I wrote this many years ago. It's rather negative, so I'm not expecting a lot of love for this =) Anyway...


Ode to Milton Friedman

How does it feel to be loved by tyrants?
How does it feel to enslave your fellow man?
How does it feel, O Wise Milton Friedman
To think the things that only Your Highness can?

Prodigal son of the nation
O you'll go down in history
As The Man Who Beat Inflation
Through joblessness and poverty

How does it feel to excuse oppression?
How does it feel to dash the hopes of the poor?
How does it feel, O Great Milton Friedman
Idiot of Twentieth Century Lore?

Ah sado-monetarism
That thin grasp of reality
Lowering prices of goods by
Making sure we have no money*

How does it feel, tell me how does it feel
To sully the name of the Chicago School?
How does it feel, O Famed Milton Friedman
To be remembered as last century's fool?

(Repeat and fade)
How does it feel, tell me how does it feel?
How does it feel, yeah tell me how does it feel?
How does it feel, O Proud Milton Friedman?
Tell me baby, just tell me, how does it feel?


The society which scorns excellence in plumbing as a humble activity and tolerates shoddiness in economics because it is an exalted activity will have neither good plumbing nor good economics ... Neither its pipes nor its theories will hold water.
-(with apologies to John W. Gardner)

*Less money chasing more goods does indeed keep inflation in check. However, there are two aspects to this observation. Either you concentrate on making sure there's less money, or you concentrate on making sure there are more goods. And what kind of goods are we talking about? See Demand is not measured in units of people, it is measured in units of money