Bob Murphy

Author Archive

Did Jesus and the Early Christian Church Renounce Violence Against Non-Believers?

Bryan Caplan is sure that they didn’t. In a recent post at EconLog, he first quotes Nathan Smith who wrote: The Old Testament, to be sure, contains some hair-raising passages that seem very much opposed to religious freedom, but that’s part of the Mosaic law, which St. Paul’s epistles clearly and insistently establish is not […]

Being a Liberal Means Never Having to Say You’re Forgiven

[UPDATE below.] Now that Tom Woods and I have a hugely successful podcast analyzing Paul Krugman’s columns, I have hardly been paying attention to his blog posts. So while I was killing time today waiting for the Texas Tech parking lot to clear out after their heartbreaking buzzer-beater loss to Baylor, I got caught up […]

Potpourri

==> For those in the Houston area, I’m going to be at the Mises Circle on January 30. Other speakers include Ron Paul, Lew Rockwell, and Jeff Deist. Details here. ==> Speaking of the Mises Institute, they’re trying to get updates from any alumni who have been through Mises U. ==> A lot of people […]

Contra Krugman Episode 18: We Tackle the China Syndrome

Episode here.

Mystery Explained

Thanks to Captain Parker and E. Harding, they were telling me the answer to my previous query, but I was not receptive until yesterday for some reason. Here’s a chart showing the drop in official “total reserve balances” and how it is largely explained by a rise in Treasury deposits (with the Fed) and reverse […]

Federal Reserve Banks: Total Assets vs. Reserve Balances

Here’s something interesting, possibly disturbing, that I just noticed while prepping for a radio interview: The red line shows that since the “taper” ended, the Fed has been treading water with its assets, rolling over bonds as they mature but not letting its total holdings drop. On the other hand, the blue line shows the […]

Inverted Yield Curve and Recessions

The 3-month and 1-year Treasury yields have gone way up in the past year, but the overall spread (say between them and the 10-year) is still quite positive, so the classic warning of an impending recession is still not here. Here’s a long-term chart: In the chart above, the red line is the 10-year yield, […]

Potpourri

==> I realize I am trained at this point to perceive tension between our popular Keynesian writers, but isn’t there a problem reconciling this DeLong piece with this Krugman op ed? ==> This Vox piece is happy to report that (apparently) employers aren’t penalizing full-time work in response to ObamaCare mandates as many analysts (including me) […]