Bob Murphy

Author Archive

The Fed and Conspiracies

One of the quickest ways to assess a person’s worldview is to ask, “How do you feel about conspiracy theories?” Murray Rothbard considered the very term to be loaded, used to discredit what were often sober and factual analyses of why certain government policies were actually implemented. In a recent post, Austrian economist Steve Horwitz […]

Supply & Demand

For my Mises Academy class I got stuck on a runway in Little Rock, and missed the live lecture, which was to be on Supply & Demand. Since it’s such a timeless topic, I decided to make the lecture publicly available by hosting them at my YouTube channel. For convenience I’ve broken the lecture up […]

Don’t Ask George Selgin to Dance

In a post full of his trademark pugnacity, George Selgin explains why he doesn’t consider himself an Austrian economist: I don’t want to belong to any economic school of thought, or to “do” any sort of economics. I just want to “do” my own sort of economics. And what sort of economics is that? I […]

Loyola University President Impresses With His Critique of Walter Block

I truly wasn’t going to get involved in this issue, primarily because it will undoubtedly sow seeds of discord in the comments. In the NYT article on Rand Paul, the writer claims that Walter Block thinks slavery “wasn’t so bad.” If you know Walter and how he talks, and then you read that phrase in […]

Science vs. Religion: Framing Effects

I saw this photo floating around Facebook; I am pretty sure it was originally posted to an Atheism group: As a former atheist, I totally understand where this is coming from–and why the atheists on Facebook thought it was great. But I want to point out that the stuff on the right doesn’t flow from […]

India’s Child Labor Ban: Can Someone Draw Me a Picture?

James Schneider, the new guy at EconLog, has an interesting post on an unintended consequence: Some take it as a matter of faith that increasing taxes will dull people’s desire to work. However, higher taxes can sometimes cause people to work more. When higher taxes reduce the after-tax wage, people are poorer for any given […]

Potpourri

==> Josiah Neeley thinks today’s blogging Keynesians are too eager to raise taxes, even though that’s not what their theory calls for. ==> Peter Schiff talks about his Daily Show interview. ==> Doug French steals some Jim Croce lyrics (but he doesn’t believe in IP) and says, “Don’t fight the Fed.” ==> OK so a […]

Krugman Incorporates the Liquidity Trap Into His Affordable Care Act Job Analysis

I’m not trying to be obnoxious about this, but in his latest post Krugman completely vindicates my claim that he had been totally ignoring the liquidity trap–the staple of his analysis the last 6 years–when dealing with the CBO’s report on the Affordable Care Act (ACA, aka “ObamaCare”). In the comments at my first post, […]