Tuesday, June 2, 2009

Klein Hearts Friedman?

The most unpopular public intellectual in the world today appears to be Milton Friedman, although anyone Pro-Life is probably a close second. Friedman has been trashed by just about everyone on the left, including Naomi Klein who is a poster-girl for left wing, post modern anger at capitalism and all things "conservative."

But when I Googled Naomi recently to see what she has been saying these days, I found this amazing quote:
Larry Summers and Tim Geithner came up with a plan to bail out the banks that is actually a disguised bailout for the hedge funds — where the government is not bailing out the hedge funds directly because they can’t sell that, but hedging the hedge funds to buy the toxic assets of the banks — instead of nationalizing the banks and breaking them up, which is what needs to happen.
Here's the deal, what was Friedman's view of big government's judgment and benevolence? Check out this video of him and Phil Donahue going at it and tell me how far apart these two are on their skepticism of government power?

It seems to me that there may be a growing consensus about the limits of government benevolence in society today among people of very different ideological views. I'm not sure what this all means, but if both sides recognize the folly of the duopoly, that's progress.