Milton Freidman on Hong Kong

It's interesting that Milton Freidman is often cited by proponents of free markets. Friedman often conveniently overlooked facts, unfortunately. Here is an excerpt from the Aisan Correspondent about Hong Kong.

>So determined was Friedman to defend his rosy version of Hong Kong’s economy, which he attributed to its 1960s Financial Secretary John Cowperthwaite, that just weeks before his death he claimed to be seeing state intervention that it “would no longer be such a shining example of economic freedom”.


At one time 60 percent of the people lived in subsidized housing, mostly rented cheaply from the government, and some in Home Ownership Scheme flats, provided with cheap land and sold to lower-middle-income households. Even now that public housing has low priority and the home ownership scheme has ended, some 50 percent of the people still benefit from this massive intervention in the marketplace.

The intervention also partly accounts for the low apparent ratio of spending to gross domestic product. If the cost of the subsidized housing land were accounted for at market prices in the government budget, the ratio would be significantly higher.

Hong Kong people have also enjoyed almost free medical treatment at government clinics and hospitals. Friedman was against “free” medicine elsewhere but failed to notice it in Hong Kong. Likewise, education, at least up to the secondary level has long been almost entirely funded by the government.

In the days when Friedman was writing his praises for Hong Kong, the territory also had a relatively youthful workforce compared with western countries and thus less need for spending on pensions and help for the aged.

Nor did Hong Kong have to spend anything significant on external security, the responsibility of London and now Beijing.

Friedman could actually have helped Hong Kong if he had criticized rather than ignored the excesses of these interventions in the marketplace. They had originally been spurred by fears of social unrest as the then-colony attempted to absorb waves of migrants from the mainland with nowhere but squatter huts to live.

It was necessary intervention in the marketplace. The government’s lack of ideological commitment to laisser faire was summed up by Cowperthaite’s successor, Philip Haddon-Cave, as “positive non-interventionism.” This bit of semantic gobbledegook essentially meant that it preferred not to intervene but had a paternal duty to do so on occasion.

Hong Kong’s problem now is that policy change has not kept pace with changing economic and social circumstances. It is hooked on high land prices for the private sector as a revenue-raising measure, which leaves a large proportion of the public trapped in the subsidized housing sector.<

Paul

David Suzuki from the Weekend Australian

"Today, there are corporations that are bigger than many governments in the world. They may produce something we need, make something very useful, but they exist to make money, and all kinds of things happen in the name of money."

"Follow the money trail and it is crystal clear that corporations and rich neo-conservatives are funding a campaign that is what I call an inter-generational crime in the name of profit now. In the name of short-term profit they are knowingly leaving enormous problems for all future generations."
* avowed atheist and award-winning scientist David Suzuki

Paul

Humans

I've always been fascinated by the idea that human beings became the dominant species.

Based on Darwinian theory, we shouldn't be.

We are not the strongest or the fastest. We have no natural protection from the elements.
In any climate, we require some sort of covering for our hairless bodies. We are not naturally camouflaged. Our faces and skin shines in the night. Our eyesight and hearing are not superior to most other animals.
We cannot swim without a lot of effort. Nature has given us no special advantage in the water.

Ignorance and Cowardice

Ignorance and Cowardice are infinite. There is no limit to either.
Knowledge, or wisdom, and Courage are in short supply.

That's why the ignorant cowards usually win: There are just too many of them.

Thank goodness

You can contribute to the goodness in the world. You don't need a middleman. - Daniel Dennett

Great idea! Too bad I didn't think of this way of describing it myself.

This is a quote from an interview with Richard Dawkens, part of a series the won the Best Documentary of 2008 award on the BBC.

Dennett had a near death experience because his aorta burst. When he survived, he credited the whole of goodness in the world - individual, medical, and social - with his survival. He's still an atheist, of course.

Paulism 2: Freedom means Responsibility

I began collecting Paulisms in high school. My poor friends had to listen to the insights I wrenched out of my head from long ago. It was decades before I began to write this stuff down.

In these blogs, I call them Paulisms. For years, they were just guideposts to my thinking, rarely were they expressed to others.

This one comes from high school.

Paulism 2: No matter how you measure Freedom, with every bit of Freedom comes and equal measure of Responsibility.

Paulism 23: Nutcases too

Freedom means you gotta have room for the nutcases.

With every new technology, idea, or concept in any field, there are those that will do wonderful things; and those that will try to abuse it. It's just that simple.

With every new idea or invention, some people ask: What horrible things can someone do?

My answer is dismissive: Who knows? Some people will only seek to abuse any level of power and freedom. The same technology that makes information available to millions can be used to control millions. Ideas that free the human mind from stress can be used to bury the mind in stress.

It all depends on the person.

This one correllates with number 2: Every measure of Freedom comes with an equal or greater measure of Responsibility.