Bob Murphy

Author Archive

When You’re Right With the Lord, You Make Good Decisions

I am at my parents’ house so blogging will be sparse for a while. In the meantime check out this passage (2 Chronicles 26: 1-15) which illustrates the way I think God works in history: 1 Then all the people of Judah took Uzziah, [a] who was sixteen years old, and made him king in […]

Wenzel Flips?

A few readers want to know what I think of this provocative post by Robert Wenzel, in which he says Bernanke conned a bunch of us (bold mine): This is big. It is going to knock for a big loop all those concerned about the inflationary consequences of the soaring monetary base. The Federal Reserve […]

Jim Manzi Talks About the IPCC Consensus and Tom Friedman

I loved this Jim Manzi guest post at MasterResource, particularly because I recruited him for the task. The irony is that the latest IPCC report does not support aggressive emission cuts. You’ll notice that the people who do propose such actions will say things like, “Things have gotten worse since the IPCC AR4 report came […]

Talk to Me Like I’m a 4-Year-Old: Why Aren’t Banks Putting Those Reserves to Work?

Carlos Lara and I just spent 5 hours in the car driving to an undisclosed location in Indiana to meet with some life insurance people for our forthcoming book. Not surprisingly, we talked about the $1.1 trillion in excess reserves, and what it would take for them to start trickling (gushing?) out. I explained that […]

CNBC Doesn’t Anger Me on Inflation Report

They didn’t say, “Inflation is back! Ru-u-u-un!” but they at least didn’t say anything aggravating like, “Inflation pressures remain modest.” Here’s CNBC terse discussion: U.S. Consumer Prices Rose 0.4% in Nov., Deficit Widens U.S. consumer prices rose in line with expectations in November on a surge in energy costs, but prices were flat, excluding food […]

What Kind of Nutjobs Raised Andy Williams?

Did any of you grow up with a family tradition of telling scary ghost stories around Christmas?

Matt Yglesias, Inflation Denier

Despite the theoretical connection between printing money and rising prices, and the empirical evidence staring him in the face, Matt Yglesias continues to raise doubts in the minds of the public over the threat of purchasing-power change. Here’s Yglesias telling us up is down: Inflation continues to be very low. But here’s how Daniel Costello […]

Watch the BLS Try to Explain Away the (Price) Inflation…

Jeff Tucker reminded me that the PPI came out today (CPI tomorrow!). From the BLS’ news release: The Producer Price Index for Finished Goods rose 1.8 percent in November, seasonally adjusted, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. This increase followed a 0.3-percent advance in October and a 0.6-percent decrease in September. In November, […]