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Sure. Just off the top of my mind, right after Katrina he wrote on op-ed in I think the WSJ where he does the usual "This is horrible ... but" and then suggest
by NSX2 19y ago
Sure. Just off the top of my mind, right after Katrina he wrote on op-ed in I think the WSJ where he does the usual "This is horrible ... but" and then suggests that rather than rebuilding public schools, now would be a good time to let the public schools rot and instead use the money that would have been build on schools as grants to be used as vouchers for private schools.
By coincidence, a ton of companies were just formed to do just that - build and setup private schools.
The residents got the vouchers, they gave them to the companies that would have built the schools.
Only problem is that the residents are mostly still displaced or living in trailer-parks surrounded by "privatized security forces" which make them seem more like they're quarantined, and the companies that said they wanted to build the private schools took the money but no building was ever started.
It seems you can't build fancy private schools and just have poor displaced people whose kids haven't gone to school in a year or so. No sir - you need some affluent people in the mix as well.
And affluent people don't like to live in New-Orleans type of shambles - they want luxury coops and private, gated communities of newly constructed townhouses, and malls and shopping centers and business districts, etc.
Wouldn't you know it, by some coincidence tons of new partnerships and LPs and LLCs were setup JUST RECENTLY to develop all these ritzy things so that the upscale private schools would feel more comforatable in their surroundings.
So the government transferred rebuilding money to private companies which either rebuilt nothing yet or are planning to build things that the people the rebuilding money was designated for could never afford.
So milton suggested change after tragedy, but his change benefited the rich and politically well connected, not the people affected by the tragedy - even though that's what it was initially passed off as.
>> And how would you propose to "let his suggestion actually be put to the test of a real democratic free market" - where would you find such a real democratic free market?
Well, easy. Take the people affected by Katrina - let the shock wear off so they can think clearly, then simply ask them: instead of building you guys public schools and hospitals and such, the government wants to take tax money and give private contracts to companies that want to build upscale private schools and malls and gated communities and such - you know, stuff you could never afford to live in yourselves.
How bout it? Also, would you like to sell your land off really cheap to these new luxury developers? Oh, wait - you don't have a choice because the government declared it a federal disaster zone.
So - for rebuilding purposes, the government declares the area a disaster zone, no rebuilding will take place.
But if you and I started a LLC and declared an intention to build upscale gated communities, maybe a corporate headquarters complex or two, etc., all of a sudden, the government not only lets us but even GRANTS us tax money to do just that.
What resident of New Orleans do you think would have thought this arrangement to be a good idea in their self interest?
I'm guessing none.
- Tichy 19y agoIt doesn't sound much like a free market scenario. Instead, asking the government to build things seems always to be the worst option, because the government doesn't really care about the money. I don't know the system, but I'd imagine giving the people vouchers to buy themselves into schools would be more like it. Also, I don't think Friedman has any political power - was the government really following his suggestions? It sounds as if no schools were built after all (public or private), which is surely not what he suggested? In any case I see his point, after Katrina it seems to have been a good opportunity to start over with something new.