In the world of economics, Milton Friedman is an icon. His contributions to understanding how free markets work earned him a Nobel Prize and a reputation as one of history’s most brilliant economists and teachers.Now the University of Chicago, Freidman’s academic home for 30 years, is embroiled in controversy over plans to honor Friedman by naming a new institute for him. Recently 70 protesters gathered to denounce free markets and the proposed institute. 100 faculty members signed a protest letter.

One of them, religion professor Bruce Lincoln, declared:

“Friedman’s over.”

He claimed the current financial crisis proves that Friedman’s views are wrong. Now is “not the time to start building a shrine to him,” he said.

Actually, Mr. Lincoln, there couldn’t be a better moment.

The financial state we’re in demonstrates how correct Friedman is. The sub-prime housing bust is a direct result of government liberals tampering with free markets to satisfy their left-leaning political agenda; it’s that simple.

Requiring lenders to provide loans to unqualified applicants in the name of “social justice” and “equality” has nothing to do with free markets — it is socialism. It hasn’t worked anywhere else in the world, it didn’t work here, and it will not work if the Berry wins this election and tries his hand at it.

Free markets work; socialism fails. Simple, true…

but too much for the liberal brain to comprehend.

Okay.

Sean Penn, pay attention — or Danny Glover, or any of you other leftists insaniacs.

This is Reuters.

“Despite having some of the world’s largest energy reserves, Venezuela is increasingly struggling to maintain basic electrical service…”

“Venezuela is increasingly struggling to maintain basic electrical service, a growing challenge for leftist president Hugo Chavez.”

We got a communist media, a socialist media reporting on a socialist, communist dictator, which every socialist country in the world has this problem. The Soviet Union had a lot of oil. They also had problems.

“[A] challenge for leftist president Hugo Chavez. The OPEC nation has suffered three nationwide blackouts this year. Chronic power shortages have sparked protests from the western Andean highlands to San Felix, a city of mostly per industrial workers in the sweltering south.”

I’ve been thinking about this Joe the Plumber business, and everybody is pointing out that it’s not what Joe the Plumber asked Obama, it’s what Obama answered. He wants to “spread the wealth around.”

But it’s actually even worse than that. It’s now about how quickly team Obama was able to shut down Joe the Plumber, to mock him, to make fun of him, to investigate him, to demonize him, to virtual Tony Soprano him. They did everything but throw him in the East River with concrete blocks tied to his feet, and yet all of these associations that Obama has, they have no interest in exposing, at least right now.

But the issue itself is even bigger than Joe. It’s bigger than Obama’s lame answer, and it’s even bigger than Obama’s attack machine. Because the left tells us and Obama tells us, they’re only going to go after the super rich. That’s who’s going to pay the tax increases. That’s who’s going to be gotten even with, right?

Well, who’s Joe the Plumber? Joe the Plumber is just an average, ordinary American with dreams, and who’d they go after? They went after Joe the Plumber. That tells us what they’re going to do. They’re going to go after achievers. It doesn’t matter what your income. If you achieve, you’re going to pay for it. If you dream of achieving, they’re going to find you, and they’re going to come up with policies to make sure that you give up that quest real fast.

So you might say,

“Okay, first they came after the super rich, then they came after the rich, and now they’re going after the achievers,”

and that’s what this episode with Joe the Plumber shows.

You might think it’s just about trying to silence and discredit a guy who embarrassed Obama, but it’s more than that — and it wasn’t just the media. It was Obama’s team, too, that set out to destroy this guy. So you’re sitting out there thinking, “Obama is only gonna go after the super rich, or the rich.” But you can see right in front of your very eyes, they’re going to go after the achievers.

And if you say nothing, when they eventually get to you, there’s not going to be anybody else to defend you.

Joe the Plumber was on Fox News Channel’s Huckabee show on Saturday night. And Huckabee said,

“You find yourself under an enormous level of scrutiny. How does that make you felt, Joe the Plumber?”

WURZELBACHER:

It actually upsets me. You know, I am a plumber, and just a plumber. And here, you know, Barack Obama or John McCain, I mean these guys are going to deal with some serious issues coming up shortly. The media is worried about whether I’ve paid my taxes. They’re worried about any number of silly things that have nothing to do with America, I mean they really don’t. You know, I asked a question, you know. When you can’t ask a question of your leaders anymore, that gets scary, that bothers me.

That’s exactly right, Joe. They’re out to destroy you for the question you asked and for the answer you forced from Obama’s lips. But the thing to learn about Joe the Plumber, it’s not just what Obama said in response to his question. It’s what happened. And the left made it clear they are going after achievers. They are not just going after the rich. Joe the Plumber is not rich and he’s not on board. Joe the Plumber has not signed on. And so Joe the Plumber is like anybody else, he’s going to be investigated, he’s going to have his life turned upside down ’til he gets his mind right.

What we have here with Joe the Plumber and Barack Obama is a failure to communicate. And so they’re going to have to throw Joe the Plumber back down in the ditch or put him in the box ’til he gets his mind right.

Welcome to Socialism, Joe. It’s going to be a long disturbing trip…

The best way to describe the Barack Obama financial plan is trickle-up poverty.

Everybody who’s poor is going to stay that way; people who are in the middle class are going to get poorer and on up the ladder. It’s trickle-up poverty via Obama’s tax increases.

Look, the Democrats have been trying to revise history on trickle-down economics but they admit that it works every time the government comes up with a stimulus plan. Every time Nancy Pelosi or somebody or Obama or anybody on the left says, “We need more consuming going on out there and people need more consuming power,” meaning they need more money, more disposable income.

It’s just the Democrats want to be thought of as the source of that disposable income. They don’t want that disposable income to come from tax cuts and people keeping more of what they earn.

They want that disposable income to come in the form of a bribe, a check from the government; and there are enough people, sadly, who will buy into this as good economics.

The Supreme Court on the 17th, sided with Democrats in this case involving Ohio’s Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner.

As you know, there are 200,000 voter registrations that don’t match their DMV records and Social Security numbers and so forth. The secretary of state of Ohio, she was saying,

“I don’t have time to implement this by Friday.”

Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals said, (paraphrasing)

“You gotta straighten this out. You gotta figure out which of these people are legit and which aren’t, you gotta do it by Friday.”

So she ran to the Supreme Court, and the Supreme Court — I think it’s the full court, I don’t think it was just Justice Stevens — said that the setup in Ohio is sufficient as it is to weed out all these fraudulent voters.

Republicans were contending the information for counties that they wanted Brunner to give would help prevent fraud, and Jennifer Brunner said the Republicans are trying to disenfranchise voters.

Ha! These are already known to be fraudulent registrations!

So basically Jennifer Brunner, the secretary of state for Ohio, went to the Supreme Court, said,

“Let my people cheat,”

and the United States Supreme Court said,

“So ordered. Your people can cheat.”

What a great country…