Think you understand economics? Someone said once: We need one -armed economists so that they won’t be able to say: ‘On the other hand’. And of course, the hidden hand guiding the greed game is invisible.
So the question is, do corporate executives, provided they stay within the law, have responsibilities in their business activities other than to make as much money for their stockholders as possible? And my answer to that is, no they do not.
— economist Milton Friedman, ChemTech, 1974
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Stanford President Kennedy when asked to support divestment from apartheid South Africa: “My responsibility is a fiscal one, not a moral one”.
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“Shortly after she was named to head the Commodity Futures Trading Commission in 1996, Brooksley E. Born was invited to lunch by. then Fed. Chair Alan Greenspan.
“Well Brooksley, I guess you and I will never agree about fraud.” Born, in a recent interview, remembers Greenspan saying.
“What is there not to agree on?” Born says she replied.
“Well, you probably will always believe there should be laws against fraud and I don’t think there is any need for a law against fraud,” she recalled. Greenspan, Born says, believed the market would take care of itself.”
Rick Schmit: “Prophet” in the Stanford Magazine
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Who is going to regulate the regulators?
To help us answer that question and bring us up to date:
Criminal investigation into Fed chair Powell has ‘reinforced’ concerns over independence, Goldman Sachs warns – business live.
-The Guardian: January 12, 2026
Have a nice day.