Milton Friedman cuts through the budget deficit debate with a crucial insight: Every federal budget is actually balanced - you're just paying for it in different ways. Whether through explicit taxes, inflation, or borrowing, the cost always lands on us. The real question isn't about deficits, it's about total government spending as a share of our income. Control that, and the rest takes care of itself. | Free To Choose Network

Milton Friedman on the root cause of inflation: It's always about the money supply. The Fed let it collapse by a third during the Great Depression—disaster. They learned that lesson, but then made the opposite error: expanding the money supply too aggressively. The fundamental problem? Central banks keep confusing their mission, fixating on interest rates instead of their actual responsibility—controlling how much money exists in the economy. | Free To Choose Network

Milton Friedman on inflation's irony: Everyone's against it—until you ask if they've benefited. “When most people say they want to stop inflation, what they mean is that they want the prices of the things they buy to go down and the prices of the things they sell to go up. But since what one man sells is what another man buys, that’s a neat trick if you can do it.” So nobody's really serious about stopping inflation—at least not in the early stages. | Free To Choose Network