Bob Murphy

Author Archive

Income and Consumption: It’s OK to Be Different

You kids know me, when Steve Landsburg has a new post up with which I find myself in 99% agreement, I have to focus on what I don’t like. (It’s not a grudge or anything. I’m actually testing the Coase Theorem’s prediction that Steve will efficiently offer me $10,000 to leave him alone.) Anyway, both […]

Irony Alert

I was reading my favorite Keynesian’s blog today, and happened to glance at the right side, where it has links to his actual NYT columns. Here were the blurbs for his second- and third-most recent ones: Taxes at the Top By PAUL KRUGMAN As Mitt Romney dances around calls for him to release his tax […]

Ludwig von Mises 1, Abba Lerner 0

I am working on my article for this month’s Lara-Murphy Report. (Carlos had mentioned that he been reading Human Action lately, and noticed that Mises talks matter-of-factly about people saving via insurance policies, so I’m elaborating on that phenomenon.) I came across this passage (pp. 843-844) which made me feel dumb: In the process of […]

Jon Stewart on Newt Gingrich

HT2 the LRC blog:

New Ways of Understanding the Debt Burden Dialog

Curse Dean Baker! Not only did he mislead (through the amplification by Paul Krugman) millions of people about the danger of government deficits, but then he went and posted again on the topic. This allowed me to skirt my earlier pledge to not post anything else on this. If you can stand it, over at […]

Krugman and Kuehn Take Me to the Woodshed on the 1920-1921 Depression

I have all sorts of sarcastic wise-alecky things I could say, but let me just play the straight man on this one. On Sunday Krugman had a quick post titled “Harding” in which he alluded to unnamed gnats who kept repeating that the 1920-1921 experience showed the success of austerity policies. Krugman at that time […]

How the Private Bankers Are Using the Financial Crisis to Reshape World Government

How’s that for a neutral title? If you are willing to play this in the background, there are a few decent jokes sprinkled throughout.

Mick and Gene Discuss the Weather

GENE: It’s really nonsensical, all these people talking about the chance that it might rain during the Super Bowl. It can’t possibly rain in February, it’s too cold. It’s true, it might snow, but that’s something else entirely. MICK: I understand why you might think that, but you’re wrong. We can easily imagine atmospheric conditions […]