Bob Murphy

Author Archive

Krugman Talking About Productive Capacity, and Demand vs. Supply Shocks, After the Crisis Struck

I am mostly making this post for bookkeeping purposes for myself, but for those of you arguing with me in the comments of my recent posts, take a look. I welcome your comments. The following posts are from Krugman, discussing other economists who were trying to defuse the calls for more stimulus, by saying the […]

Actual vs. Potential (Real) GDP

So here is what the CBO/BEA now say, from 2000 through the present: Now be careful: The series for potential real GDP is quoted in 2009 dollars, whereas the real GDP series is in 2012 dollars. So to make them apples to apples I multiplied the former by 1.0639, because this calculator said that was […]

Krugman Potentially Owes Me an Apology

First, some background: ==> In August 2013 Brad DeLong wrote a blog post wondering why the Fed wasn’t proceeding full-steam ahead. He wrote: There are no signs in the pace of technological progress, in the level of investment, in the pace at which the American labor force educates itself, in measures of capacity utilization, in […]

Jesus, the Perfect Sacrifice

Someone (who gave me permission to post) wrote to me: “How could Jesus’ sacrifice be sufficient? Here’s what I mean: No matter how terrible his sacrifice was, it was only for a finite period of time, but he paid the price that for me would only be payable by torment for an infinite amount [of] […]

Epstein’s Devastating Critique of Stiglitz

I had seen people passing this around, but it wasn’t until a couple of days ago that I carefully read Gene Epstein’s critique of Stiglitz. Yikes! There is some serious stuff in here. An excerpt: Even more damning to Stiglitz’s “crisologist” credentials was another paper he failed to mention in Freefall: a March 2002 study, coauthored […]

Potpourri

==> After a long hiatus, I’ve resumed blogging at Lara-Murphy.com. ==> JP Koning joins the ranks of the nutjobs (including me) who think 100% reserve banking is a perfectly defensible thing. An excerpt: “But times have changed. Zero-maturity reserves, which originally comprised precious-metal coins, evolved to a far-less-cumbersome medium: paper. And now they are digitized, […]

Bob Murphy on Stefan Molyneux’s Podcast

Mostly talking about the prospects for the Trump economy. (Of course it’s not that Trump himself controls the economy–but the show is geared toward the politics of it.)

I Will Never Trust Again

So if I’m in the office late and want to feel the pangs of melancholic yet enchanting song, I put on this badboy: Now that’s the go-to version of the song that always pops up on YouTube; it has 2.8 million views! For some reason, yesterday I was scrolling through the comments. I’ve noticed that […]