Bob Murphy

Author Archive

How Economists Treat Interest

I got an email from a colleague (reprinted with permission): Dear Bob: Please settle a bet between me and [another colleague]. One of us maintains that without borrowing and lending, no interest rate could arise. The other of us takes the view that there is always time preference, and this guarantees an interest rate, even […]

“Poor Little Fool”

At my parents’ retirement community I finally found a crowd who liked my kind of music:

Two Kwik Krugman Kontradictions

Nothing earth-shattering, but if criticizing Krugman were an academic discipline, this post would be part of what Kuhn would describe as “normal science.” ==> Scott Sumner explains Krugman’s unfair blanket condemnation of “inflationistas” by reminding us that Krugman (famously) doesn’t read stuff by economists from the other side, but I point out to Scott that […]

A Note on the “Real” Rate of Interest

In my Mises Canada post walking through problems with the typical neoclassical approach to capital & interest, I came up with a simple thought experiment in which there are capital goods (nets) that have a positive marginal product–the workers can catch more birds with nets than without. This explains why the nets can earn a […]

Potpourri

==> Richard Ebeling talks about the great Austrian inflation. ==> The Tennessee chapter of NORML put out this publication on quick facts about marijuana legalization. Let me know if you guys spot anything that should be tweaked, because I know these people. ==> A blog post from Mises.org about “the time Murray Rothbard schooled James […]

The Kids Can’t Get Enough Murphy

Dennis Foster emails me (and gave permission to quote): Message: Hi Bob, I’ve had the pleasure of taking many of your on-line classes with the Mises Institute over the years (I can’t believe it’s actually been years!). In my Public Choice Theory class, we finish the semester with your Chaos Theory book, to illustrate the […]

Bill Cosby Dispelled the Evil Spirits Keeping Him Down

This isn’t exactly religious, but it’s spiritual in a way. I found this very moving. It’s Cosby’s acceptance speech for the recent American Comedy Awards. YouTube’s Embed info isn’t loading for some reason, so I’ll send you directly to the link.

Piketty Can’t Even Get His Basic Tax History Right

The more I read of Thomas Piketty’s Capital in the Twenty-First Century, the worse it gets. Try this excerpt: [T]he Great Depression of the 1930s struck the United States with extreme force, and many people blamed the economic and financial elites for having enriched themselves while leading the country to ruin. (Bear in mind that […]