Bob Murphy

Author Archive

Blessed Are the Peacemakers

OK kids, this broken window stuff is really getting out of hand. The problem here is that we’re not even arguing over economics anymore, we’re arguing over who said what and getting really huffy. (As usual, I am totally right and everyone who disagrees with me is either stupid and/or lying, but I’m used to […]

The Broken Window Fallacy

At Mises.org today I start from Bastiat and go through this whole thing. However, after the preliminaries I take on the “idle resources” argument too. After all, doesn’t Gene Callahan have a point, that (under the right circumstances) a hurricane might lead to more jobs and GDP in a certain area, than would otherwise have […]

Salvation Through Faith or Works?

I’ve written on this controversial topic before, and I tried to resolve it by saying that faith is a work, meaning that it is a conscious action on your part to accept Jesus as your personal Lord and savior. (Note, I am technically not disagreeing with staunch Calvinists here. You can still think you were […]

Go to West, Young Man

I stumbled across this while putting off my work for the evening:

A Dark Day in Soccer Lore

My son’s soccer coach was out of town, so he asked me to coach today’s game. It was a tough one: We only had 5 guys show up (my own son was sick), meaning there was just 1 sub. It was about 90 degrees out, the game starting at 11:45. Plus the field was much […]

A Puzzle About Demand Deposits

Whenever I graph M1 at FRED, it zig zags. I have just been taking that in stride, not really thinking about why it looks like that. For my recent “inflationary big one” article, I charted demand deposits, which exhibit the zig zag pattern. So I finally decided to think through why the graphs look like […]

A Question for the Quasi-Monetarists

Oh man, now I know how Krugman feels about those dastardly Austrians gaining more influence… That’s what I think every time National Review and now The Economist start running Sumnerian agit-prop. Joking aside, help me out here guys (especially Bill Woolsey if you’re tuned it). The Economist piece says: “For all its theoretical merits, a […]

Sauce for the Goose Should Be Eaten By the Gander

…or whatever that saying is. Paul Krugman two days ago, complaining about the hoaxster: “Apparently some people can’t find enough things to attack in what I actually say, so they’re busy creating fake quotes.” Krugman today, on Jackson Hole: John Maynard Keynes: But this long run is a misleading guide to current affairs. In the […]