Bob Murphy

Author Archive

The Real Flaw in Williamson’s Inflation Argument?

Wow, I don’t know if you kids have been following the blow-up over Stephen Williamson’s arguments about QE–I gave you a hint in this Potpourri when talking about Nick Rowe’s blog rage–but it has the potential to rival the Great Debt Debate of 2012. At this point we’ve got a full-blown shooting war, with Williamson, […]

Potpourri

==> Josie the Outlaw saunters into town, and lays her gold piece on the bar countertop. When the sheriff shows up, I hope he’s articulate and has really thought through his life choices. ==> More Bitcoin battling. Gary North is skeptical, Jeff Tucker is enthusiastic, and Roger Ver is loaded. ==> I’m a big Glenn […]

Why They Can’t Run Government Like a Business

I discuss this topic at EconLib this month, giving both the theory and many illustrations. As if to motivate my article, Paul Krugman today explains why we shouldn’t be too hard on the ObamaCare website: Healthcare.gov is much better. It’s not running like, say, Amazon — but remember, mainly the government is trying to give […]

Respecting Sacred Cows

There is a strain of libertarians who revel in their atheism, such that they actively go out of their way to offend theists. They might explain their consistency along the lines of, “I respect no rulers or gods.” Or they might say, “At this blog (Facebook page etc.), there are no sacred cows.” That has […]

Even When I (Sorta) Agree With Him, Dean Baker Gives Me the Creeps

In terms of the underlying policy stance, I think I agree with Dean Baker in this post about immigration restrictions on foreign doctors. (HT2 Chris Rossini at EPJ) But holy cow does this give anybody else the creeps? We have deliberately changed immigration rules and standards to make it easier for foreign computer engineers, nurses, […]

Potpourri

==> The erudite von Pepe notified me that John Taylor has been blogging about Summers/Krugman as well; here’s a good example. ==> Here’s me with Tom Woods talking on this topic. ==> Speaking of Summers/Krugman, apparently the Onion anticipated their stance. ==> Mark Spitznagel is not on the Bitcoin bandwagon. ==> Danny Sanchez has a […]

Blowback: Krugman Endorses Summers’ Critique of Freshwater Economists on Financial Infrastructure

We were all distracted by the stuff about never ending bubbles and whatnot, but Larry Summers in his recent IMF speech had a pretty funny bit where he said: Now think about the period after the financial crisis. You know, I always like to think of these crises as analogous to a power failure, or […]

Chinese Officials Are Backing Off Dollar Purchases

From Bloomberg: The People’s Bank of China said the country does not benefit any more from increases in its foreign-currency holdings, adding to signs policy makers will rein in dollar purchases that limit the yuan’s appreciation. “It’s no longer in China’s favor to accumulate foreign-exchange reserves,” Yi Gang, a deputy governor at the central bank, […]