Happy Birthday Milton Friedman!

Had he lived, today would be Nobel-winning economist Milton Freidman’s 97th birthday. In light of Obama’s efforts to turn America from its free market foundation to that favored by Hugo Chavez and Fidel Castro, it is good to remember Friedman's wise words:

• Underlying most arguments against the free market is a lack of belief in freedom itself.
• Nothing is so permanent as a temporary government program.
• Concentrated power is not rendered harmless by the good intentions of those who create it.
• If you put the federal government in charge of the Sahara Desert, in 5 years there'd be a shortage of sand.
• Many people want the government to protect the consumer. A much more urgent problem is to protect the consumer from the government.
• Only government can take perfectly good paper, cover it with perfectly good ink and make the combination worthless.
• The Great Depression, like most other periods of severe unemployment, was produced by government mismanagement rather than by any inherent instability of the private economy.
• The most important single central fact about a free market is that no exchange takes place unless both parties benefit.
• The only way that has ever been discovered to have a lot of people cooperate together voluntarily is through the free market. And that's why it's so essential to preserving individual freedom.
• We have a system that increasingly taxes work and subsidizes nonwork.

Milton Friedman shows Phil Donahue how easy it is for a smart man to outwit an empty-headed demagogue.

As President Obama seeks to limit our choices in life, it's good to remember the man who's life was dedicated to expanding our freedom to choose.