World of India!

Milton Friedman is dead. And with him a rare breed - an economist who could explain abstruse economical theories in a simple language, which the common man can understand.

Of course Milton Friedman also won the Nobel prize for economics (1976)- "for his achievements in the fields of consumption analysis, monetary history and theory and for his demonstration of the complexity of stabilization policy", to quote an article on him in Wikipedia. Of course he was a major influence on American economic policy in the Reagan and Thatcher years, since both these leaders were heavily influenced by Friedman's ideas.

But for me, Friedman will always be the man who wrote (along with his wife Rosa Friedman)"Free to Choose' - a classic television series which was later converted to a book, which explains complex economic theories using examples even a child could understand. I credit this book to my understanding of why free market economics, and that alone, could help a country like ours, which at that time, was taking its first tentative steps to reforming our economic landscape.

I wish someone like Prakash Karat, our CPI(M) leader, would read this book. Going by a recent interview he gave to an interview channel and a newspaper , where he was asked as to why Pension money should not be invested in Equities, if it is sure that that would give a higher return, and his reply that he doesn't want Pension money to be used by corporates as capital (!!!) there is a lot he can learn for sure. How do dimwits like him, who don't even know the basics of economics, go onto positions where they dictate major economic decisions of the country, is a question only God can answer. Oh God, forgive them, for they know not their Friedman!

Free to Choose: A Personal Statement

Capitalism and Freedom: Fortieth Anniversary Edition

Monetary History of the United States, 1867-1960