Milton Friedman on Charlie Rose Tonight on PBS

Tonight, after a day of eating out and shopping for Guinea, I stumbled upon the Charlie Rose show on PBS and the guest tonight was Milton Friedman. This made me put down the remote control and hang around channel 6 for awhile. Here are some observations:

Milton liked to pick his nose every couple minutes. After awhile, you would see him raise his finger towards his nose and then the producers would switch to a different camera shot where we couldn't see it. But we all knew what Milton was up to.

Best quote of the evening:

"The biggest mistake Ronald Reagan made was selecting George Bush as his running mate."

Second best quote:

In response to the question, "so, in essence, are you a libertarian?" Milton says,

"I like to say that I am a republican with a capital 'R' and a libertarian with a lower-case 'l'."

When asked if he thought anything about Jimmy Carter, he said he never met him and then, when asked about his thoughts on Carter's post-presidency work, Friedman brought up "that house building thing." I think a man who has received a Nobel Peace Prize deserves more respect than that, don't you?

Surprisinly, we agree on numerous topics, but we come to these conclusions through very different lines of thinking. Things we agree upon:
*High government spending is baaaaaad. Although I only think that high govt spending on certain things is baaaaaad (ie, military spending or fresh lilies on the White House Xmas tree) .
*Milton and I agree on the elimination of farm subsidies
*We also think that legalizing but regulating all drugs would actually be better than the current system
*Flat tax rates are the way to go - ok, we have the same reasoning on this one. In fact, I quote good ol' Milton when i discuss this topic.
*Alan Greenspan is a god.
*George Bush Sr. and George Bush Jr. both suck.

Overall, it was a great show. I would love to sit down and chit chat with Milton myself, but for now, the Charlie Rose interview will have to do.