r/videos 2d ago

Milton Friedman on Tariffs and Free Trade

https://youtu.be/59YWFR8lCEc?si=b4jSG79TZrE8CHLl
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u/pomod 2d ago

Friedman is one of the architects of the disastrous neo-liberal economics that emerged in the mid 80's that has exasperated wealth disparity since. The economy needs guard rails else people get unnecessarily or excessively exploited; the environment gets polluted, wealth gets syphoned out of the middle and lower classes etc.

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u/czarczm 2d ago

What's interesting is that there are a lot of policies he was in favor of that probably would've been popular with the left. He was in favor of carbon taxation to stop companies from polluting. He pushed for a negative income tax to help the poor. NIT is basically a form of universal basic income. He believed in giving everyone a catastrophic health insurance plan to help against major medical costs a la Singapore's universal healthcare system. The right just tends to ignore these guard rail policy suggestions and just push his ideas for lower taxation, lower regulations, and less government.