Economist Milton Friedman on the Phil Donahue show, talking about why soaking the rich doesn’t work, the negative effects of minimum wage, and the cycle of poverty.
Excellent analysis and clearly explained. This was decades ago. Why can’t a major politician walk people through issues like this?
Also, can we stop for a second and notice that Phil Donahue—who was the king of talk shows back in the day—had a Nobel prize-winning economist on his show? A quick look at Anderson Cooper and Katie Couric’s guest lists leave a lot to be desired in comparison. I never watched Oprah, but I never got the impression she dug real deep on tough issues, much less controversial ones. I know Phil had his fair share of crazy guests, but you just don’t see this anymore except on cable news shows.
Jon Stewart and Steven Colbert often have interesting and informative guests on, but their format is half comedy and much shorter. I fear we, as a culture, are continually replacing depth of information and understanding for entertainment, superficiality and partisanship.
