Tape 138 - Economic Conditions, Monetary policy, International Scene, Watergate and Resignation

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-	Hello this is William Clark	0:02
	of the Chicago Tribune welcoming you again	0:03
	on behalf of Instructional Dynamics	0:05
	to a visit with the imminent economist	0:08
	Professor Milton Friedman of the University of Chicago.	0:10
	We're recording this interview	0:13
	on the morning of January 16th, 1974	0:15
	and we have a lot of things we'd like to talk about today.	0:20
	But Professor Friedman, I wonder	0:22
	what are the economic indicators telling us at this point?	0:24
-	Well so far,	0:29
	the economic indicators are all in line	0:30
	with the widespread expectations	0:33
	that the U.S. economy is in something of a slowdown	0:35
	and is heading for a further slowdown.	0:40
	We had a minor, but appreciable rise in unemployment,	0:44
	it has gone up from its low now about 4.5 to 4.9.	0:50
	It's not a drastic change,	0:55
	but it's a change in the direction	0:57
	that would be expected if in deed a slowdown	0:58
	and recession was in process.	1:01
	The figures for the fourth quarter GNP	1:04
	are scheduled to be released	1:08
	and advanced indications suggest	1:10
	that they will show only a 1% real rate	1:13
	of rise during that quarter	1:16
	which would mean a continuation of the slowdown	1:18
	in rates of growth from the very high level	1:20
	and unsustainable level reached in the first quarter	1:24
	to a level of 1%, which is decidedly	1:27
	below the sustainable level.	1:29
	The leading indicators, the series of numbers	1:32
	which record the movement of activities	1:35
	that tend to move early in a business cycle,	1:39
	have all been showing considerable degree	1:41
	of weakness for some months now.	1:44
	If you put the whole picture together,	1:46
	it is entirely consistent with the view	1:48
	that an economic slowdown,	1:51
	which may develop into a recession in the sense	1:56
	of a absolute decline in an economic output	1:59
	for some time, is in its early stages.	2:01
	However, I should add two qualifications to that.	2:07
	These numbers do not show any significant	2:12
	reflection of the oil crisis.	2:17
	That is to say, suppose there had never been	2:21
	the oil crisis and the Israeli-Arab War,	2:25
	if you take the kinds of predictions	2:30
	that I and others were making earlier in the year,	2:32
	what has been happening so far	2:34
	would be entirely consistent with those predictions.	2:36
	There is no indication than matters	2:41
	have turned drastically worse as a result of the oil crisis.	2:43
	Now this may mean either of two things.	2:47
	It may mean that we've got a delayed time bomb ticking	2:51
	and we haven't yet felt it	2:55
	or it may mean that the adverse effects of the oil crisis	2:57
	on the economy at large, have been grossly exaggerated.	3:01
	I must say, I am inclined to the second of those views.	3:04
	I have no doubt that the oil crisis	3:07
	will have some negative effect,	3:08
	but I think it's been buildup to a monster	3:10
	and that the one thing that you can be absolutely certain of	3:14
	is that whatever happens, we'll be blamed on the oil crisis	3:17
	whether the oil crisis is responsible for it or not.	3:19
	The other qualification to be made of these comments	3:26
	is that even if you discount the oil crisis, as yet,	3:28
	the evidence is not decisive or conclusive.	3:34
	Indeed, the thing that surprises me about	3:37
	the behavior of the economy so far is that it is,	3:40
	if anything, stronger than I would've anticipated.	3:43
	So that with those qualifications, however,	3:47
	I think we can say that the best single reading in judgment	3:49
	is that we are in the early stages of a recession.	3:54
William	I see.	3:58
	I think it's time for you to review	3:59
	the monetary situation again too, Milton	4:01
	and I wonder if we could get into this	4:04
	by reading some comments of your friend Walter W. Heller	4:07
	writing on the economic outlook	4:12
	for the National City Bank of Minneapolis.	4:14
	He makes these statements,	4:18
	"Federal Reserve policy seems poised, as it should be,	4:20
	"to shield the economy against the cold winds of recession.	4:23
	"The federal funds rage has been gently eased off	4:26
	"its high peaks above 10% and can be expected	4:29
	"to move sedately toward the 7% level	4:32
	"or so in the next few months.	4:34
	"Long before the funds rate drops that far,	4:36
	"the market will have gotten the message.	4:39
	"Commercial paper rates, prime rates,	4:41
	"and even the bill rate can be expected	4:42
	"to react sharply downward during	4:45
	"the first quarter of the year.	4:46
	"Given the softness of the economy,	4:48
	"given the fact that tight money can kill jobs and output,	4:50
	"but can't quench the fires of oil inflation,	4:53
	"and given better management of the oil shortfall	4:56
	"from here on out, monetary authorities can afford	4:59
	"to loosen the reigns.	5:02
	"It'll take substantial increases in the money supply	5:03
	"in the neighborhood of 7% to 9% at annual rates	5:06
	"to override the anticipated inflation offset	5:09
	"and provide net stimulus to the economy."	5:13
	Would you agree with those	5:16
	or would you challenge some of that thinking?	5:17
-	[Professor Friedman] Well, both.	5:20
	I can just see the physical image	5:22
	of the seven members of the Federal Reserve board	5:24
	poised their various costumes,	5:27
	getting ready to jump in his image.	5:30
	I don't know what that colorful language means.	5:34
	What I do know, is what in fact has been happening	5:37
	to the money supply and moreover.	5:40
	What are the likely consequences	5:43
	of what's been happening to the money supply.	5:45
	I think Walter Heller is probably right	5:47
	when he says that the Federal Reserve	5:51
	is going to expand the money supply fairly rapidly.	5:53
	I think he is probably wrong in some	5:56
	of the implications, which he draws from that.	5:59
	Now let me separate those out	6:01
	by starting from where we are now.	6:02
	My listeners will recall that for some months now,	6:06
	I have been warning that we seem to be on the verge	6:09
	of a very rapid expansion of the money supply.	6:11
	Indeed, if I may add a footnote on that.	6:14
	I had a letter from a member	6:17
	of the Federal Reserve referring	6:18
	to a quotation in The Wall Street Journal	6:20
	of something I had said over the telephone	6:23
	in which I had said that regardless of what the Fed says,	6:25
	there's gonna be a very rapid increase in the money supply.	6:27
	Then the member of the board who wrote me was objecting	6:30
	to this on the ground that he thought I was questioning	6:33
	the integrity of the Fed, that I was saying	6:35
	oh those boys aren't telling the truth.	6:37
	That's no what I had in mind at all.	6:38
	What I had in mind was that so often in the past,	6:41
	what they've said they're going to do	6:44
	and what they actually did were quite different.	6:45
	Not because they didn't have integrity,	6:48
	but because they didn't have confidence	6:49
	which is a quite different thing.	6:51
	I don't know whether he would've been more annoyed	6:53
	by my telling him he was incompetent	6:55
	(laughs)	6:57
	that he was dishonest.
	It's no mere which one of those is the worst chart.	6:58
	But at any event, that is exactly what has indeed happened.	7:01
	If you go back and look at the broad picture	7:05
	of the money supply, what you'll have is	7:07
	that in the first part of this year,	7:09
	up until sort of June or July,	7:12
	the money supply was increasing at a very rapid,	7:16
	undesirably rapid rate.	7:19
	And then all of a sudden, the Fed pulled back on the reigns	7:22
	and for something like four months from July	7:24
	to October there was essentially no change	7:28
	whatsoever in the money supply.	7:31
	It is that very drastic reduction in the money supply	7:33
	which will probably show up in the next few months	7:36
	in economic activity.	7:38
	Then beginning in September the Fed apparently got scared	7:41
	and as so often happens,	7:45
	they went too far in the other direction.	7:47
	Since October,	7:48
	the money supply has been rising in an incredible rate.	7:50
	I have before me the figures	7:53
	for the M1 currency and demand deposit.	7:54
	For the past two months, M1 has risen at a rate	7:58
	of roughly 10% a year.	8:01
	What were the numbers Walter Heller had in there?	8:04
	Seven to 9%?	8:06
-	Uh huh.
-	Not seven to 9%, but 10%.	8:08
	If you take the last three months,	8:10
	it's 8% and you can see the buildup by going back farther.	8:12
	From over the past four months it's 5%.	8:16
	Over the past five months 4%.	8:18
	But then to get it not in terms of that,	8:21
	but in terms of turning dates,	8:25
	what we can say is that zero from July to October,	8:27
	10% from October to date, for the narrow money supply.	8:31
	If you look at the broad money supply,	8:35
	including time deposits,	8:37
	the shift has not been that great,	8:38
	but it's been running at something over 10%	8:42
	for the past three months and before that,	8:45
	it had been running at a considerable lower rate,	8:48
	something like six or 7% for a while.	8:50
	So again, the broad money supply confirmed this.	8:53
	Now, Walter Heller indicated that he expected	8:57
	that this would bring down sharply	9:00
	the short-term interstrains.	9:02
	We can look at what has already happened.	9:04
	From a two months, very rapid or three	9:06
	and 2 1/2 months by now,	9:09
	very rapid rate in the money supply.	9:11
	That has been accompanied by an easing off	9:14
	of some of the short-term rates.	9:16
	Federal funds rates are down from 10 1/2 or 11%	9:18
	to the neighborhood of nine to 10%.	9:23
	The prime rate is down from something in	9:25
	the neighborhood of reaching the peak at 10%,	9:29
	it's dragged down to maybe 9 1/2%	9:32
	Not a very big easing off.	9:34
	Commercial paper is down from a high of 10 1/2%	9:36
	to somewhere around 8 1/2 or 9%.	9:40
	So, summarizing, if you look at the short-term rates,	9:43
	they have come down rather appreciably	9:46
	in the last few months in response	9:50
	to this more rapid increase in the quantity of money.	9:51
	However, and this is what I think	9:54
	is in some ways are more interesting phenomenon.	9:56
	The long-term rates, the rates on bonds,	9:59
	cooperative and municipal, mortgage rates,	10:03
	similar long-term rates have not only not come down	10:06
	but if anything have gone up a little in that same period.	10:08
	What has been happening is as we have noted in the past,	10:12
	the expectations of inflation have been heated up	10:15
	by the oil crisis and by other comments as well and	10:18
	that has tended to keep long-term rates very high or rising.	10:21
-	Is there a considerably further fall in prospect?	10:27
-	Of course, that partly depends	10:31
	on what the Fed does with its rate of monetary increase	10:33
	but let's suppose that for a few months more	10:35
	it keeps it going very rapidly.	10:37
	In the past, the short-term impact	10:40
	on rates has lasted something like six months	10:42
	and then it has turned around.	10:46
	That is a rapid rate of monetary increase after a delay.	10:48
	Causes short-term rates to go up not down,	10:51
	that's because of its effect on inflationary expectations.	10:54
	In recent years at lag seems	10:57
	to have been shortening if anything,	10:59
	as the market has gotten wiser to this relationship.	11:00
	I'm inclined to believe,	11:04
	that while short-term rates may come down	11:06
	a little bit more in response	11:09
	to a continued rapid monetary expansion.	11:11
	I will be surprised if there is any kind	11:14
	of a major decline in those rates.	11:15
	Now it is true, that as the recession	11:18
	and slowdown that I mentioned continues,	11:19
	that in of itself will also tend to lower short-term rates.	11:22
	So, I am not really questioning Heller's prediction	11:25
	about the direction,	11:29
	but I am questioning his prediction about	11:30
	the magnitude and more important I doubt very much	11:31
	that there will be much of an impact	11:34
	on the long-term rates.	11:37
	Moreover, if the Fed does continue that policy,	11:40
	it is certainly storing up food for inflation.	11:44
	I do not at all agree with the prescription	11:48
	that Heller is making that it is desirable	11:50
	to have such rapid rates of increase	11:53
	in the quantity of money.	11:55
	The thing that puzzles me about comments such as Hellers,	11:59
	is that he and others regard the problems of recession	12:05
	in the current situation as different	12:09
	from those which usually exist in the sense	12:11
	that he regards them currently as being	12:13
	from the supply side rather than the demand side.	12:15
	He thinks it's the oil shortage	12:18
	which is gonna have a multiply effect on supply.	12:20
	Under those circumstances,	12:22
	it's very hard to see why they should continue	12:23
	with their usual former prediction	12:26
	of just heating up demand to offset this.	12:28
	Heller quotes Arthur Burns to the effect	12:30
	that the economy was suffering	12:34
	from a shortage of fuel not of money.	12:35
	I should suppose that was abundantly clear	12:37
	although I hasten to add that from the figures I've cited,	12:39
	the Fed does not seem to have been acting in accordance	12:42
	with Burns pronouncement,	12:45
	but I think the pronouncement is correct in	12:46
	that the desirable thing from the economic point of view	12:48
	would be not to go swing all the way	12:53
	to the other extreme as the Fed is now doing.	12:56
	I think that's an appalling mistake.	12:58
	It would be far more appropriate to the needs of the country	13:01
	if the Fed would hold the rate of increase down	13:05
	to something like five or 5 1/2% at the most	13:08
	in the rate of increase to the core narrow money supply.	13:12
	At the most, indeed I would go still lower than that,	13:16
	but certainly no more than that.	13:18
	Because you now in a way have a unique opportunity.	13:21
	It may be bad economics to blame everything on oil,	13:25
	but from the Fed's point of view,	13:28
	they have at least an excuse which they can turn to.	13:30
	They can blame on oil the minor recession	13:34
	and as I've argued so many times in the past,	13:37
	we are never going to get over this inflation	13:40
	without going through some minor recession.	13:42
	What better time to start on that process than right now?	13:44
-	Yes, speaking of the Fed.	13:48
	One of your friends and a colleague of sorts,	13:50
	Henry Wallich has been appointed	13:53
	to the Federal Reserve Board.	13:54
	What is the significance of that appointment?	13:56
-	Well Henry Wallich is being appointed	13:59
	to replace Dewey Daane.	14:00
	Dewey Daane was the man on the Federal Reserve Board	14:03
	who was assigned the task more or less	14:07
	of keeping tabs on International monetary arrangements.	14:09
	I don't mean that he was the only one who did that,	14:12
	obviously the Chairman, everybody else participates in that,	14:14
	but his special assignment on the board	14:17
	was International Monetary Relations	14:19
	and he would represent the board at many	14:21
	of the International meetings.	14:23
	Henry Wallich is an economist from Yale	14:25
	who has been along with Paul Samuelson and myself,	14:28
	a member of the Newsweek troika,	14:32
	that is the three of us	14:35
	who write economic columns successive weeks.	14:36
	He was at one time a member of President Eisenhower's	14:39
	Council of Economic Advisors.	14:43
	He has served as a special consultant to the Treasury,	14:45
	particularly when David Kennedy was in	14:51
	and more recently in a less active extent	14:53
	with George Shultz.	14:55
	He has written extensively on monetary matters.	14:57
	He wrote an extremely good book	15:01
	on the postwar economic progress in Germany,	15:03
	he is of German birth,	15:07
	originally	15:08
-	I see.
-	a naturalized citizen of the United States	15:09
	and he has also done a good deal	15:12
	of work in South American economy.	15:13
	He's an able competent economist,	15:15
	not a man of great, personal force or strong independence.	15:17
	He will not add, I am sorry to say,	15:21
	a really truly independent voice on the board,	15:22
	but he will add a rather highly,	15:25
	confident voice to the board.	15:28
-	Milton let's get back to this subject of oil	15:31
	and related subjects for just a moment.	15:33
	The committee of 20 is meeting in Rome	15:36
	and the head of the International Monetary Fund	15:39
	has making some dire comments about	15:42
	the impact of the oil situation, worldwide.	15:44
	I wonder if you would care to discuss that briefly.	15:48
-	That is a very interesting situation	15:52
	what Mr. Woodhaven, the new head of the IMS has been saying	15:54
	and what other people have been saying is	15:57
	that because of the high prices of oil	15:59
	and this is going to cause great balance	16:02
	of payments deficits on the part	16:05
	of the various European countries.	16:07
	The Arab oil countries are going	16:09
	to be accumulating very large reserves.	16:11
	Numbers have been tossed around like 50, 60, 70, 80 billion	16:14
	dollars a year surplus returned to the oil company.	16:18
	And then people have gone on	16:23
	and conjured up horror stories about	16:24
	what would happen to the International Monetary system	16:26
	as those 80 billion dollars of oil funds flows all around	16:28
	the world or is used to disrupt markets	16:32
	or thrown into the stock market or something like that.	16:34
	The one thing I feel very confident about is	16:37
	that that prediction will not be true, it will not be valid.	16:39
	Such predictions are based on some assumptions about	16:46
	the price of oil, about the purchases of oil, and so on.	16:49
	I don't know what exactly will render the assumptions falls.	16:52
	The market is wiser in that respect than I am,	16:56
	but I can only say that any setup prices in quantities	16:58
	which has as an implication that you are going	17:02
	to have a net outflow of 60 or 80 billion dollars a year	17:05
	from one group of countries to another group of countries	17:08
	has something wrong about it.	17:10
	That will not happen.	17:11
	Exchange rates will give.	17:12
	There will be greater conservation of oil.	17:16
	There will be more alternative supply.	17:18
	Something or other will happen,	17:20
	but one thing you will not have	17:21
	is any accumulations of that amount in	17:23
	the hands of the Arab countries.	17:26
	You may have some temporary surpluses	17:29
	while their cartel policy is working,	17:31
	but it will not be of that magnitude.	17:33
	However, there's another aspect of this	17:36
	which I think may also be of considerable interest.	17:37
	I think that this oil talk	17:41
	and this talk about these problems	17:44
	that may give the committee, 20 in occasion,	17:46
	to get off of a hook on which they are presently impaled.	17:49
	They promised a year ago that they were going	17:54
	to terminate their discussions by July 31, 1974	17:56
	but as of that date they were going	18:01
	to reach a final agreement on a restructuring	18:02
	of the world monetary system.	18:04
	Many of the countries specified	18:06
	that that kind of restructuring	18:08
	which it would involve a new system	18:09
	of fixed but adjustable payings	18:11
	with convertibility into gold or into other currencies	18:14
	or something like that.	18:17
	Subscribers recall that I have consistently said	18:20
	that you are never gonna get such agreement	18:23
	on a fundamental restructuring unless you have	18:24
	an International Monetary crisis	18:26
	and so long as you have a floating exchange rates you	18:29
	will not have International Monetary crisis	18:31
	and therefore I have stated with great confidence there	18:33
	will be no such agreement.	18:35
	Now everybody is saying that because of the oil situation,	18:36
	the timetable has to be changed.	18:40
	What we did before, we can no longer do,	18:41
	things are very uncertain.	18:43
	I would not be surprised if the countries took	18:44
	it as an occasion to say well let's declare success	18:47
	and end this thing,	18:50
	we must maintain flexibility for quite a while	18:51
	and therefore let's enter into an agreement under	18:54
	which we state general principals	18:56
	but don't really try to a fundamental restructuring	18:58
	of the institutions, but in effect,	19:01
	simply validate the existing situation	19:04
	which is a situation of really	19:07
	reasonably for the fluctuating exchange rates.	19:09
	If that were to occur, I may say,	19:12
	I would myself regard it as a fine birthday present	19:13
	since July 31st is my birthday.	19:16
	I told sometime back when I saw George Shultz,	19:18
	I told him he was planning a birthday present	19:22
	for me along these lines, I hope he comes through.	19:24
	(laughing)	19:26
-	Well let's hope he does.	19:27
	Milton the late we visited, after we talked about Brazil	19:29
	and after we finished taping,	19:33
	you made some comments about some thoughts about	19:35
	the American Presidency that were generated	19:37
	by your observations of the government in Brazil.	19:40
	I thought it was intensely interesting	19:44
	and I think our subscribers would like to hear those.	19:45
-	One of the characteristics of the South American countries	19:48
	that anybody who goes down there is impressed with,	19:52
	has been the role which the military	19:56
	has played in those countries.	19:58
	But one aspect of that role,	20:00
	I had not been really aware of	20:01
	or had not taken it into account until	20:03
	on this trip when I heard a little bit more	20:05
	in detail about some of the history.	20:07
	That has to do with the success of elements	20:09
	in military intervention.	20:11
	What's happened over and over again in these countries	20:13
	is that you'll have had a Democratic	20:15
	or reasonably Democratic or Republican kind of government	20:17
	and the military has been off on the side,	20:21
	sometimes regarding themselves as defenders	20:23
	of the Constitution, as was clearly the case for many,	20:26
	many years in Chile and in other countries.	20:29
	What then happens is that there is a disturbance	20:32
	or a disruption, or close to revolution	20:34
	in the civilian scare and with great reluctance,	20:37
	the military enters in a caretaker role.	20:43
	It enters in with the supposed purpose	20:46
	of restoring the situation and then removing itself	20:49
	from the political situation.	20:53
	Most of the time, it does on the first occasion.	20:55
	This is what happened in Brazil,	20:57
	this is what happened in Argentina	20:58
	and some other countries.	20:59
	It restores order, it gets out.	21:01
	Then, a situation resumes its course.	21:05
	It may be alright for a while,	21:09
	sooner or later, another disturbance grows up	21:11
	and this time, this is the important point.	21:12
	It takes much less of a abnormal situation	21:15
	to bring the military in and once they get in,	21:17
	they tend to stay in.	21:19
	That is to say, the appetite grows by what it feeds on	21:21
	and from being a temporary intervener,	21:25
	the military becomes a permanent element	21:29
	in the political structure.	21:31
	You'll have a fundamental change in	21:33
	the constitutional character arising out of this episode.	21:35
	Well those are the thoughts that led me	21:38
	to reflect a little bit more on the problem	21:39
	of the U.S. and the presidency,	21:42
	in particularly all the talk about the possible impeachment	21:43
	or resignation of President Nixon.	21:46
	Impeachment and conviction of President Nixon	21:51
	would be fully in accord	21:53
	with our constitutional arrangements	21:54
	and would involve in no way whatsoever any kind of a break.	21:55
	However, let us suppose Mr. Nixon were	21:59
	to resign under pressing pressures	22:01
	that would be a real break	22:04
	with our fundamental constitutional arrangements.	22:07
	It would be like the first time	22:10
	that the military intervened in one	22:11
	of these South American countries.	22:12
	Our tradition and our constitution alike,	22:14
	call for the President of the country to be elected	22:16
	by the people, and displaced either	22:18
	by the end of his term or by constitutional provisions	22:21
	through impeachment.	22:26
	There is no provision in our constitution	22:27
	for some extra legal body such as in this case,	22:29
	the press and the media to be in a position	22:32
	to drive a President from office	22:34
	to force him to resign.	22:36
	If Mr. Nixon under pressing circumstances were to resign,	22:38
	that would have very many favorable effects	22:42
	from the short run point of view	22:45
	it would undoubtedly eliminate a lot of uncertainty,	22:47
	it would clear up the political scene.	22:49
	It would, as people say,	22:51
	let congress and the President get back to their business	22:53
	although, I may say as a digression,	22:56
	one of the favorable effects of Watergate is	22:58
	that it's kept congress from its business,	23:00
	its business being the past bad laws.	23:02
	(laughing)	23:04
	But to go back to the main thing that I was commenting on,	23:05
	such a resignation might have many,	23:11
	many short-term advantages.	23:13
	But now look at it now from a point of view of its effect	23:15
	on our fundamental constitutional structure.	23:17
	It would be basic a break	23:20
	in our constitutional provisions, on this occasion.	23:22
	The press in driving Mr. Nixon out of office	23:25
	will not have acted deliberately.	23:28
	None of the members of the press started	23:30
	what has in fact grown up under the label	23:33
	of Watergate for that purpose,	23:35
	it was more or less an accidental byproduct	23:37
	of their long-term, long-time dislike	23:39
	and distaste of the President	23:43
	and of the very, very real abuses	23:45
	that occurred in the course of the Watergate investigation.	23:47
	I'm for a moment condoning any of those abuses.	23:51
	I'm not for a moment saying that people	23:54
	who have been guilty should not be tried	23:56
	and all the rest of it.	23:58
	The sense to your question's a very definite,	23:59
	The question is, what would be the consequences	24:01
	of a press campaign, which whatever may be	24:04
	the real abuses have blown them all out out	24:08
	of the wall proportion and have caused	24:10
	the American people to lose complete sense	24:11
	of perspective about the importance	24:13
	of this verses other things.	24:16
	What will be the constitutional consequences	24:18
	of such a campaign having driven a President from office?	24:20
	When I was commenting on this to someone else,	24:25
	he mentioned that it would be the second occasion	24:26
	that the first occasion was	24:28
	when the media drove President Johnson from office,	24:29
	but I think that was quite different.	24:32
	The media put him in a position	24:34
	where he decided not to let himself be renominated,	24:36
	not to run for renomination.	24:39
	That is a role that the media has always played	24:41
	in this country in determining	24:42
	and helping determine public opinion,	24:44
	this is a political process.	24:45
	On the other hand,	24:47
	if the media this time succeeds in driving a President	24:48
	out in mid office, they will have felt their oats.	24:51
	The next time it will be different.	24:53
	The next time he will have many people within the media	24:55
	who will be consistently looking for an opportunity	24:57
	to drive out anybody they don't approve of.	25:01
	We will be on a way toward having	25:04
	what Claire Boothe Luce in a very trenching comment called	25:06
	properly government of the press,	25:09
	for the press, and in the press.	25:12
	I think that would constitute a fundamental change	25:14
	in the basic constitutional character of our society.	25:18
	I think it would be a tragedy if it did happen	25:21
	and for that reason I am inclined to hope	25:23
	that President Nixon does not yield	25:26
	to this pressure and does not resign.	25:29
	I am not predicting that will happen.	25:31
	On the contrary, if I had to make a prediction,	25:33
	I would suppose that the probabilities were substantial	25:35
	that he will resign, but if he does,	25:38
	it will be a dark day in the history of American Democracy.	25:41
-	Thank you Professor Milton Friedman	25:45
	of the University of Chicago.	25:46
	If you subscribers would like to suggest questions	25:48
	or subjects for discussion for future tapes,	25:50
	please write to Instructional Dynamics	25:53
	166 East Superior Street, Chicago Illinois, 6-0-6-1-1.	25:55
	We'll be back with the Professor Friedman	26:01
	in a couple of weeks.	26:03

Item Info

Title:

Tape 138 - Economic Conditions, Monetary policy, International Scene, Watergate and Resignation

Date:

January 16, 1974

Contributor:

Friedman, Milton, 1912-2006

Subject:

Format:

audiocassettes

Language:

English

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Paul A. Samuelson papers, 1933-2010 and undated

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Paul A. Samuelson papers, 1933-2010

Series:

Economics Cassette Series: Milton Friedman

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ref2712_yso
samuelsonpaul
duke:325308
pstau001285
ark:/87924/r4sq8r08f
402c5a07-f434-40b0-bcab-b4e62b39ac26

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Tape 138 - Economic Conditions, Monetary policy, International Scene, Watergate and Resignation

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