Bob Murphy

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==> After reading my scathing critique, David Frum will wish he had added another axis of evil. ==> My interview on MMT matters. I am tough, but I am fair. (?) ==> Jerry O’Driscoll catches something that I noticed too: The Fed’s announcement seems to turn a ceiling into a floor. (HT2 the eagle-eyed von […]

Bank of England & Carney: This Doesn’t Sound Good

Scott Sumner links to this article from the Financial Times. I’m feel queasy. Take a look: The [UK] Treasury opened the door to a more aggressive monetary policy on Wednesday, as aides to the chancellor welcomed the next Bank of England governor’s radical views on stimulus measure for flagging economies. In a speech on Monday, […]

Do Libertarians Have a Problem With Authority?

My article today at The American Conservative. Here’s the opening: A silly episode on Facebook recently underscored one of the tensions in the liberty movement: many people are attracted to libertarianism because they simply don’t like rules. This attitude stands in contrast to conservatives who also disdain big government but who don’t reject authority per se — […]

Sumner Believes in Government-Created Bubbles and Ticking Time Bombs

This is kind of an inside baseball post, so if you don’t “get it,” just move on with your life. Anyway, those who read Scott Sumner closely, especially his incredulous responses to Austrian critics of the Fed, should be puzzled by his latest post in which Scott writes: Back in the early 1990s lots of […]

The Fed’s New and Improved (!) Exit Plan

This Bloomberg article on the Fed’s possible need for a new “exit plan” is eerie; it is the financial analog of reading the NYT calmly discuss the Administration’s “secret kill list” (their headline). When I read this, I was perplexed: ““They have to find ways of unwinding the balance sheet without dumping all of it […]

Caplan’s Parental Experience

Bryan opens a recent post by saying: My eldest sons just turned ten, which means I’ve been a father for ten years. Ergo, it’s time to inventory the top things I’ve learned from my decade of experience. In no particular order: Now in his list, some of the items make sense to me, while others […]

It’s Cool to Believe in a Soul, Just Don’t Use the J-Word

One of my Facebook friends is clearly a “cool kid” at the lunch table (even though she’s a grown woman she plays it off well). She is not a religion-basher so much but it’s clear that many in the crowd that hangs out with her make fun of Christians at the drop of a hat. […]

So Simple! We Just Need to Create Two Platinum Coins Worth $1 Trillion Each

This is a real news article: If President Obama wants to avoid an economic calamity next year, he could always show up at a news conference bearing two shiny platinum coins, each worth … $1 trillion. That sounds wacky, but some economists and legal scholars have suggested that the “platinum coin option” is one way […]