I am not a socialist but I have socialist tendencies, like universal health coverage. And by what I see in the countries that do have it, for the most part, the practice of medicine works better than in the US and the costs are lower, and life expectancy is longer. I thus believe in a mixed economy in which aspects of capitalism and socialism are mixed and balance each other. And this type of governance is what is generally emerging around the world, including the US, albeit kicking and screaming all the way.

I appreciate and believe in some of Milton Friedman’s ideas. (He fashioned himself and acted as a counterbalance to socialist thinking, hence some of extreme ideas so as to get his ideas across.) And they would probably all work if the conditions were always right. One thing he believed is that if you have a free and open market in anything the facts and information about it would also have to be free and open. This is something that did not occur in the ‘subprime market’ and thus the calamity surrounding it. The information and facts surrounding subprime loans and their derivatives was not honest or upfront. Instead much of the facts and reality about them were manipulated by Wall Street and thwarted by the administration.

Friedman realized that a measure of consumer protection had to be in place to keep markets honest and mutually beneficial. He knew that the unfetter markets were not on their own the ‘hole grail’ because of human weakness and failures. This is something the present administration in Washington forgot or failed to see and in the process has made the economy worse because it blindly believe that free markets could solve everything.