Milton Freidman was a very smart individual. You should look at some of his other views on different subjects. Some the republican party can get behind and some not so much.
On this particular topic of market driven wages, what is left out are the changes o government policy in favor of a global economy. Therefore the government did interfere in market driven wages. What's good for the goose is good for the gander. Maybe not, but the US worker does not care to compete head to head with Bangladesh, nor should our government put us in that position.
One thing that stuck in my mind was government subsidies for education. Milton says the majority of dollars spent there are collected from poor and middle class, just due to overwhelming numbers. However the ones that receive the benefits of higher education are the rich and upper middle class. Sure there are scholarships for the poor kid, but the numbers out weight the few that get it. Colleges are funded to the tune of anywhere from 40% to 60% by the federal government. This actually means there are a lot of rich kids on the government entitlements. It was something I never thought too much about, but he was dead nuts right as usual. Also think about how much the government subsidies actually raise the cost of education, much in the same way medicare and medicaid raise overall health care costs.
On this particular topic of market driven wages, what is left out are the changes o government policy in favor of a global economy. Therefore the government did interfere in market driven wages. What's good for the goose is good for the gander. Maybe not, but the US worker does not care to compete head to head with Bangladesh, nor should our government put us in that position.
One thing that stuck in my mind was government subsidies for education. Milton says the majority of dollars spent there are collected from poor and middle class, just due to overwhelming numbers. However the ones that receive the benefits of higher education are the rich and upper middle class. Sure there are scholarships for the poor kid, but the numbers out weight the few that get it. Colleges are funded to the tune of anywhere from 40% to 60% by the federal government. This actually means there are a lot of rich kids on the government entitlements. It was something I never thought too much about, but he was dead nuts right as usual. Also think about how much the government subsidies actually raise the cost of education, much in the same way medicare and medicaid raise overall health care costs.
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