of Democratic Arkansas senator Mark Pryor, has been canceled and the money returned since controversy around it began to spread earlier this week. “I can confirm that the charity has told me that the Brownstein Hyatt Lobbying Firm brokered the deal on behalf of Senator Mark Pryor to sell the internship,” Francis wrote in an e-mail today. “They also confirmed that the senator and his office were fully aware of everything.”

The charity in question is the Wilshire Boulevard Temple. Its leader, Rabbi Steve Leder, said in an e-mail, “Wilshire Boulevard Temple has learned that a private party organized to benefit the Temple’s early childhood centers included an auction item bid for by Mr. Francis. We have learned that the party’s organizers returned the money and canceled the item. We agree with that decision.”

When news broke of Francis winning the auction–and his intention to award it to a young woman as part of a Girls Gone Wild promotion–Pryor’s office called the auction item a “hoax” and said the senator had called in the FBI to investigate.

Quoting a blogger, the Arkansas Times indicated that Chad Brownstein, son of Brownstein, Hyatt partner Norman Brownstein, knew Pryor. According to OpenSecrets.org, Chad Brownstein of Beverly Hills has twice contributed money to Mark Pryor’s election campaigns. A 2008 Wilshire Boulevard Temple newsletter reported that Pryor visited their location with Chad Brownstein, a congregant. “With Rabbi Steve Leder guiding him on a personal tour of the sanctuary, Senator Pryor learned the fascinating history of our Temple and our clergy.”

Efforts to reach both Chad and Norman Brownstein Thursday morning by e-mail and telephone were not immediately successful; we will update this post if and when we receive a response.

The earlier story is below:

Depending on whether you consult Girls Gone Wild creator Joe Francis, or the office of Arkansas senator Mark Pryor, or a website that claims to be the eBay of charitable auctions, Francis either did or did not buy a charitable auction item that grants the recipient a summer internship in Pryor’s office. Pryor has called in the FBI. Regardless, Francis has posted the internship as part of the prize for the winner of his contest and reality TV series The Search for the Hottest Girl in America. He says he plans to announce the winner next week and have her on the way to Washington this summer, which he calls “Mr. Pryor’s criteria.”

Francis says he bought the internship as an auction item through an “intermediary who is close to the senator. It was offered to a select group of people.” He says he bought it to benefit a charity, the name of which he won’t mention because, he says, “They are upset about the media firestorm. No good deed goes unpunished.” He says, though, that since buying the item he has talked to the intermediary and confirmed it “is all legit. I own it. I bought it.”

The Girls Gone Wild website states: “After making a charitable donation during a private auction this past weekend benefiting a Los Angeles-based temple, Francis purchased a once-in-a-lifetime four-week internship on Capitol Hill working for a United States senator and added it to the prize package for this season’s lucky winner.”

At the website Bidding for Good, where the item was listed with a value of $15,000, Kaija Kurstin said the winner paid $2,500 for the item. She said it had come to Bidding For Good through the Wilshire Boulevard Temple in Los Angeles on behalf of the Reggio Emilia Philosophy Child Learning Center. Francis would neither confirm nor deny these claims. We called the temple, but no one we talked to was familiar with the controversy, nor did anyone call us back.

Francis forwarded us an e-mail from Bidding for Good that said “Winning Bid Alert,” and “You’re the winner bidder on U.S. Senator Internship–Mark Pryor (D–Arkansas). He said he redacted the parts of the e-mail that named the lobbyist and the charity.

Pryor’s communications director, Lisa Ackerman, says her boss has contacted the FBI because “we believe it’s a crime to impersonate a US senator.” In a phone interview, she said, “The website used a Senate seal without authorization. We do have summer interns. It’s a five-week internship. We require the interns be sophomores. We don’t sell it or auction it off.”

Earlier, Pryor’s office released a statement calling Francis’s claims a “hoax.”

“I’ve done nothing wrong,” says Francis, whose Girls Gone Wild franchise is based, principally, on college girls baring their breasts. “I thought we were helping out a charity, doing a good thing for women and charity. We’ve been coordinating 100 percent with Pryor’s office through the charity. So it is 100 percent legitimate.”

Francis, a Democrat, said he bought the auction item last week and paid for it by check. And if it turns out to be bogus, or, if real, revoked by Pryor? “If he revoked it, he would be discriminatory. I’m not the one going to Washington. A lucky young woman who is aspiring to be in politics is the one going there. They should just let it ride.”

_____________

I just got this update off of the Tolbert Report:

UPDATE IV – The Associated Press is reporting that Chad Brownstein has admitted he arranged for the auction of the internship without approval from Pryor’s office.

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April 26, 2012 – 1:21 pm Categories: Uncategorized | Post a comment

Crews will begin search early today for teen’s body after Little Rock bridge jump

The Arkansas Democrat-Gazette reports:

Crews suspend search for teen who fell off bridge

witnesses-and-family-members-react-as-rescue-workers-search-the-arkansas-river-after-a-13-year-old-boy-fell-from-the-interstate-430-bridge-into-the-water-wednesday

PHOTO BY BENJAMIN KRAIN

Witnesses and family members react as rescue workers search the Arkansas River after a 13-year-old boy fell from the Interstate 430 bridge into the water Wednesday.

LITTLE ROCK — After more than four hours, rescue crews called off their search Wednesday for the body of a 13-year-old boy who fell from the Interstate 430 bridge over the Arkansas River.

Search boats from Pulaski County, as well as the Little Rock and North Little Rock fire departments, stopped patrolling the river about 5 p.m., but Pulaski County sheriff’s office spokesman Lt. Carl Minden said county search crews would return to the water today.

The crews were called to search the northern side of the Arkansas River beneath the bridge shortly after noon, when multiple calls came in that someone had jumped from the interstate into the water.

Minden said preliminary reports indicate that the teen, whom authorities have not identified, was en route to a clinical care or rehabilitation facility with his aunt when their northbound vehicle started to cross the bridge.

The teen threatened to open the door and jump out, Minden said, so his aunt pulled over and he stepped out of the car.

According to Arkansas State Police spokesman Bill Sadler, the teen walked south along the eastern shoulder of the road while his aunt’s vehicle continued north.

It was near the second column from the northern shore where the teen went over the top, North Little Rock Fire Department Assistant Chief Steve Smith said.

The teen was able to grab on to one of the pillars below, and once he lost a grip, witnesses along the side of the road yelled at him to hold on, Smith and Minden said.

Eventually, he went under, according to authorities.

Traffic slowed to a crawl in the northern lanes of the bridge while Arkansas State Police and local departments tried to spot the teen’s body.

The episode is still under investigation by state police and Sadler declined to give further details what led to the teen going over the bridge.

Minden said it was too early to tell how long the recovery effort might take.

After a section of construction scaffolding beneath the bridge gave way in April 2008, drowning three laborers, Minden said it wasn’t until December 2010 that the third body was finally recovered.

“[A body] can get lodged under trees, cars, there’s all sorts of debris down there,” Minden said. “At a certain point, you just have to wait.”

Arkansas, Pages 9 on 04/26/2012

Print Headline: Crews suspend search for teen who fell off bridge

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April 26, 2012 – 6:56 am Categories: Current Events | Post a comment

Federal government should not be involved with post office

I really wish that President Obama would have not had the federal government buy up General Motors. We need to keep the federal government out of the private market as much as possible. This goes for the post office too. It should be in private hands.

Senators voted recently to hold off closing some post offices but I wish we had radical changes being voted on.

Postal Problems: the Role of Government Micromanagement

Posted by Tad DeHaven

Postal expert Michael Schuyler has released a follow-up to his January paper that compared the recent financial performance of the U.S. Postal Service to foreign postal service providers. Not surprisingly, the USPS has fared relatively poorly in comparison to its foreign counterparts. In his new paper, Schuyler looks at the role government micromanagement plays and finds that “Foreign posts have much more flexibility than USPS to adjust operations to keep costs in line with revenue.”

The following are some key points:

  • Foreign governments intervene in their postal markets, but “foreign governments often temper their demands and grant their postal services substantial operational discretion, in order that they not undermine their posts’ financial viability.”
  • The USPS has reduced headcount by 29 percent since 1999, but in comparison to foreign operators, it has less flexibility when it comes to managing labor costs. For instance, “there have been few layoffs because contracts with postal unions contain no-layoff provisions that protect the jobs of most career postal workers…Although the reduction the Service accomplished through attrition and buyouts has been skillful, it has not been sufficient to bring the workforce into balance with reduced mail volume.”
  • While many foreign operators have moved to five-day mail delivery, Congress continues to insist that the USPS deliver mail six days a week. Given the continuing – and permanent – decline in the demand for mail, the case for cutting back on delivery is getting stronger. Regardless of whether the USPS should move to five day delivery, the “requirement shows how the U.S. Postal Service is hamstrung in its ability to rein in costs through operational adjustments, compared to many foreign posts.”
  • Congressional meddling makes it harder for the USPS to downsize its retail network to better reflect financial reality. When the USPS tries to close post offices and other facilities, “members of Congress often object vigorously to proposed closings within their jurisdictions and occasionally threaten to introduce legislation to block proposed changes.” As a result, the USPS usually backs down.

I’ll conclude by making my standard pitch for liberalization of the U.S. postal market, which would ideally lead to privatization of the USPS. The word “privatization” scares a lot of people, but it shouldn’t. If one were to spend a couple of years working in the U.S. Senate, as I have, there’s a good chance that he or she will conclude that continuing to allow 535 politicians to manage a business is a whole lot scarier.

 
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April 26, 2012 – 6:51 am Categories: Cato Institute, spending out of control | Post a comment

Quotes from Milton Friedman (part 3)

Milton Friedman discusses J.D. Rockefeller

________________

Government officials always think they know better how to spend money than the private individual. We have a huge government deficit today that demonstrates that the government does not know best. Below are some wise words from Milton Friedman:

  • “The strongest argument for free enterprise is that it prevents anybody from having too much power. Whether that person is a government official, a trade union official, or a business executive. If forces them to put up or shut up. They either have to deliver the goods, produce something that people are willing to pay for, are willing to buy, or else they have to go into a different business.”
    • “Free to Choose” (1980), segment 2 of 10, “The Tyranny of Control”

Here are some quotes from Milton Friedman that I thought you would enjoy:

  • Inflation is always and everywhere a monetary phenomenon in the sense that it is and can be produced only by a more rapid increase in the quantity of money than in output.… A steady rate of monetary growth at a moderate level can provide a framework under which a country can have little inflation and much growth. It will not produce perfect stability; it will not produce heaven on earth; but it can make an important contribution to a stable economic society.
    • The Counter-Revolution in Monetary Theory (1970)
  • On the level of political principle, the imposition of taxes and the expenditure of tax proceeds are governmental functions. We have established elaborate constitutional, parliamentary and judicial provisions to control these functions, to assure that taxes are imposed so far as possible in accordance with the preferences and desires of the public — after all, “taxation without representation” was one of the battle cries of the American Revolution. We have a system of checks and balances to separate the legislative function of imposing taxes and enacting expenditures from the executive function of collecting taxes and administering expenditure programs and from the judicial function of mediating disputes and interpreting the law.
    Here the businessman — self-selected or appointed directly or indirectly by stockholders — is to be simultaneously legislator, executive and, jurist. He is to decide whom to tax by how much and for what purpose, and he is to spend the proceeds — all this guided only by general exhortations from on high to restrain inflation, improve the environment, fight poverty and so on and on.

  • The political principle that underlies the market mechanism is unanimity. In an ideal free market resting on private property, no individual can coerce any other, all cooperation is voluntary, all parties to such cooperation benefit or they need not participate. There are no values, no “social” responsibilities in any sense other than the shared values and responsibilities of individuals. Society is a collection of individuals and of the various groups they voluntarily form.
    The political principle that underlies the political mechanism is conformity. The individual must serve a more general social interest — whether that be determined by a church or a dictator or a majority. The individual may have a vote and say in what is to be done, but if he is overruled, he must conform. It is appropriate for some to require others to contribute to a general social purpose whether they wish to or not.
    Unfortunately, unanimity is not always feasible.There are some respects in which conformity appears unavoidable, so I do not see how one can avoid the use of the political mechanism altogether.

    • “The Social Responsibility of Business is to Increase its Profits” in The New York Times Magazine (13 September 1970)
  • So the question is, do corporate executives, provided they stay within the law, have responsibilities in their business activities other than to make as much money for their stockholders as possible? And my answer to that is, no they do not.
    • Interview “Milton Friedman Responds” in Chemtech (February 1974) p. 72.
  • There is no place for government to prohibit consumers from buying products the effect of which will be to harm themselves.
    • Free to Choose (1980), segment Who protects the consumer?
  • “The strongest argument for free enterprise is that it prevents anybody from having too much power. Whether that person is a government official, a trade union official, or a business executive. If forces them to put up or shut up. They either have to deliver the goods, produce something that people are willing to pay for, are willing to buy, or else they have to go into a different business.”
    • “Free to Choose” (1980), segment 2 of 10, “The Tyranny of Control”
  • Governments never learn. Only people learn.
    • Statement made in 1980, as quoted in The Cynic’s Lexicon : A Dictionary Of Amoral Advice‎ (1984), by Jonathon Green, p. 77
  • With some notable exceptions, businessmen favor free enterprise in general but are opposed to it when it comes to themselves.
  • The broader and more influential organisations of businessmen have acted to undermine the basic foundation of the free market system they purport to represent and defend.
    • Lecture “The Suicidal Impulse of the Business Community” (1983); cited in Filters Against Folly (1985) by Garrett Hardin
April 26, 2012 – 6:47 am Categories: Milton Friedman | Post a comment