Bob Murphy

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Even More Middle East Map Fun–Animated and With Music

Watch this and then read my two comments: (1) Some people didn’t understand why I was saying it’s important, when considering the arguments for bombing Syria and aiding its rebels, to look at a map. Does this video make it clearer? (Again, keep in mind that many Americans–including me!–are awful at geography.) (2) I am […]

More Shifting Sumner Statements

For casual readers, I should probably clarify: Unlike certain Keynesian economists, I actually spend most of my time online reading the blogs of people with whom I disagree. For example, I probably would agree with just about everything posted at The Circle Bastiat, but that’s why you won’t see me commenting much on it. Rather, […]

Jon Stewart Is How I Honestly Get My News at This Point

I had no idea about Kerry’s snafu. This is awesome, and Jon Stewart is dead-on.

Mises on A Priori Reasoning

This comes from page 38 in the Scholar’s Edition of Human Action. I just had to paste this into a project I’m working on; thought it would be relevant: All geometrical theorems are already implied in the axioms. The concept of a rectangular triangle already implies the theorem of Pythagoras. This theorem is a tautology, […]

More Middle East Map Fun

Whenever the US government tells us how awful a regime is, and why military action is urgently needed, I like to look at a map. (I did this exercise back when the Iranians were the Nazi Germany of the day.) So here you go: For what it’s worth, in 1994 the Rwandan genocide supposedly involved […]

Economic Theory versus Economic History

In our ongoing Methodenstreit here at Free Advice, I thought the following comment from Kevin Duncan was a good springboard to amplify my position: Questions such as what has driven real wage growth among certain sectors of the economy are routinely asked within labor economics, and fairly robust empirical methods give reasonable and consistent answers. […]

How Can We Be Sure Scott Sumner Opposes the Gold Standard?

Am I the only one who finds this hilarious? Check out the opening lines from a recent Sumner post: What would Milton Friedman have thought of market monetarism? I am working on an article with the preceding title. I have some ideas, but am also looking for help on a few points. I’ve come up […]

Which Economists Predicted the Sluggishness of the Economic Recovery?

Earlier this week Paul Krugman was patting himself on the back for predicting years ago that the economy would not bounce back quickly from our slump. After quoting himself from 2008 talking about how this slump was different from the V-shaped ones of the past, Krugman (writing two days ago) says: That’s from early 2008, […]