Bob Murphy

Author Archive

My Exhaustive (Exhausting?) Review of Stephanie Kelton’s New MMT Book

Jeff Deist urged me to review this, and I’m glad he did. An excerpt: I’ve got good news and bad news. The good news is that Stephanie Kelton—economics professor at Stony Brook and advisor to the 2016 Bernie Sanders campaign—has written a book on modern monetary theory (MMT) that is very readable and will strike […]

BMS ep 124: How to Defund the Police, and Eyewitness Account of CHAZ

This is one of the rare times when my areas of expertise are actually in popular demand. (The other time was when capital theory briefly became cool when Piketty’s book came out.) I first spend an hour or so laying out the theory of how to think about “defund the police.” Then I interview Whitney […]

Potpourri

==> I know some libertarians still think masks are a sham, but FYI here is Fauci admitting the US government deliberately misled Americans early on, in order to reserve masks for health care workers. (Many of us were cynically speculating that this is what happened, but here he admits it.) ==> Speaking of masks, here […]

Murphy Twin Spin

==> The final episode of Contra Krugman. I promised myself I wouldn’t cry. ==> In the latest Bob Murphy Show, I discuss flaws with economists trying to justify the coronavirus lockdowns on cost/benefit grounds.

Potpourri

==> Contra Krugman ep. 224 contains a major announcement, which some of you may not have heard yet… ==> Rob Bradley on “pandemic oil policy.” ==> As if things couldn’t get any worse: Americans are saving too much. ==> My high school classmate went on to become a medical doctor, and here is his screencast […]

Bob Murphy Show ep. 122: Alex Salter on the Empty Slogan “State Capacity,” and the Infamous Somalia Challenge

Audio here, video below:

Potpourri

==> Holy crap, look at the turn this interview with Richard Epstein ends up taking. ==> CDC makes really dumb mistake (?) by mixing results of different types of corona tests. ==> Contrary to most online libertarians, I have been beating the pro-mask (for vulnerable people and any non-coerced businesses) drum for a while, so […]