Bob Murphy

Author Archive

No Guys, Obama Isn’t Saying Struggling Homeowners Are Deadbeats

Oh man, this is even less borderline than the “you didn’t build that” controversy. In the debate over the debt ceiling, Obama used an analogy: OK, it’s obvious what he’s saying. If you have committed to a certain expenditure, but that at the last minute decide you simply aren’t going to pay it (even though […]

A Risk-Free Prediction on the Economics “Nobel” That Is All Upside

I am not making a formal prediction here, so if it doesn’t pan out, no harm. However, it occurs to me that to the extent one thinks the various Nobel Prizes (and related “Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Science” award) are issued for political reasons,* rather than strictly for merit, then I would expect this […]

Salon’s Alex Pareene More or Less Endorses Rand Paul for 2016

Actually he does the exact opposite, but I’m just warming you up so Pareene’s column doesn’t shock your system too much when you read it. (HT2 EPJ) In his column titled “Rand Paul’s Strategic Islamophobia,” Pareene writes: For normal Americans, the annual Values Voters Summit is an opportunity to take a look at the Republican […]

A U.S. Carbon Tax: The Rest of the Story (Part 1 of 4)

Over the summer, I organized a conference for the Institute for Energy Research (IER). My purpose was to present truly “consensus” facts from the economics literature on carbon taxes. If you will go with me on this journey, I am pretty sure you will realize that the case for a carbon tax is much weaker […]

Krugman on Treasury Default: 57% of the Budget “Isn’t That Much”

I realize I’m blogging a lot of my favorite Keynesian lately, but he keeps pushing the envelope. In the debt ceiling saga, the standard line of the Administration and its defenders is that Republican obstinancy will force Treasury Secretary Lew to default on government bonds, thus causing a global financial meltdown. Plenty of people (not […]

Potpourri

==> I think President Obama should read from this website in celebration of Columbus Day, in order to win over Sean Hannity. ==> My favoriet go-to guy for climate science is Chip Knappenberger. Here’s his archive at Cato. In particular, y’all should be aware of the skullduggery in the latest IPCC report (AR5), in which […]

Krazy Krugman Kalls

This is mostly bookkeeping for myself, if and when the Krugman Debate happens. I’m noting the best botched predictions (that I hadn’t previously known) that Niall Ferguson had found in his 3-part series. Krugman likes to pride himself on having noted the housing bubble well before most others. Now what’s odd is that Krugman gave […]

Krugman on America Becoming Greece: “Show Me the Model!”

Professor Paul Krugman, scientist, has patiently been showing with his formal analysis that it’s literally impossible for a country with most of its debt denominated in its own fiat currency, to have a Greece-like catastrophe, at least while it’s stuck in a liquidity trap. If anything, a loss of investor confidence would help such an […]