Milton Friedman (1912-2006)
Filed under the name Milton · February 20, 2026
Milton Friedman won the Nobel Prize in economics, and his ideas about markets and monetary policy went on to shape economic thinking rather significantly around the world, which I mention with the particular caution of someone whose own relationship with money has never once required any actual theory, only inheritance and the occasional trustee's meeting I am dutifully invited to observe. I try, not always successfully, to catch myself before pontificating about 'markets' or 'hard work' with any real authority, given that neither has ever tested me the way it tests most people. What I can say honestly is that Friedman's influence on how entire governments think about economic policy is the kind of legacy built on ideas alone, tested and argued over decades by people with genuine expertise, rather than on the sort of inherited position I was simply handed at birth. That distinction matters more to me the longer I sit on these various boards, listening to people who actually built something, rather than merely stewarding what was already there.