Bob Murphy

Author Archive

Just One of Many Fed Interventions

I’m doing research for a paper on Fed interventions during the financial crisis; there’s a great timeline provided by the St. Louis Fed here. I had not been aware of this entry for November 2008: The U.S. Treasury Department, Federal Reserve Board, and FDIC jointly announce an agreement with Citigroup to provide a package of […]

Potpourri

==> These foolish people are straining a young marriage by restricting themselves to Bitcoin. But maybe they’re hoping to avoid fighting about money; instead they will fight about a medium of exchange. ==> People I know suspected hanky panky with the Auburn police department’s ticketing policies, but one cop blows the whistle on it (and […]

Yellen for Fed Chief! (Matt O’Brien Is Easy to Impress.)

Check out Matt O’Brien’s case for Janet Yellen over Larry Summers as the next Fed chief (HT2 Scott Sumner): After serving as a Fed governor from 1994 to 1997, as president of the San Francisco Fed from 2004 to 2010, and as Fed Vice-Chair for the past three years, Yellen has emerged as one of […]

More Pronouncements From the Central Planning, Free Market Scott Sumner

Regarding claims that China is overbuilt: Yes, there is some infrastructure in the wrong place; Ordos, or the Binhai area of Tianjin. But for the most part it’s where it should be: 1. The subways are under the huge, densely populated cities, where they should be. 2. The high speed rail mostly connects big cities. […]

Edited MMT Debate

This has thousands of views already, I’m assuming from MMT fans…

Atheist Libertarians Need to Stop Citing Adam Smith Against Christians

A common complaint in the comments of this blog runs like this: “Bob, how can you possibly believe in a central planner in the sky, when you understand spontaneous order from economics? Man, even Adam Smith wrote that the market works ‘as if’ led by an invisible hand, but that was just a metaphor!” Perhaps […]

Just Singing in the Rain

Uh oh, the leading bid for the “Robert P. Murphy package” (to benefit the Brown Center for Autism) is up to $170. Remember kids, the winner gets to dictate which karaoke song next goes on my YouTube channel. Oh, plus you get some signed books.

Potpourri

==> John Nash’s PhD dissertation: 26 pages in the body of the paper, and a mere 2 citations, one of which was his own previous paper. (HT2 MR) ==> If somebody wants to wade through this post-game show of my debate with Warren Mosler, I would appreciate it. This guy Rohan is a careful thinker […]