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Milton Friedman on Intellectuals, the press, and public opinion

One reason why money is a mystery to so many is the role of myth or fiction or convention.
Money Mischief
Book, 1992, Ch. 2 The Mystery of Money
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  1. This leads to my next myth—the myth that government can spend money at nobody’s expense. What was really involved in that last story was that somehow the local people do not pay out the money coming down from Washington somebody else does. Of course, the truth is that the money makes a round trip between Florida and Washington, and there is a discount taken off for cash as it passes through Washington. Some of you may remember that wonderful description of government by the French economist, Frederic Bastiat, who said that government is that fiction whereby everybody believes that he can live at the expense of everybody else.
    Economic Myths and Public Opinion
    Column, 1976, The Alternative: An American Spectator, vol. 9
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  2. There is an energy crisis, there are gasoline lines, for one reason and one reason only. Because government has decreed that there shall be.
    Blaming the Obstetrician
    Column, 1979, Newsweek (June 4, 1979); reprinted in the Congressional Record, Extensions of Remarks, June 7, 1979, pp. 14007 to 14008, introduced by Representative G. William Whitehurst of Virginia, who describes it as “an article by Milton Friedman, which appeared in the June 4, 1979, issue of Newsweek”, Congressional Record, June 7, 1979, pp. 14007 to 14008
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  3. True, money is only a machine, but it is an extraordinarily efficient machine. ( … ) But money has one feature that these other machines do not share. Because it is so pervasive, when it gets out of order, it throws a monkey wrench into the operation of all the other machines.
    The Role of Monetary Policy
    Journal article, 1968, American Economic Review 58, no. 1 (March 1968), pp. 1–17; reprinted in the House Banking and Currency Committee’s 1968 Compendium on Monetary Policy Guidelines and Federal Reserve Structure, pp. 214–224, p. 221 of the 1968 House reprint
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