Bob Murphy

Author Archive

Potpourri

==> The Mises Institute is now offering a flat-fee option for access to all of the archived Mises Academy lectures. ==> Ron Paul talks to Mark Spitznagel about sundry topics, including foreign policy. ==> Alex Tabarrok has an interesting post about Ferguson and the modern-day “debtor’s prison.”

The EMH versus the CAPE

Robert Shiller’s CAPE (cyclically adjusted price/earnings) ratio is well above its historical average: Shiller himself has been pointing out that the only periods since 1881 where the CAPE has been this high were 1929, 1999, and 2007 (on the way up, we should say for precision). Scott Sumner, proponent of the Efficient Markets Hypothesis (EMH), […]

The Difference Between Physics and Economics

Pay attention to the way he teaches the class about conservation of mechanical energy starting around 1:45. If an economist did something comparable in class, he would be killed in front of his students. But they would still clap.

Fun Facts About the “Individual Mandate” of ObamaCare

In my latest Mises CA post I walk through the CBO’s forecast. An excerpt: Isn’t it interesting that the “universal coverage” provided by the “Affordable Care Act” will still yield–according to the government’s own projections–almost 4 million Americans who will prefer to pay an average tax of more than $1,000 to the government for 2016, rather than buying […]

Potpourri

==> Phil Magness caught this: Compare Slate’s current outrage over pro-sweatshop views and this oldie from an economist presumably not being funded by billionaire brothers. ==> If you’ve never considered the issue of intellectual property, this Tom Woods interview with Stephan Kinsella is good. ==> I didn’t write this, but thought it was appropriate. Judging […]

Medical Ad Bask

I want to write a post on how the regulations concerning disclosure of health risks for medical products are actually counterproductive, because the announcer on TV or radio ends up rushing through an absurd list of nightmare possibilities such that people no longer even listen. Does anyone have any good examples of this? Like, do […]

A Different Approach to Law Enforcement

The more I delved into pacifism, the more I began to question humanity’s entire approach to punitive law enforcement. Yes, obviously it would be better to have “voluntary prisons” (yes there’s a sense in which that’s an oxymoron, but also an important sense in which it’s not) rather than the State version. However, I wonder […]

CBO Keeps Revising Downward Its Estimates of Coverage Provided by ObamaCare

My latest post at Mises Canada. An excerpt: Yes that’s right: CBO now predicts that in 2019–nine years after passage of the Affordable Care Act, which was supposed to provide “universal coverage” to Americans–in fact only 26 million nonelderly people will have gained coverage, with 30 million Americans still lacking health insurance. I’m curious, does that […]