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Milton Friedman on Energy and oil

I know that it is hard for you to believe that so seemingly simple a matter as price fixing can produce so complex a phenomenon as widespread shortages. But then, I find it hard to believe that an automobile engine is a complex matter until I start probing around in its innards when it stops functioning on a dark road in the early hours of the morning.
Why Now?
Column, 1973, Newsweek (December 31, 1973); reprinted in full in the Congressional Record, Extensions of Remarks, January 24, 1974, p. 801, introduced by Representative John M. Ashbrook, who gives the issue as “the December 31, 1973 issue of Newsweek”, and reprinted again the same day at pp. 807 to 808 by Representative Earl F. Landgrebe, Congressional Record, January 24, 1974, p. 801
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  1. I am not enough of an expert—no one is—to know the million and one places where prices fixed by bureaucrats on the basis of arbitrary rules and accidental starting points have created distortions and shortages. … They are hidden in the interstices of an incredibly complex production system that cannot operate without the enormous efficiency of a market-price system to adapt changing demands to changing supplies. And many have been overcome by millions of citizens who found ways to avoid or evade the price controls.
    Why Now?
    Column, 1973, Newsweek (December 31, 1973); reprinted in full in the Congressional Record, Extensions of Remarks, January 24, 1974, p. 801, introduced by Representative John M. Ashbrook, who gives the issue as “the December 31, 1973 issue of Newsweek”, and reprinted again the same day at pp. 807 to 808 by Representative Earl F. Landgrebe, Congressional Record, January 24, 1974, p. 801
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  2. Economists may not know much. But we know one thing very well: how to produce surpluses and shortages.
    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. The answer to “Why now?” is straightforward—yet I know from bitter experience how hard it is to persuade anyone other than an economist that so simple an answer can be correct. Nineteen seventy-three is different from other peacetime years because, for the first time since World War II, the U.S. has had extensive price and wage controls. The key to today’s shortages is the price freeze ordered by President Nixon on Aug. 15, 1971.
    Why Now?
    Column, 1973, Newsweek (December 31, 1973); reprinted in full in the Congressional Record, Extensions of Remarks, January 24, 1974, p. 801, introduced by Representative John M. Ashbrook, who gives the issue as “the December 31, 1973 issue of Newsweek”, and reprinted again the same day at pp. 807 to 808 by Representative Earl F. Landgrebe, Congressional Record, January 24, 1974, p. 801
    Checked against the sourceRead the original

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