Milton Friedman Dies at 94

This news came across my inbox today. With sadness, I must pass it along:

Milton Friedman, the Nobel Prize-winning economist who advocated an unfettered free market and had the ear of Presidents Nixon, Ford and Reagan, died Thursday. He was 94.

In more than a dozen books and in his column in Newsweek magazine, Friedman championed individual freedom in economics and politics.

His theories won him a Nobel Prize in economics in 1976.

Milton Friedman, in addition to his economic work, was a champion of individual freedom and bears his mark on the philosophy of the authors here. He is a central figure in the philosophy of libertarianism and free-market economics. He will be missed, but in that emotion, he will also be remembered.

As a blogger, I’m a regular reader of Catallarchy, where his grandson, Patri Friedman, posts. In addition, I regularly read Milton’s son David Friedman’s blog “Ideas”, and read his book, The Machinery of Freedom. Being involved in the world of blogging, reading their work (and sharing Patri’s affinity for poker), it makes something like this a little bit more personal. So I’d like to extend my condolences to both of them, and their entire family, for their loss.