Bob Murphy

Author Archive

Bob Murphy Show Ep 9: Norman Horn on Romans 13 etc.

Norman gives the best handling of this tricky subject I’ve yet heard. Plus we discuss all sorts of other stuff.

Lara-Murphy Show Ep. 65

This was a deep(er) dive into IBC mechanics, in response to a friendly wager submitted by two listeners. Specifically: The controversy concerns two apparently conflicting goals: On the one hand, Nelson Nash says in BYOB that you should pay more against your policy loans than the insurance company requires, effectively buying more paid-up life insurance. […]

The Dyson Sphere: I’m Not Saying It’s Aliens, But…

On Twitter I came across the actual paper (it’s one page) in which Freeman Dyson spelled out his idea of a sphere that harnesses the total energy output of a star. I never knew the context, though: He suggested that aliens had already built them, and explained the signature we should look for.

Potpourri

==> For some reason, I was thinking about debt forgiveness and how the IRS treats that as taxable income. (In a related point, when Oprah first started giving cars out as prizes, apparently the recipients were upset because they’d get hit with a huge tax bill. So then Oprah had to cover the tax liability […]

Surrendering to God

My girlfriend owns a massage studio and she told me that with some clients, they refuse to relax and stay tense, making it impossible for her to help them as much as she could, if they would only let down their defenses and trust her. It occurred to me that this is what we do […]

Potpourri

==> On episode 8 of the Bob Murphy Show I interview David R. Henderson. Among other topics, we discuss his time on the Council of Economic Advisors where he rubbed shoulders with Krugman. ==> On episode 167 of Contra Krugman we call an audible and cover “hard topics” in libertarianism, such as terrorism and medical […]

I Feel Like I’m Taking Crazy Pills

Do any of you notice that my blog looks different? Specifically, does it seem that a lot of the borders have disappeared? (Maybe I’ve been hacked by Bryan Caplan?) My web guy recently did an upgrade, and so I thought that was it. But when I go to the Wayback Machine to try to show […]

Murphy Twin Spin on Economics of Climate Change

I have two new interviews out, both on the economics of climate change. ==> The first is with Jeff Deist (president of the Mises Institute). ==> The second is with Josiah Neeley and Doug McCullough, at least one of whom supports carbon taxes.