Bob Murphy

Author Archive

A Note on Intellectual Honesty

[UPDATE: In hindsight, I wish I hadn’t cast this post as explicitly about “intellectual honesty,” because I don’t like it when DeLong, Krugman, et al. castigate their opponents as not being simply wrong, but being dishonest to boot. So, in retrospect I wish I had written this differently, to just explain why their use of […]

Cool Quote From Mises

Came across this while reviewing something for a client… We are the lucky heirs of our father and forefathers whose saving has accumulated the capital goods with the aid of which we are working today. We favorite children of the age of electricity still derive advantage from the original saving of the primitive fishermen who, […]

IMF Study Calling for US Gas Taxes Is Pretty Sneaky

I give the details in this IER blog post: So how does the IMF study come up with such whopping tax proposals? Let’s walk through their Appendix Table 1 (page 44) to see the breakdown of their fuel tax suggestions… The proposal for the United States is 36 cents per liter, which works out to […]

Bob Murphy Sings “Forever in Blue Jeans”

Here’s me: Now compare.

“(Hey Won’t You Play) Another Somebody Done Somebody Wrong”

I tried out a classic BJ Thomas song at the karaoke bar last night…

Why Do Some Christians Look to the Bible So Much?

Gene Callahan wants to know: I ran across the passage quoted below while researching job opportunities, as a pledge that faculty of a certain college must take before they can be employed there: “The sole basis of our beliefs is the Bible, God’s infallible written Word, the 66 books of the Old and New Testaments. […]

Onion on Anarchy

From the article “New Poll Finds 86 Percent Of Americans Don’t Want To Have A Country Anymore”: “I already belong to a health club, a church, and the Kiwanis Club,” Tammy Golden of Los Angeles wrote. “I’m a member of the Von’s Grocery Super Savers, which gets me a discount on certain groceries. These are […]

DeLong Flirts With Notion That Stimulus Efforts Thus Far Have Gained Nothing on the Margin

It’s ironic. In this lengthy essay, Brad DeLong is obviously arguing about the urgent need for more stimulus. Yet he tries so hard that he achieves the opposite result he intended. (Sort of like me on the dating scene in college.) Here’s DeLong: In the 12 years of the Great Depression – between the stock-market […]