In Milton Friedman’s world, profits are god—more important than an end to poverty, life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. To Milton Friedman thinking, the only way to end poverty is for the top 1% to earn more than the bottom 99%, and to see that those earnings for the 1% continue to increase while the net worth of the 99% continues to shrink.

And here’s a perfect example of how this thinking works: The Hunger Games franchise.

The latest Hunger Games film, Mockingjay  – Part 1,  came out on November 21, and the next day, Saturday, I read a major media financial news piece about  how this film was a loser, because it didn’t earn more money its first weekend than the previous Hunger Games film, Catching Fire.  Before I reached the end of this piece, it mentioned how the stock prices had dropped for the production…