Tape 142 - President Nixon, Money, Inflation
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- | Hello, this is William Clark of the Chicago Tribune | 0:02 |
welcoming you again on behalf of Instructional Dynamics | 0:05 | |
to another visit with the distinguished economist | 0:08 | |
Professor Milton Friedman of the University of Chicago. | 0:11 | |
Dr Friedman, I think we should update ourselves | 0:14 | |
on the money supply today. | 0:17 | |
Oh I should mention too that we're recording this interview | 0:18 | |
on Wednesday morning March 20th 1974. | 0:21 | |
Milton perhaps we should update ourselves | 0:27 | |
on the money stock. | 0:29 | |
- | Perhaps before we do that I can reverse things | 0:31 |
on you today, Bill, and make you the person | 0:33 | |
who answers the questions, and myself the one who asks them. | 0:36 | |
For the benefit of our subscribers, | 0:40 | |
William Clark is not only executive at the Chicago Tribune, | 0:43 | |
not only the former editor of the, | 0:48 | |
financial editor of the Chicago Tribune, | 0:52 | |
but he's also this year's president | 0:54 | |
of the Executive Club of Chicago. | 0:56 | |
That's interesting because the Executive Club of Chicago | 0:58 | |
served as host for President Nixon last Friday | 1:01 | |
at a question and answer session in Chicago | 1:05 | |
that was televised locally, | 1:08 | |
widely reported around the country. | 1:10 | |
And I thought it might be interesting, | 1:12 | |
that our subscribers might be interested | 1:14 | |
in getting something of a head table view | 1:16 | |
of what such an occasion is like | 1:19 | |
and what President Nixon's attitude, | 1:22 | |
demeanor and state of mind | 1:25 | |
and heart seem to be | 1:28 | |
as viewed by the man who introduced him | 1:31 | |
and actively participated in all of the arrangements. | 1:34 | |
What was your general reaction Bill to the president's | 1:38 | |
appearance? | 1:43 | |
- | Why he seemed to be in very good spirits Milton. | 1:44 |
I thought he enjoyed himself throughout the session. | 1:48 | |
He comes through, I think in the flesh | 1:52 | |
more effectively than he does on television. | 1:56 | |
I of course watched him as you did last night | 2:00 | |
in a program televised from Houston. | 2:02 | |
And to me he seemed a little bit tense | 2:05 | |
though he responded very effectively, | 2:09 | |
I thought to the questions, and covered a good deal | 2:11 | |
of the same ground that he covered in his session | 2:13 | |
here in Chicago. | 2:16 | |
But in the flesh, in person he seemed to be | 2:17 | |
in very good spirits, in good health, | 2:19 | |
and I thought he enjoyed himself | 2:22 | |
and the audience certainly enjoyed him. | 2:24 | |
- | Well, | 2:27 |
Mr Nixon of course is a fascinating personality | 2:29 | |
from this point of view. | 2:33 | |
Everybody who has known him has recognized that he is | 2:34 | |
not a simple person, that | 2:39 | |
when you speak in the flesh, | 2:43 | |
that also depends on in the flesh in a small intimate group | 2:45 | |
and in the flesh in a big large gathering. | 2:48 | |
In the flesh in a small intimate group, | 2:51 | |
Mr Nixon comes across in a very different way also | 2:54 | |
than he does in a large public gathering. | 2:57 | |
- | I suppose you would know. | 2:59 |
- | Yes my own experience and evidence of that is | 3:01 |
that he is a much more | 3:03 | |
relaxed man, | 3:06 | |
I take leave to say a far more attractive person | 3:08 | |
in personal connections because there isn't | 3:11 | |
that tenseness, there isn't that | 3:14 | |
attempt to make a public impression. | 3:17 | |
Now this is true of all public figures who are always | 3:20 | |
schizophrenic in a sense, they are always | 3:25 | |
one thing for their public image and one thing | 3:27 | |
for their private image. | 3:29 | |
But I believe that the difference here | 3:30 | |
is very much greater for Mr Nixon than it has been for most. | 3:33 | |
One of the thing that has always interested me, | 3:38 | |
I don't know how to fit this together is that | 3:40 | |
in the public appearances when I've heard | 3:43 | |
Mr Nixon on radio, rather than on television, | 3:45 | |
it always seems to me it comes across | 3:49 | |
much more favorable to him than the television appearance. | 3:51 | |
And you know this was a record going way back | 3:54 | |
to the 1960 period when the Nixon Kennedy debates were held. | 3:56 | |
- | Yes. | 4:01 |
- | I know I had | |
some friends at that time who were in Chile. | 4:03 | |
Our university had a project in Chile at that time. | 4:07 | |
And they heard the debates by short wave radio in Chile. | 4:10 | |
And one and all, they were convinced | 4:14 | |
that Mr Nixon had just wiped out Mr Kennedy, | 4:17 | |
that there was no question about who had won. | 4:19 | |
- | Is that so? | 4:21 |
- | On the other hand, | |
the reaction to the television debate at home | 4:22 | |
was precisely the opposite. | 4:26 | |
Well now similarly, you're making the same contrast | 4:27 | |
between seeing him in the flesh in a public appearance. | 4:30 | |
There was no hostility I take it there | 4:33 | |
on the part of the audience? | 4:35 | |
- | No there wasn't Milton. | |
There was one questioner, | 4:37 | |
asked a question which had to do with impeachment | 4:40 | |
and he mentioned that he said, would it be better | 4:44 | |
for you to resign now? | 4:47 | |
And there was just a brief burst of booing | 4:49 | |
from one small section of the audience. | 4:53 | |
And the president came in very rapidly and he said "no." | 4:55 | |
He says "that's a perfectly proper question." | 4:58 | |
Says "this is an interesting subject | 5:00 | |
"and I should discuss it." | 5:01 | |
And he went ahead to discuss it. | 5:02 | |
One of the interesting things to me was that | 5:04 | |
in our session here in Chicago there were 14 questions asked | 5:07 | |
in this approximately hour long broadcast. | 5:12 | |
The audience was generally described as friendly. | 5:16 | |
It was enthusiastic. | 5:20 | |
And some of the newspaper accounts afterwards, | 5:22 | |
talking about his appearance in Houston | 5:25 | |
said that in Houston, he will be questioned by | 5:27 | |
radio and television news people. | 5:31 | |
And this is being arranged to avoid the puff questions | 5:34 | |
which were asked in Chicago. | 5:38 | |
Well, so we went to Houston last night | 5:40 | |
and he was questioned by newscasters. | 5:42 | |
And the interesting thing was they covered | 5:45 | |
exactly the same ground (laughing) | 5:47 | |
that was covered here in Chicago. | 5:48 | |
They were asked in a little more annoying way | 5:50 | |
once or twice, but it was the same subject matter. | 5:52 | |
- | What I think Houston brought out is a very different thing | 5:55 |
that I think is also of great importance, | 5:57 | |
but not necessarily about Mr Nixon, | 5:59 | |
but about the state of, | 6:02 | |
of the American politic, the people in Houston, | 6:04 | |
for in the main, represented the small independent | 6:09 | |
broadcasting stations around the country. | 6:12 | |
- | That's true. | 6:13 |
- | The enormous contrast between the questions asked | 6:14 |
by Mr Rather and Mr Brokaw | 6:17 | |
reflects the sharp difference between the networks | 6:20 | |
on the one hand, and the independent stations on the other. | 6:23 | |
And the people from the independent stations | 6:25 | |
who asked the questions, if the questions | 6:27 | |
asked in Chicago were puff questions, | 6:30 | |
I don't know how you would describe these. | 6:32 | |
(laughing) | 6:34 | |
These were, if anything, | ||
much more-- | 6:35 | |
- | Yes they were. | |
- | Puff questions. | 6:36 |
- | That's true. | |
- | The extraordinary thing is as it illustrates, | 6:38 |
what a enormous role | 6:40 | |
for good or for bad | 6:43 | |
is played in the shaping of public opinion | 6:45 | |
by those three networks, plus two newspapers, | 6:47 | |
the Washington Post and the New York Times. | 6:51 | |
- | That's right. | 6:54 |
Oh I felt that he did very well here in Chicago | 6:55 | |
and I felt that he made some points. | 6:59 | |
I think generally this is a good thing | 7:01 | |
for him to be doing. | 7:03 | |
- | Oh I am sure it is because there is no doubt | 7:04 |
that he is an extraordinarily able man. | 7:07 | |
There is no doubt whatever may be, | 7:09 | |
the merits or demerits of the Watergate issue. | 7:10 | |
There is no doubt it has been blown up | 7:13 | |
out of all proportion from the point of view | 7:15 | |
of any perspective, any sense of perspective. | 7:18 | |
If you consider the amount of attention | 7:22 | |
which has been devoted to this by comparison | 7:24 | |
with the situation in the United States | 7:27 | |
three or four years ago when the Vietnam War was in full | 7:29 | |
flight when we had disturbances on campuses | 7:33 | |
that were threatening to tear down the universities | 7:37 | |
and the institutions, Watergate is not anything | 7:39 | |
to be condoned, far from it. | 7:43 | |
But it's of a different order of magnitude | 7:45 | |
than those earlier kinds of events and yet, | 7:48 | |
it has been built up into, | 7:52 | |
have at least the same importance in the public mind. | 7:55 | |
- | Yes it's true. | 7:58 |
- | Maybe we ought-- | 8:01 |
- | I'm afraid-- | |
- | Turn the time back to you Bill | 8:03 |
and reverse the order again? | 8:05 | |
(laughing) | ||
- | All right. | 8:07 |
I think the subscribers are much more interested | 8:08 | |
I what Professor Milton Friedman has to say | 8:09 | |
about the economy. | 8:12 | |
I noticed the story or this article by Alan Greenspan | 8:14 | |
in the Wall Street Journal yesterday morning | 8:17 | |
and I tore it out and I'm going to read | 8:19 | |
one sentence of it, I thought it might be a good peg | 8:22 | |
for some commentary by you. | 8:26 | |
He says we now need a higher rate of return | 8:29 | |
and a higher proportion of the national income | 8:31 | |
going to profits if we are to generate | 8:34 | |
sufficient capitol expenditures to maintain | 8:37 | |
the aggregate growth and real income | 8:40 | |
of which we are capable. | 8:42 | |
This is just one sentence in a longer article | 8:44 | |
which I know you read. | 8:47 | |
But I would be interested in your comment. | 8:48 | |
- | Well I think the point that Alan Greenspan makes | 8:49 |
is an extremely interesting and important point. | 8:52 | |
What he is saying is | 8:54 | |
that thanks to the enormous growth | 8:55 | |
of governmental intervention of various kinds, | 8:57 | |
the risks involved in capitol investment are higher. | 9:00 | |
Now let me warn immediately against | 9:03 | |
one interpretation of the sentence you read | 9:07 | |
which Alan Greenspan I'm sure does not intend, | 9:10 | |
but which is easily drawn from it. | 9:13 | |
There is a tendency to argue, | 9:16 | |
and some of the oil companies have argued this way, | 9:17 | |
that they need larger profits in order to provide | 9:20 | |
the finance, the direct finance for their investments, | 9:22 | |
that the profits are gonna be the source of plowback. | 9:26 | |
That's not what Greenspan has in mind. | 9:28 | |
He means they need larger profits in order to show | 9:30 | |
a higher rate of return, in order to attract | 9:34 | |
the savings of the public at large | 9:36 | |
to make it advantageous for the public at large to invest | 9:38 | |
in the enterprise. | 9:40 | |
After all, | 9:42 | |
this is a tendency to think in terms of companies, | 9:44 | |
the expected rate of return | 9:47 | |
which most companies would require | 9:48 | |
to initiate capitol expenditures. | 9:50 | |
Now the companies don't require any rate of return. | 9:52 | |
What's important is what rate of return | 9:55 | |
do people who hold stock in those companies, | 9:57 | |
or people who are going to lend money to those companies | 10:00 | |
in the form of bonds, what rate of return do they require | 10:02 | |
in order to make it profitable to them, | 10:06 | |
to invest in those enterprises. | 10:10 | |
And it seems to me there isn't doubt | 10:12 | |
that Mr Greenspan is completely correct in saying | 10:14 | |
that the | 10:18 | |
greater uncertainty which now prevails | 10:20 | |
requires a greater rate of return. | 10:24 | |
As I have emphasized on earlier tapes, | 10:26 | |
I think there's another aspect of that | 10:28 | |
which underlies what which Mr Greenspan has said, | 10:30 | |
but which he hasn't brought out, which also involves | 10:32 | |
requiring a higher expected rate of return. | 10:37 | |
And this is not only governmental intervention | 10:40 | |
in the direct form of price control or wage control | 10:42 | |
or, to take a particular example | 10:45 | |
out of the newspapers the other day, | 10:47 | |
the Interstate Commerce Commission ordering railroads | 10:50 | |
to provide certain freight cars down in Florida. | 10:54 | |
Now you stop and think about that wording for a moment, | 10:57 | |
and ask what would it mean to say that | 11:01 | |
the government orders you to provide | 11:02 | |
certain machines somewhere? | 11:07 | |
In the next stage orders you to provide your services, | 11:09 | |
your labor services somewhere? | 11:12 | |
But at any rate, it's not only that kind of thing. | 11:13 | |
But it is also the change in the rules | 11:16 | |
about property ownership and corporate responsibility | 11:19 | |
in a legal sense, which it made corporate ownership | 11:21 | |
a much less attractive thing. | 11:26 | |
I think a very basic element is the shift | 11:28 | |
in the doctrine of legal responsibility, | 11:30 | |
from a doctrine that was almost wholly caveat emptor, | 11:33 | |
buyer beware, in which the producer was responsible | 11:37 | |
only for fraud or deliberate | 11:41 | |
misstatements of the character of his product. | 11:45 | |
We have shifted to a situation almost of | 11:48 | |
not caveat emptor but vendor emptor, seller beware, | 11:52 | |
in which the seller is liable for damages, even though | 11:58 | |
the damages that occurred were not attributable in any way | 12:03 | |
to the seller's negligence or lack of responsibility. | 12:07 | |
The only thing that has been offsetting that in one way | 12:11 | |
or another has been that it should be noted | 12:15 | |
that the federal government is a partner | 12:18 | |
in most of these risks. | 12:21 | |
If you take a typical corporation which is paying | 12:23 | |
something like a 50% tax rate, | 12:26 | |
the federal government shares, | 12:29 | |
to the extent of 50% of the profits | 12:31 | |
and 50% in the losses. | 12:33 | |
But that doesn't alter the wide diversity of losses. | 12:36 | |
Now is there any chance, says Mr Greenspan | 12:40 | |
in essence that we're going to move in the direction | 12:44 | |
that seems to be required toward higher rate of return? | 12:47 | |
It is very dubious. | 12:51 | |
This is another example of the extent to which | 12:53 | |
governmental measures so often have the opposite | 12:57 | |
of the effect that they are intended to have. | 12:59 | |
Much of the drive against corporations has been | 13:03 | |
sparked by the widespread misconception | 13:06 | |
that they are profiteers who are earning | 13:09 | |
unconscionable rates of return. | 13:11 | |
And the effect of that drive is going to be | 13:14 | |
to drive up the rates of return. | 13:15 | |
It will drive up the rates of return, | 13:18 | |
precisely because people will not be willing to invest | 13:20 | |
in those forms, and as a result, | 13:23 | |
the rate of return will go up higher. | 13:26 | |
There's another aspect of this however | 13:28 | |
which Mr Greenspan does not mention | 13:29 | |
but which is equally important from this point of view. | 13:32 | |
You need high rates of return to attract the capitol. | 13:35 | |
But also, you need the capitol to be attractive to savings. | 13:39 | |
That consists of two parts. | 13:44 | |
It consists of the willingness of people to save, | 13:46 | |
but it also consists of other demands upon that capitol. | 13:48 | |
Now if you look at what has been happening, | 13:52 | |
the federal government has increasingly | 13:54 | |
been levying heavy demands on that capitol. | 13:57 | |
On the one hand the deficits of the federal government | 14:00 | |
involve a demand on that capitol. | 14:03 | |
But even if the federal government | 14:05 | |
were to go into a even balance, | 14:07 | |
the government, federal government, through all sorts of | 14:11 | |
back door agencies, agencies governmentally guaranteed, | 14:15 | |
non-guaranteed, independently set-up corporations | 14:19 | |
and so on, all of which are governmental like Amtrak, | 14:23 | |
like the various housing agencies and so on | 14:25 | |
has in that way been levying heavy demands | 14:31 | |
upon the capitol market. | 14:33 | |
Some estimates which I have seen suggest | 14:35 | |
that in the next year or two, something like half | 14:37 | |
of total savings of the United States will be absorbed | 14:40 | |
in these governmental ventures. | 14:43 | |
Well that only leaves the other half for the | 14:46 | |
investment in the kind of thing | 14:50 | |
that Mr Greenspan is talking about. | 14:52 | |
Thus it is very hard to avoid the conclusion | 14:55 | |
that so far as capitol investment and expenditures | 14:57 | |
are concerned over the next few years, | 15:00 | |
you will see higher real rates of return, profit required, | 15:02 | |
but you will see lower levels of productive addition | 15:07 | |
to the capitol stock of the country. | 15:11 | |
And hence there is a real question about whether | 15:13 | |
the kind of easy assumption that has been made, | 15:17 | |
that sort of the natural inherent rate of growth, | 15:19 | |
of the real output of the country, | 15:22 | |
something like four and a quarter percent, | 15:24 | |
I think there is a real reason to question | 15:27 | |
whether the United States will be able to maintain | 15:29 | |
a rate of growth of that kind unless we have | 15:31 | |
a drastic change in some of these policies. | 15:33 | |
- | What does that say about the long-term attractiveness | 15:36 |
in investment in the stock market | 15:39 | |
despite present prices? | 15:40 | |
- | So far as the stock market is concerned, | 15:44 |
presumably this prospect, if it's widely anticipated, | 15:48 | |
is one of the reasons why stock market prices | 15:51 | |
are as low as they are now. | 15:53 | |
There's no reason why stock market prices | 15:56 | |
should not pull up. | 15:58 | |
But what it does say is that anybody who expects | 16:01 | |
that there is going to be another great revaluation | 16:05 | |
of price earnings ratios, | 16:08 | |
as you realize, we went through a phase after the war | 16:11 | |
when price earnings ratios were revised drastically upward. | 16:13 | |
More recently, in the last five years, | 16:17 | |
we've been going through a phase in which | 16:19 | |
they were revised drastically downward. | 16:20 | |
Now, that downward revision probably reflects | 16:23 | |
the kinds of forces that Mr Greenspan is talking about | 16:27 | |
and those that I have been mentioning now. | 16:30 | |
And therefore it does not suggest that over the long pull | 16:32 | |
there is likely to be any substantial | 16:36 | |
revision of price earnings ratios upward | 16:39 | |
hence that would suggest | 16:41 | |
that the stock market will rise, on the one hand, | 16:42 | |
because of inflation, on the other hand | 16:45 | |
because of the growth of the economy. | 16:47 | |
But not in any | 16:49 | |
real long run bull market, unless | 16:54 | |
there is a change in these governmental policies. | 16:58 | |
- | I see. | 17:01 |
Milton it's been a few sessions since you updated us | 17:04 | |
on the money stock, perhaps you could do that now | 17:06 | |
and comment on the seeming paradox of | 17:08 | |
little increase in the money supply | 17:12 | |
accompanied by an increase of interest rates. | 17:14 | |
- | That is kind of interesting. | 17:17 |
I was really taken aback by the headline | 17:19 | |
in the Wall Street Journal story at the end of last week | 17:22 | |
Friday when the money supply was announced saying | 17:24 | |
"Rapid growth in money supply | 17:27 | |
"spurs increase in rate of interest." | 17:28 | |
Every textbook in economics would argue | 17:31 | |
rightly or wrongly the opposite relationship. | 17:35 | |
And ordinarily people would say well if the money supply | 17:37 | |
is increasing rapidly, doesn't that drive down | 17:39 | |
the rate of interest? | 17:41 | |
Well the answer is, of course, historic traditionally, | 17:44 | |
and over any rate of time, as we know, | 17:46 | |
a rabid increase in the money supply | 17:49 | |
temporarily does drive down the rate of interest. | 17:51 | |
But over a longer period of time raises the rate of interest | 17:53 | |
by providing the basis for inflation | 17:56 | |
which gets built into the interest rate. | 17:58 | |
And what this shows in the market is that | 17:59 | |
participants in the market are pretty smart. | 18:02 | |
And they have been learning their lesson. | 18:06 | |
And they have been learning, of course, I may say | 18:08 | |
what the Wall Street Journal said in explaining it | 18:10 | |
was that the reason it drove up the interest rates | 18:15 | |
was that because of the rapid rise, it was believed | 18:17 | |
that the Federal Reserve would have to turn around | 18:20 | |
and offset that, and therefore the market | 18:22 | |
was anticipating a future slowdown | 18:24 | |
in the rate of monetary growth. (laughing) | 18:26 | |
Well you can't have that both ways. | 18:28 | |
Because | 18:30 | |
the future slowdown in the rate of monetary growth | 18:34 | |
will not raise future interest rates | 18:36 | |
unless the present abnormal increase | 18:39 | |
lowered them in the first place. | 18:42 | |
So if the abnormal increase raises them, | 18:44 | |
there's nothing to be offset later on! (laughing) | 18:47 | |
So that explanation is not very logical. | 18:50 | |
And I think really | 18:52 | |
the more fundamental explanation is very different. | 18:54 | |
I think the more fundamental explanation | 18:56 | |
which has been developing over the past few years, | 18:57 | |
so it's not, this is not something new. | 19:00 | |
But I have been very much impressed | 19:01 | |
over the past few years that this temporary | 19:04 | |
depressing effect on interest rates | 19:07 | |
and more rapid rates of growth, the money supply | 19:09 | |
which was very consistent for many years, | 19:13 | |
about a six or nine months effect | 19:15 | |
shows up much less strongly in the past few years. | 19:18 | |
This lag has been shortening | 19:23 | |
because the market has been learning and therefore | 19:24 | |
it has been reacting immediately | 19:28 | |
to what the long term effect will be | 19:30 | |
rather than the short term effect. | 19:31 | |
Now that rapid increase in the money supply is | 19:34 | |
in the last, that week, was another very erratic move. | 19:39 | |
The thing you have to say about the money supply | 19:44 | |
as reported in the papers which is mostly M1, | 19:47 | |
currency and demand department, over the past year, | 19:49 | |
year and half is that it has been very erratic. | 19:53 | |
It has fluctuated rather widely, the rate of growth. | 19:56 | |
You had a period | 20:02 | |
in early 1973 from about April to June 1973 in which | 20:04 | |
the money supply was rising at a horrendous rate. | 20:09 | |
Then you had a period from June to October | 20:12 | |
in which the money supply was declining. | 20:15 | |
Since October it's been rising again | 20:17 | |
at rates of about seven or eight percent on the average | 20:19 | |
over that period. | 20:23 | |
And the week to week gyrations have been quite marked. | 20:24 | |
So that it is very hard from the statistical picture | 20:28 | |
to draw any very | 20:31 | |
precise inference about the behavior of the money supply. | 20:35 | |
My own judgment is that if you look at that M1, | 20:39 | |
the best way to describe it is that on the whole | 20:42 | |
over several years now it has been rising | 20:45 | |
at a rate of something like six percent | 20:47 | |
or maybe a little more. | 20:48 | |
Whenever the money supply has risen substantially | 20:51 | |
above that, the Fed has drawn back down under it, | 20:54 | |
whenever it's gotten below it | 20:57 | |
the Fed has been increasing it. | 20:58 | |
In the past couple of months, it looks as if | 21:00 | |
you have started on a fairly rapid increase, | 21:04 | |
you're now headed to be above that six percent rate. | 21:06 | |
If you look at the money stock M2 figures, | 21:11 | |
including time deposits other than large CDs, | 21:16 | |
that series also shows some of these same gyrations | 21:19 | |
but it's a much steadier series. | 21:23 | |
There's much fewer of these gyrations | 21:25 | |
and I think it's easier to read. | 21:27 | |
Now that series is easily described. | 21:29 | |
That series is described by saying you will have | 21:32 | |
not far from a 10% rate of growth from there | 21:36 | |
for quite a long time. | 21:38 | |
Certainly if you take the rate of change | 21:40 | |
over the last four months, it's been over about, | 21:42 | |
a little over 10%, 10 and a half percent. | 21:46 | |
If you take it over the last year, | 21:50 | |
it's been about nine percent. | 21:53 | |
So that with respect to the M2 definition, | 21:55 | |
nine to 10 percent, average rate of growth | 22:00 | |
is a reasonable interpretation. | 22:03 | |
Again, there is a little sign that if anything, | 22:05 | |
the rate of growth has speeded up in the last month or two. | 22:07 | |
Now, let me translate those into implications. | 22:11 | |
The 10% rate of growth | 22:13 | |
in M2 implies roughly a 10% rate of growth | 22:16 | |
in the nominal GNP. | 22:20 | |
That implies with price increases of the order | 22:23 | |
of seven, eight to nine percent in GNP | 22:26 | |
it implies real rates of growth | 22:29 | |
of one to two to three percent in GNP. | 22:31 | |
And as you know we are now having a very distinct | 22:34 | |
slow down and I suspect that will continue for a time. | 22:36 | |
One other thing I might say along these lines is that | 22:43 | |
the political pressure on the Federal Reserve | 22:48 | |
to avoid a recession, to validate Mr Nixon's pledge | 22:51 | |
that there will be no recession is undoubtedly | 22:56 | |
one of the factors that is tending | 22:58 | |
to keep the rate of the growth of the money supply up | 23:00 | |
even though the Federal Reserve is nominally independent, | 23:05 | |
and even though Mr Burns has stated over and over again | 23:08 | |
that the Federal Reserve will not, | 23:10 | |
itself, be the architect of a continued increase | 23:13 | |
in the rate of inflation. | 23:16 | |
- | That suggests a point that some people try to make | 23:18 |
to the effect that inflation is politically acceptable | 23:23 | |
but unemployment is not, do you go along with that? | 23:26 | |
- | That's always been, that's been the standard view. | 23:30 |
And there is no doubt that that is a view of Mr Nixon. | 23:33 | |
It was the view of Mr Edward Heath of Britain, | 23:37 | |
of almost every other politician around the world. | 23:41 | |
The interesting thing about it is the recent experience | 23:45 | |
suggests that maybe that view | 23:47 | |
isn't as clear as it might seem. | 23:48 | |
If you ask yourself what has been the major source | 23:52 | |
of the political problems all over the world, | 23:54 | |
of the major leaders, in every single case | 23:57 | |
in the past year or two it's been the | 23:59 | |
public reaction against inflation. | 24:01 | |
Why was Mr Heath in such great trouble in Britain? | 24:03 | |
What happened, Mr Heath's example is a perfect example. | 24:09 | |
He started out and came into his | 24:13 | |
latest term of office with a pledge that he was gonna end | 24:18 | |
price and wage control and end inflation. | 24:21 | |
He started along the right line | 24:23 | |
but when unemployment reached a million, | 24:24 | |
on the basis of the political judgment you just expressed, | 24:26 | |
he decided he couldn't stand it anymore, | 24:29 | |
he stepped on the gas, poured in money, | 24:31 | |
increased government expenditures, | 24:34 | |
and after it broke out into inflation, | 24:35 | |
tried to stop it by price and wage controls | 24:37 | |
which had the usual effect, he's out of office now. | 24:39 | |
Here is Mr Tanaka in Japan | 24:43 | |
came in as a very popular prime minister. | 24:46 | |
The rate of inflation in Japan, | 24:49 | |
they hope they can hold it down to 20% this year. | 24:51 | |
They're at that level. Mr Tanaka is in deep trouble. | 24:54 | |
The public opinion polls have him as low as, | 24:56 | |
or lower than Mr Nixon in this country. | 24:59 | |
In the United States, what has been the source | 25:02 | |
of the greatest | 25:05 | |
public annoyance in the past year, it's been inflation. | 25:08 | |
Now it's interesting, as I think I reported | 25:11 | |
on one of these tapes, my colleague George Stigler, | 25:13 | |
a little while ago did an interesting | 25:16 | |
statistical regression analysis of | 25:19 | |
the relationship between results in congressional elections | 25:23 | |
and on the one hand unemployment, | 25:28 | |
and on the other inflation. | 25:29 | |
And what he asked was under what circumstances | 25:31 | |
do incumbents get turned out? | 25:33 | |
It wasn't a party thing Democrats and Republicans. | 25:34 | |
And much to his surprise he found that | 25:37 | |
the level of unemployment seemed to have no effect | 25:39 | |
but the rate of inflation had a significant effect | 25:42 | |
in turning out incumbents. | 25:45 | |
So it may be that this widely believed political wisdom | 25:46 | |
which is undoubtedly a heritage | 25:50 | |
from the Great Depression of the 1930s, may be wrong. | 25:51 | |
If that is so, it perhaps is a most hopeful sign. | 25:56 | |
Because if it becomes in the self-interest of politicians | 26:01 | |
to stop inflation, inflation will be stopped. | 26:04 | |
- | Thank you very much. | 26:07 |
We've been visiting with Professor Milton Friedman | 26:09 | |
of the University of Chicago. | 26:11 | |
If the subscribers would like to suggest subjects | 26:12 | |
for Dr Friedman to discuss on future tapes | 26:15 | |
or pose questions for him to answer, please write to | 26:18 | |
Instructional Dynamics Incorporated | 26:21 | |
166 East Superior Street, | 26:23 | |
Chicago Illinois, 60611. | 26:26 | |
We'll be talking with Dr Friedman a couple of weeks hence. | 26:29 |
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