Milton Friedman Has Gone

AP reports:

Milton Friedman, the Nobel Prize-winning economist who advocated an unfettered free market and had the ear of three U.S. presidents, died Thursday at age 94.

Friedman died in San Francisco, said Robert Fanger, a spokesman for the Milton and Rose D. Friedman Foundation in Indianapolis. His daughter, Janet Martell, told the Wall Street Journal the cause of death was heart failure.

“Milton’s passion for freedom and liberty has influenced more lives than he ever could possibly know,” said Gordon St. Angelo, the foundation’s president and CEO, in a statement. “His writings and ideas have transformed the minds of U.S. presidents, world leaders, entrepreneurs and freshmen economic majors alike.”

Read the whole thing here.

Oh my! So much understanding! So much wisdom! Gone! One of the greatest has passed.

Here's Bush on Friedman in 2002:

“He has used a brilliant mind to advance a moral vision — the vision of a society where men and women are free, free to choose, but where government is not as free to override their decisions.... That vision has changed America, and it is changing the world.”

At least we still have his writings..., and, of course, Rose.

For some of his pithier quotes go here.

For myself, I plan to spend a couple of hours tonight with Capitalism and Freedom.