Free To Choose

When money printing increases demand everywhere, nobody realizes it at first. Business feels great. Then costs catch up 5-6 months later. This delay is the hidden mechanism of inflation—and exactly why it can't be cured without a temporary recession. The damage is already done…

What does it really cost to maintain America's position as a global superpower? The answer goes far beyond any budget line. From Travis Mills rebuilding his life after losing four limbs in Afghanistan to small towns whose survival depends on nearby military bases, The True Cost…

The numbers tell one story: $800+ billion spent on defense annually. But behind every dollar is a human story—veterans rebuilding their lives, recruiters working Friday night football games, and communities whose very existence depends on nearby bases. Tomorrow, discover what…

Schools that were about to lose nearly all their students made more progress in two years than they had in the previous 30. What changed? Competition arrived. Milton Friedman knew that competition doesn't assume private is better than public—it simply requires both to actually…

Today, we celebrate what would have been Bob Chitester's 88th birthday. In 1980, Bob co-founded Free To Choose Network with Milton and Rose Friedman, creating the platform that brought Milton's revolutionary economic ideas to millions of people worldwide. Bob understood that…

Happy National Internet Day! The internet wasn't created by a government committee sitting around a conference table plotting humanity's digital future. It emerged from frustrated computer scientists who were tired of walking between terminals just to use different machines.…

Defense isn't just about dollars and equipment. It's about the people who dedicate their lives to protecting our freedom, the workers who build what they need, and the families who support them through it all. Watch the full trailer for The True Cost of Defense and mark your…

Milton Friedman on inflation's irony: Everyone's against it—until you ask if they've benefited. “When most people say they want to stop inflation, what they mean is that they want the prices of the things they buy to go down and the prices of the things they sell to go up. But…

Everyone "knows" the Great Depression was capitalism's fault. The stock market crash, banks failing, fortunes lost—clearly the free market had failed, right? Milton Friedman says you're looking at the wrong culprit entirely. December 11, 1930. That's the date that really…

"We need to break up Big Tech!" The assumption: once a business gets big enough, it becomes permanently entrenched. But 90% of Fortune 500 companies from 1955 have disappeared. Natural monopolies contain the seeds of their own destruction. The real threat isn't successful…

Recorded in 1995, Dennis McCuistion, former Clinical Professor of Corporate Governance and Executive Director of the Institute for Excellence in Corporate Governance at the University of Texas at Dallas hosts a discussion about the war on drugs with former Cato Institute…

Milton Friedman was pro-competition, not necessarily pro-business. Influenced by his colleague George Stigler, Friedman recognized that established businesses would be the first to exploit regulation—using it to exclude competitors, entrench their market position, and protect…

Everyone agrees America's defense spending is massive. But what does that actually mean for the communities where those dollars land? From military families to defense contractors to local economies, defense spending shapes lives in ways that go far beyond the headlines about…

Dogs steal bones, but they never buy them. What makes humans the only "animals that make bargains"? Professor Robert Lawson from SMU explains why trade might be the most fundamentally human activity—and how every McDonald's coffee purchase creates value from thin air. From Tom…

Governments love blaming “imported inflation”—but Milton Friedman calls it out as a myth. Before 1971's fixed exchange rates, inflation could spread between countries. Today with floating exchange rates, inflation is a national phenomenon. Each country controls its own money…

Sometimes the best ideas are so obvious that everyone assumes someone else must have tried them first. Estonia's Prime Minister Mart Laar discovered this when he implemented Milton Friedman's flat tax proposal, not knowing his small Baltic nation would be making economic history.…

What would Milton have said? A panel discussion on the crucial question about regulations: who actually sets the rules? Too often, it's the big incumbents protecting their turf. Before airline deregulation, service was wonderful—but expensive and exclusive. Few people could…

During the Cold War, America dedicated 6% of GDP to national defense. Today, it's 3%. This shift raises fundamental questions about what constitutes adequate defense spending in a free society. How do we balance fiscal responsibility with the imperative to protect liberty? And…

When Disney, Warner Bros., and Fox sued the Harmon Brothers for $120 million, most entrepreneurs would have called it quits. Instead, Neil and Jeff Harmon used that legal disaster to build something even bigger—an entertainment company that's flipping Hollywood's entire model…

The numbers don't lie: In economically free countries, even the poorest 10% earn $14,000 annually. In restricted economies? Just $1,700. Professor Robert Lawson from SMU's Bridwell Institute for Economic Freedom brings hard data to settle one of history's biggest economic…