Saturday, October 08, 2011

Government largesse

When a man spends his own money to buy something for himself, he is very careful about how much he spends and how he spends it. When a man spends his own money to buy something for someone else, he is still very careful about how much he spends, but somewhat less what he spends it on. When a man spends someone else's money to buy something for himself, he is very careful about what he buys, but doesn't care at all how much he spends. And when a man spends someone else's money on someone else, he does't care how much he spends or what he spends it on. And that's government for you.

– Milton Friedman

3 comments:

  1. That's pretty good. I thought Freedman was a fired-up liberal, and pro-Obama?

    Made me think of Margaret Thatcher once again: "The trouble with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people's money."

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  2. Aaah Uncle Milty, well the one good thing coming out of the Obama Presidency is that more people are reading Hayak, Friedman, Mises. Thanks to Ron Paul.

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  3. Friedman was pretty big on l'aissez faire capitalism, really.

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