Bob Murphy

Author Archive

MIT’s Gruber on ObamaCare

[UPDATE below.] I am not being dramatic for purposes of blog excitement: It didn’t really hit me just how awful ObamaCare was going to be, until I read this interview with the chief intellectual architect behind it, MIT’s Jon Gruber. (HT2 MR) My understanding is that Gruber:ObamaCare::Krugman:ObamaStimulus. (If anyone thinks that’s a bad analogy, please […]

Krugtron Confers His Invincibility to ObamaCare

Remember when healthcare.gov first launched, back on October 1, that Krugman wrote: So, very early reports are that Obamacare exchanges are, as expected, having some technical glitches on the first day — maybe even a bit worse than expected, because it appears that volume has been much bigger than predicted. Here’s what you need to […]

“Hoppe Refutes Bleeding Heart Libertarianism”

I had nothing to do with the creation of this video. That’s how I can objectively say that it is the greatest thing I have seen in a week.

Potpourri

==> Dan Kish (my colleague at IER) says, “Leave the fracking states alone!” (You should hear him off the record.) In all seriousness, Kish is one of my go-to guys when I want to know the real reason something happens in DC. ==> I thought Michael Duff’s comment here was hilarious, not about David Friedman, […]

The Economics of ObamaCare

I have a Mises Daily running through some basics. Example: There are reasons for the particular provisions [of the Affordable Care Act], which sound superficially sensible (if you don’t know much about economics). Obviously, before the passage of the new law, there were millions of people without health insurance coverage. Although many of them were […]

Tom Woods Talks MMT With Me

Here. Two things: (1) I misspoke early in the interview, when I confused Abba Lerner with Oskar Lange. They both advanced the “market socialist” response to Mises during the celebrated Socialist Calculation Debate, but it was Lange (not Lerner) who wrote (somewhat tongue in cheek): Both as an expression of recognition for the great service […]

Bureaucrats Want to Put a Black Box in Your Car

At any given time, bureaucrats are plotting ways to take your money and your privacy. This LA Times story relays yet another example: WASHINGTON — As America’s road planners struggle to find the cash to mend a crumbling highway system, many are beginning to see a solution in a little black box that fits neatly […]