In this weeks reading the Friedman’s spend a lot of time comparing the government’s efforts at protecting the environment. They look at the FDA, the Consumer Products Safety Commission, and finally the EPA. For this weeks book notes, I want to focus in their comments regarding the EPA. The point of the book notes project is to learn from previous thinkers lessons that may apply | Read More »
Chapter 7 is entitled “Who Protects the Consumer?” Most of the quotes below are drawn from the second and third page of this section. I thought it was so insightful that I highlighted it, and read it to my wife. If you have a high school student in your house, you should have them read this part. This section begins with the Friedman’s acknowledging that | Read More »
The title for Chapter 5 of Free To Choose is “created equal”, and is taken from the Declaration of Independence. “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal…” What does “created equal” mean? The Friedmans would answer, “The clue to what Thomas Jefferson and his contemporaries meant by equal is in the next phrase of the Declaration — ‘endowed by | Read More »
Shortly after reading the section discussing social security in Free to Choose, I had a discussion about the dangers and misnomers of Social Security with a friend. Since this is an example of something we were reading translating directly into water cooler talk, I thought it was a good subject for this post. The Friedmans do a very good job of pointing out that Social | Read More »
Though the United States has not adopted central economic planning, we have gone very far in the past fifty years in expanding the role of government in the economy. That intervention has been costly in economic terms. The limitations imposed on our economic freedom threaten to bring two centuries of economic progress to an end. Intervention has also been costly in political terms. It has | Read More »
This week we begin our reading of Milton and Rose Friedman’s Free to Choose. I found so much in the first chapter that I wanted to discuss, I could probably write a post a day for the next week. In this chapter, the Friedman’s spend a lot of time discussing the role of prices. Prices serve three functions: transmit information, provide an incentive, and distribute | Read More »
In this weeks reading we finished Mere Christianity. I think the book met my expectations for a great introduction to Christianity. I think Lewis makes some very compelling arguments for a belief in both a god, and the Christian God. In this final reading, I found a section in Chapter 9 very interesting. Lewis discusses the “cost” of following Christianity. In this case, Lewis argues | Read More »
Lewis covers a lot of material in this week’s reading. I thought he gave a great explanation of why we should study theology. I don’t think Lewis meant studying theology as in a college course. I think he was meaning study at church, or like the discussions we have had here at Red State. There were two specific points I wanted to look at. The | Read More »
Last week, I wasn’t able to put an entry in here for the reading due to illness. It looks like I wasn’t the only one sick, so I am going to cover pages 88 through 133 this week. There are actually a number of points in this weeks reading that are worth discussion. But as I looked back over the chapters, there was one section | Read More »
Back when Eric started this project, he gave one rule that I haven’t used since the beginning of the Book Notes project. Each weeks’ book notes entry would.. …not be a “book review”, but rather our candid thoughts on the chapter, up to and including “the baby was sick all week and I didn’t get a chance to read it.” I hate to say it, | Read More »
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