Milton Friedman passes away

I heard it on the radio today on my way home from work. He was a champion for liberty. My hero has died, but his memory lives on.

Donate organ or gain

A tragedy:

In the United States, less than one half of potential organs donors became actual organ donors.

We are talking about dead people here of course. Less than half of living people are willing to sign-up to donate their organs when they no longer need them. Alex Tabbarok asks, well then why not pay?! With over 80,000 people on the waiting list and about 10% of these dying per year, it'd be nice if we could convince people to check the organ donor box when they go to the DMV. One obstacle is the National Organ Transplant Act (NOTA) of 1984 which states

"It shall be unlawful for any person to knowingly acquire, receive, or otherwise transfer any human organ for valuable consideration for use in human transplantation."

Ostensibly, this is to reduce the traffic in live human organs. To a lesser degree it aims to keep the rich from cornering the organ market. However, there are ways to avoid these undesirable outcomes. First, only allow payment for organs from dead people, with the funds going to the family, the estate, or some charity of the donor's choosing. Second, don't sell organs on the free market. Instead, use the current national registry system but allow the donors to be paid for their contribution!

In the absence of legal payment options, a group called the LifeSharers has banded together, promising to donate their organs upon death to other members of the group before opening up to the national registry. At first I didn't know what to think about LifeSharers. But then I read their FAQs and found this quote on their website...








...Dr. Friedman has spoken. Think about it, if you could join a club that gave you first dibs on organs, wouldn't you join. You never incur a cost to join because you fulfill you obligation upon death. No, I haven't joined yet, but I'm seriously considering it.

Save the Crack Babies!!!

Politicians are smart when it come to advertising their positions. Bush stifles discussion on the war in Iraq by claiming that detractor's want to "cut and run." In the War on Drugs, which has been going on for 30 years(!), politicians are just as clever; just conjure up the image of a crack baby crying for food on a cold floor in the ghetto. Surely any moral person would spend over $40 billion to save the crack baby.

Here is your next fix of Friedman.

Milton declares "the prohibition of drugs is the most immoral program that the United States has ever engaged in." I love that when I watch these videos now I can predict the arguments Milton will use even before he gets the opportunity to respond. One of my favorite parts is when his opponent is asked whether he would prefer more funding for enforcement or treatment. His respone: both. I laughed.

Addendum: Here is an older video with a younger Friedman on the same topic.

Great TV

Everybody, including me, has their shows that they love to watch on TV. 24, Lost, Grey's Anatomy, Good Eats (haha, yes!), etc. etc. But if you are willing to sit through an hour or 45 minutes for one of those shows, I implore you, I implore you, please sit through just 30 minutes with Milton Friedman if you have not yet done so. If you do and are not impressed, I cannot imagine why you read this blog. If you do and are impressed you will have gained a better understanding of what motivates me to write this blog.

Free to choose

I'm not sure many in my readership actually have much down time. However, I would suggest that you "make" time to view at least some of these videos. If I had been the video editor I would have flashed up text over the guests' faces reading "PWNED" whenever Milton Friedman responded to their objections.