Milton Friedman on Energy and oil
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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He also said
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. 801Checked against the sourceRead the originalEconomists may not know much. But we know one thing very well: how to produce surpluses and shortages.
Blaming the ObstetricianColumn, 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 14008Checked against the sourceRead the originalAfter the Arabs cut output, Germany imposed no price controls on petroleum products. It did initially restrict Sunday driving but soon removed that restraint. The price of petroleum products jumped some 20 or 30 per cent, but there were no long lines, no disorganization. The greedy consumers found it in their own interest to conserve oil in the most painless way. The greedy oil tycoons found it in their own interest to see to it that petroleum products were available for those able and willing to pay the price.
FEO and the Gas LinesColumn, 1974, Newsweek, March 4, 1974; reprinted in the Congressional Record, Extensions of Remarks, February 27, 1974, pp. 4559 to 4560, introduced by Representative John H. Rousselot of California, who gives it as the column of “Newsweek columnist, Dr. Milton Friedman, in the March 4, 1974, issue”; reprinted again in Extensions of Remarks, April 30, 1974, p. 12454, by Representative Steven D. Symms, from The Freeman (Foundation for Economic Education), Congressional Record, February 27, 1974, p. 4559
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