Word: friedman
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...basis, whatever carrots and sticks may be used? Few of the bankers were optimistic. Franz Ulrich, chairman of the Deutsche Bank A.G. of Düsseldorf, pointed to a 16% rise in world commodity prices from last year's lows as a portent of things to come. Irving Friedman, Senior Vice President of Citibank, argued that modern inflation has been high and persistent because of fundamental changes in societies around the world, which have increased the demand for goods and services far beyond the ability of the world economy to supply. Governments, Friedman said, have tried to accommodate that...
...Allende in late 1973 replaced one set of economic ideologues with another. The Marxists who strove for total regulation of the economy have been succeeded by a group of policymakers known as the "Chicago Boys." Reason: they ardently embrace the free-market teachings of University of Chicago Economist Milton Friedman, who visited Chile for six days last year to counsel them...
Reflecting Friedman's antipathy to government intervention in the economy, Chile has sold many state companies to private investors at bargain prices. The swollen bureaucracy has been slashed drastically to reduce government spending. Some price controls have been lifted. Tariff restrictions are gradually being eased, in the hope that foreign competition will force local industry to become more efficient...
...Friedman himself does not defend the results. Says he: "It's absurd to talk about Chile as if it is an important test of my ideas. I don't even know if they have been carrying out my policies." His colleague Arnold Harberger complains that the Chileans have in fact been violating a prime tenet of Friedmanism: that a nation's money supply should expand at a steady but moderate pace. The Chilean money supply jumped 27.5% in this year's first quarter alone. The Chicago Boys retort that they have cut down as rapidly...
...controversy brings up the deeper question of whether Friedman's theories are really applicable to a poor, inflation-ridden country. Says one Chilean university economist: "In an underdeveloped country like Chile it is less possible to have a free-market economy than it is in a developed one. It is a question of size and scale." It is also a question of history: since the 1930s the government has tightly controlled key parts of the Chilean economy. Prices and wages have traditionally been set by the government; the major industries have long been monopolies. Competition, the present Chilean government...