Bob Murphy

Author Archive

Is the Fed Monetizing the Debt?

Some of us have been surprised at how low the yields on Treasury debt continue to remain, despite the government’s explicit and implicit promises of future deficits. Given all the shenanigans, I have suspected that somehow the Federal Reserve has been buying much more of the Treasury’s bonds than we are being told. In this […]

Thomas Schelling: Nuclear Weapons Are Like the Log-Plume Ride…

…the anticipation is scarier than the realization (HT2MR): In summary, a “world without nuclear weapons” would be a world in which the United States, Russia, Israel, China, and half a dozen or a dozen other countries would have hair-trigger mobilization plans to rebuild nuclear weapons and mobilize or commandeer delivery systems, and would have prepared […]

Bernanke Will Be Revered By Future Fed Chairs

Afraid to ask Congress* last year for the authority to issue the Fed’s own debt to the public, Bernanke decides it’s better to seek forgiveness than ask permission: The U.S. Federal Reserve on Monday pressed ahead toward the creation of a new mechanism it says could be used to withdraw money from the banking system […]

John Cassidy Fails in His Critique of Markets

I explain at Mises today: While driving my son to school one morning, I heard a National Public Radio interview with John Cassidy, author of the new book How Markets Fail. Fortunately, we got to the front of the line before Cassidy let out the zingers. A few minutes earlier, and my son would have […]

How the Fed’s Massive MBS Purchases Harm Banks

Editor’s Note: I asked “Mike in Alaska” to expand some of his intriguing blog comments into a full-length article. Note that I have added the underlining below, not the author. –RPM How the Fed’s Massive Purchase of Mortgage-Backed Securities Plays a Role in Harming Banks and the Overall Financial System:A small town community bank perspective.By […]

Was Jesus a Pacifist?

This is a lightly edited article that originally ran on LewRockwell.com a few years ago, but in response to an email from John Goes I dug it up. I thought some new readers might be interested. –RPM Was Jesus a Pacifist?By Robert P. Murphy In a 2002 article, World Net Daily editor Joseph Farah challenges […]

Potpourri: Be Afraid, Be Very Afraid Edition

The translucent von Pepe sent me some scary articles today. I am not in the warp and woof of the markets enough to say whether the below excerpts are 100% right, but they definitely express the foreboding that von Pepe and I share. * This FT article talks about hedge funds betting on rising bond […]

Pretty Neat for a 20-Year-Old

My dad’s friend is into mass emailing, but fortunately half his stuff is pretty good. Case in point is this video apparently made by a 20-year-old for an AARP contest: Here’s a hint: Something neat happens halfway through the video. See if you can see it coming.