Milton Friedman is the most influential economist of the past half-century and, at the age of 92, is still as sharp as a tack (here are previous posts on Mr. Friedman). Craig Newmark passes along this recent interview of Mr. Friedman, which includes the following pearls of wisdom:
On Social Security:

Asked why, if Social Security is so terrible, it is the most popular government program in American history, Friedman replied, “Well, because why does a Ponzi game work? It’s easy to understand why it’s popular. So far, on the average, retirees have gotten more out of the system than they put into it. ”
What about the fact that Social Security has reduced poverty among the elderly?
“Well,” he replied, “what it has done is transfer a lot of income from the young to the old. It is certainly true it has made the old people of the United States the best treated old people in the world.”
But why is that a bad thing? “Oh,” Friedman replied. “It’s not a bad thing for them, but what about the young?”

On rent controls and his influence in political debates:

When [Mr. Friedman] moved to San Francisco in the 1970s, the city was debating rent control, he recalled. So he wrote a letter to The Chronicle saying, “Anybody who has examined the evidence about the effects of rent control, and still votes for it, is either a knave or a fool.”
What happened? “They immediately passed it,” he laughed.

On a related note, in this post, John Hamilton compiles his favorite Friedman quotes from Mr. Friedman’s famous book, Free to Choose, which includes my favorite:

“[A] private firm that makes a serious blunder may go out of business. A government agency is likely to get a bigger budget.”

Robert J. Samuelson makes a good point in this Washington Post op-ed by comparing excessive negativism over a few economic events to the Soviet launch of Sputnik in 1957:

Americans are having another Sputnik moment: one of those periodic alarms about some foreign technological and economic menace. It was the Soviets in the 1950s and early 1960s, the Germans and the Japanese in the 1970s and 1980s, and now it’s the Chinese and the Indians. To anyone old enough, there’s no forgetting Oct. 4, 1957, when the Soviets orbited the first space satellite. It terrified us. We’d taken our scientific superiority for granted. Foolish us. Soon there were warnings of a “missile gap” with the Soviets. One senator admonished that Americans should “be less concerned with . . . the height of the tail fin on the new car and . . . be more prepared to shed blood, sweat and tears if this country and the free world are to survive.”
Every complex economy is more (or less) than the sum of its parts. What matters is not just how much we save — but how well we invest. . . .
The Sputnik syndrome is an illusion. It transforms a few selective economic happenings — a satellite here, a Toyota there, poor test scores everywhere — into a full-blown theory of economic inferiority or superiority. As often as not, the result is misleading. We are now going through this process with China and India. Their entry into the global economy is a big deal, with some obvious pluses and minuses for us. As they get richer, some of their talent that once came our way may stay home (especially if we make getting U.S. visas harder). On the other hand, good ideas that originate in Bangalore or Shanghai will soon benefit people everywhere — just as good American or Japanese ideas have before. . . .
On being overtaken, history teaches another lesson. America’s economic strengths lie in qualities that are hard to distill into simple statistics or trends. We’ve maintained beliefs and practices that compensate for our weaknesses, including ambitiousness; openness to change (even unpleasant change); competition; hard work; and a willingness to take and reward risks. If we lose this magic combination, it won’t be China’s fault.

Read the entire piece.