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Bright Promises, Dismal Performance: An Economist's Protest

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This is the third and final edition of a collection of Milton Friedman's Newsweek columns which ran from the mid 1960s through the early 1980s, along with a few other things such as Friedman's interview in Playboy, February 1973, and a few newspaper articles. The columns in this volume ran from 1975-1982. In addition, there are three particularly timeless columns from an earlier period (on the case for a monetary rule and on the negative income tax), as well as the Playboy interview. The contents covers Friedman's usual repertoire about monetary policy, fiscal policy and taxation, government regulation, and international economics.

Part of Friedman's brilliance is his ability to explain advanced economic concepts to general readers without "dumbing down" the substance. Still, the bulk of the material appears in slightly better organized fashion in the book Free to Choose, which Friedman wrote together with his wife Rose, and which appeared in 1980. You may first want to read Capitalism and Freedom and Free to Choose. If you want more Friedman at that point, this makes for a great collection, although much of it may sound repetitive after reading Free to Choose.

No one tells it like it is better than Nobel Laureate Milton Friedman. His Newsweek columns and Playboy interview will open your eyes. Here's a sample: "If we'd had minimum wage laws and all the other trappings of the welfare state in the nineteenth century, half the readers of Playboy would either not exist at all or be citizens of Poland."

Some things have improved since he wrote those words, but that's thanks largely to the free market principles he's espoused. You'll find no better guide to today's political scene than Friedman's writings, whether here or in his excellent books "Free to Choose," and "Capitalism and Freedom."