Bob Murphy

Author Archive

"A Savvy Bond Man Bets on Rising Inflation"

John Cochran (not the Chicago guy, the Vienna guy) sent me this wonderful WSJ article from Dec. 26 profiling Bill Tedford. For longtime readers, just look at how many of Tedford’s points are the same things I’ve been harping on: Bill Tedford is encouraging investors to bet against remarks by Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, […]

A Critique of Ross McKitrick’s Proposal to Tax Temperature

At MasterResource today I critique economist Ross McKitrick’s proposal to tie CO2 taxes to global temperatures. (His idea is that if manmade global warming is really serious, then the tax will rise accordingly. But if it turns out the critics of the IPCC are right, then the tax will automatically stay modest.) Here’s the finale: […]

Say What You Will About Monarchies, At Least They Understood Free Trade

I am working on a book project with Bill Peterson on democracy. He sent me a copy of Hans Hoppe’s Democracy: The God That Failed, which somehow I never managed to read up until now. I have seen so many of Hoppe’s lectures at the Mises Institute that I figured I already knew what was […]

Samuelson Et Al. Goofed on Soviet Union Because of Their Models, Not Their Politics

Alex Tabarrok has an interesting post today on how the mainstream textbook authors were far too generous in their predictions about Soviet GNP back in the day: First, an even more off-course analysis [than in Samuelson’s textbook] can also be found in another mega-selling textbook, McConnell’s Economics (still a huge seller today). Like Samuelson, McConnell […]

Mankiw’s Baseless Arguments

My article at Mises today is a bit long, but only because it has everything: Sarcastic quips about Greg Mankiw’s logic, a discussion of M0 versus M1 and M2, and a fun story about a real estate developer (Shady Slick) who is ruined by a bureaucrat. I would have put in a love triangle but […]

Was Jesus Rich?

[UPDATE below.] Here is a very interesting article (HT2 Tyler Cowen) discussing whether Jesus was wealthy in material terms. When I first heard the claim I thought it was absurd, but the proponents make a decent case in terms of familiar things from the Bible that I had never thought about in this context: “Mary […]

First Murphy’s Law, Now This

Scott Sumner has rechristened the URL on his blog. (Apparently his inflationist views were being confused by too many people with Bentley automobiles.) He now has a “deep thoughts” post up where he asks, “And are there negative bubbles? If so, what are they called? And why don’t people talk about them?” I answered: My […]

Chaos Theory Questions

Reader Robert Fellner has foolishly been discussing my pamphlet Chaos Theory [.pdf] with people who have yet to see the light. (I do not recommend this.) He turned to me for help in answering their objections, but obviously I am not going to rescue him from the quicksand into which I pushed him. In the […]