Bob Murphy

Author Archive

ObamaCare Is Just a Stepping Stone to Nationalized Health Care

Home Depot joins the list of employers cutting back on medical coverage for their workers as ObamaCare looms. This should not be surprising: It is a logical consequence of the incentives set up by the scheme, just as surely as colleges are now cutting back on the courses they offer, in order to keep more […]

My Final (We Hope!) Word on Paul Krugman and Inflation Predictions

In my last post, I suggested that Paul Krugman has not been entirely candid with his readers on the issue of how economists from the Keynesian versus rival camps predicted the movement of prices as the recession struck. Yes yes, the Austrian purists don’t like to even talk about this stuff, but it’s Krugman’s only […]

Things Don’t Look Good for Those Fixated on Aggregate Demand

First let me relay Peter Klein’s take on the Fed’s non-taper announcement: The above is a good summary of the Rothbardian view on our current situation. Now, there have been some developments in just the last week or so that, in a just world, would cause severe angst in the psyches of those who have […]

Mises on the Invisible Hand Metaphor

From page 240 of the Scholar’s Edition of Human Action: Theism and Deism of the Age of Enlightenment viewed the regularity of natural phenomena as an emanation of the decrees of Providence. When the philosophers of the Enlightenment discovered that there prevails a regularity of phenomena also in human action and in social evolution, they […]

Potpourri

==> Next January I’ll be debating Bill Still (of “Money Masters” fame) at the “Save Long Island” forum. I gather we both dislike the present financial system, but have rather different solutions. ==> A funny post from Matt Walsh on the crucible that is parenting. ==> If you’re a Louis CK fan, check out these […]

God Can Only Help You If You Believe He’s Able?

The following passages from chapter 6 of the gospel of Mark explain what happened when Jesus had already begun His ministry but returned to Nazareth: 1 Then He went out from there and came to His own country, and His disciples followed Him. 2 And when the Sabbath had come, He began to teach in […]

Not Everyone Saw the Recession Coming

Oh man, I saw this op ed by Don Luskin linked by a recent Krugman post. (Well, it might have been from somebody Krugman linked.) I was annoyed with Krugman and the guy he was linking, but Luskin’s piece stole the show. At this point, let me just tell you that Luskin wrote this while […]

Potpourri

I’m just outside Chicago for the Illinois Libertarian Party annual extravaganza. Some “Freedom Karaoke” tonight, followed by lectures tomorrow. In the meantime: ==> Nick Rowe writes another blog post in which he calmly and methodically destroys the foundation of mainstream central banking theory. (You may recall a few months ago Nick showed in a standard […]