Bob Murphy

Author Archive

Clarifying Michael Cohen’s Outrageous Apology for Obama

David R. Henderson links to a simply astonishing piece by Michael Cohen, trying to do damage control for Obama. Some excerpts: In selling the health-care plan that bears his name, President Obama has, according to the fact-checking website Politifact, said at least 34 times that “if you like your health care plan, you can keep […]

The Return of Robert Murphy to Team Brittany!

They actually billed it as “The Return of Robert Murphy.” I’m not a narcissist, just the messenger. I really don’t know what more you could want from YouTube, than to hear me talking fractional reserve banking with three ladies named Brittany:

Answering David Friedman’s Questions About Austrian Economics

[UPDATE below, then UPDATE #2.] In a recent post, David Friedman writes: Yesterday I spoke at a Students for Liberty Conference. Before the talk I had a conversation with several students who identified themselves as supporters of the Austrian school of economics. I asked them if they could explain what that meant by identifying a […]

Potpourri

==> Oh my gosh, a peer-reviewed publication cited my doctoral dissertation. I am still in shock. Topan and Paun–like me–think Mises makes an invalid argument to establish the apodictic preference for satisfaction sooner rather than later. Jeff Herbener responds. ==> This guy literally lives in the NYU library. ==> Pat Michaels and Chip Knappenberger show […]

Mises Admits That He Was Too Trusting of Governments

I love this from page 780 of Human Action: In dealing with the problems of the gold exchange standard all economists–including the author of this book–failed to realize the fact that it places in the hands of governments the power to manipulate their nations’ currency easily. Economists blithely assumed that no government of a civilized […]

Stephan Kinsella Has a Scheme That Walter Block Would Say Is Heroic

From Facebook (and Stephan said I could post it): So, if it’s now illegal for a medical insurance co to refuse people for ‘pre-existing conditions’– what’s to prevent a group from using this for various extortionate purposes? For example you live in a big city, you have cancer, and you are friends w/ a bunch […]

Nordhaus Not Even Warm in His Energy Sector Predictions

An excerpt from my latest IER post: Nordhaus’ terrible predictions about the energy sector in his 1973 paper have serious implications for present policy. William Nordhaus’ DICE model is one of three Integrated Assessment Models (IAMs) that the Obama Administration’s Working Group selected to estimate the “social cost of carbon.” This value in turn is […]

Krugman: Whether Potential GDP Is Up, Down, or Sideways, It’s More Evidence That I’m Right

Krugman has made such a strategic error in his advocacy for monetary inflation that even his teammates had to rebuke him. But first some context: “Potential GDP” is a mainstream economics concept referring to the maximum sustainable level of (real) GDP. In the standard New Keynesian paradigm, if actual (real) GDP is above potential, you […]