03-03-2021, 06:17 AM
(03-02-2021, 02:12 PM)beechnut79 Wrote: This one is pretty self-explanatory. For the past half century or so, at least since the time of Reagan, anti-trust laws, while remaining on the books, have been given no more than scant lip service as companies have continued to get bigger and bigger through mergers and buyouts with seemingly no end in sight. Even the two previous Democratic administrations have failed to reverse the trend. Do you feel that time may finally right for it now? And why has no candidate so far pledged to break up the gigantic corporate trusts of our time they way Teddy Roosevelt (a Republican BTW) did at the turn of the previous century?
There is a simple two-word answer: Milton Friedman. He managed to capture the zeitgeist of the emerging 3T, and rode it to fame, fortune and a place in popular culture not normally open to economists. His ideas got him a Nobel Prize and the undying admiration of the ownership class. His ideas never worked, but they made the rich richer. Since the rich have inherent power, they managed to dust-off this piece of crap several times, and pretend it was revealed wisdom. But yes, it may finally have rotted to the point that the stink is obvious even to the rich.
Intelligence is not knowledge and knowledge is not wisdom, but they all play well together.