Bob Murphy

Author Archive

Potpourri

==> Tom Woods and Gary Chartier talk anarchy and the law. Just plug your ears when they say maybe I’m not right about this stuff. ==> This oddity in the Ferguson grand jury is definitely a point in favor of the camp that says the government didn’t want an indictment. Then here’s Scalia, though I […]

The Case for a Carbon Tax Is Much Weaker Than You Think

This is a pretty “Square One” type of post, where I explain the textbook case for a carbon tax and how reality differs from it in myriad ways. The context is a carbon tax (I mean, “fee”) introduced by Senators Whitehouse and Schatz. An excerpt: Furthermore, even if we set aside the problem of “leakage,” […]

Can I Pass the Scott Sumner Turing Test?

I have been reading Scott pretty regularly since mid-2009 at least, and at this point I’m pretty sure I have learned his pet peeves. For example, when this analyst writes: “Might falling oil prices affect AD? Not with monetary offset–the Fed will simply adjust the date at which they start raising rates.” …then I think […]

Krugman: “Sticky Wages I Win, Flexible Wages You Lose”

I have pointed this out before, but it’s funny when Krugman shakes his head at the morons who dispute the sticky-wage case for Keynesianism (e.g. when he recently posted a chart about wage adjustments in Spain during the crisis), when he earlier had taken Casey Mulligan out to the woodshed for thinking sticky wages/prices had […]

“Reason” Symposium on Predictions of Price Inflation

I was one of the contributors to this. Whenever you do something like this, by the time the editing process is done, the tone of the finished piece has strayed a little bit from the original draft. So let me reiterate here, I am way more introspective about what happened than Peter Schiff seems to […]

Molinism and Murphyism

A reader encouraged me to check out “Molinism,” which Wikipedia describes in this way: Molinism, named after 16th Century Jesuit theologian Luis de Molina, is a religious doctrine which attempts to reconcile the providence of God with human free will. William Lane Craig and Alvin Plantinga are some of its best known advocates today, though […]

Jury Nullification Outreach

I was asked to help spread the word about this effort: ========================= BLACK MARKET FRIDAY, BLACKOUT BAD LAW Get involved in the efforts of bringing JURY NULLIFICATION mainstream. NO VICTIM NO CRIME If you’re in the NYC area or know someone who is during December up to January 5th donate your time to juror rights […]

Update on Three Lads and the Lizard King

Just a reminder that the children’s book I wrote (originally for my son) is available on Amazon.. (Incidentally, Amazon was using the wrong ink on the books for the first 20 copies or so until they fixed it, so if you ordered early on and got some funny results on the inside, just notify Amazon […]