Quote Origin: There Ain’t No Such Thing as a Free Lunch — TANSTAAFL

Milton Friedman? Robert Heinlein? Robert G. Ingersoll? Michael Montague? Walter Morrow? John Madden? Harley L. Lutz? Pierre Dos Utt? Leonard P. Ayres? Jake Falstaff? Herman Fetzer? Anonymous? Question for Quote Investigator: Today many goods and services are available for free especially via the internet. However, the true cost is usually not zero. Subsidies, indirect costs, …

Quote Origin: A Shortage of Sand in the Sahara

Milton Friedman? William F. Buckley Jr.? French Sage? Alfred E. Kahn? Anonymous? Question for Quote Investigator: The well-known economist Milton Friedman was often critical of governmental power. The following saying has been attributed to him: If you put the federal government in charge of the Sahara Desert, in five years there’d be a shortage of …

Quote Origin: If You Want Jobs Then Give These Workers Spoons Instead of Shovels

Milton Friedman? William Aberhart? Walter Augustus Wyckoff? Unemployed Worker? Businessman in China? UK Minister of Agriculture? Question for Quote Investigator:: In 2011 an editorial in the Wall Street Journal mentioned a quotation that apparently is well-known: The famous Milton Friedman line about government ordering people to dig with spoons to employ more people comes to …