Bob Murphy

Author Archive

Most Days, It’s Embarrassing To Be an Economist

Silas Barta has a good takedown of this goofy blog post from an economics professor, Daniel Hamermesh, and his attempt to impart the lessons of economics to his students: Each year in my 500-student principles class I gather a group of eight students and tell them that I will auction a $20 bill to the […]

A Scary Jim Manzi Post on the Economy

I hate to see what he writes on Halloween: WHISTLING PAST THE GRAVEYARD Some good news from Wall Street: The improvement in sentiment in Wall Street may be traced almost directly to the encouraging reports which the financial community is receiving from the leading industries of the country, according to investment trust executives. They say […]

I’m Glad The Conservatives Are There to Protect the Legacy of the Founders

A few months ago, Glenn Beck confidently stated that Thomas Paine was an atheist. No, he was a Deist. It’s true that in The Age of Reason Paine was very harsh on the Christian God, but Paine was so offended because he thought the Christian worldview mocked the grandeur of the true Creator of the […]

Horwitz on the 1920-1921 Depression

I’ve actually been working this week–my psyche has yet to adjust to the discomfort–and somehow this post by Steve Horwitz slipped through the cracks. For non-Austrian readers, some quick context: (1) Many, perhaps most, economists today would say something like, “We know that the Fed made a terrible mistake in the early 1930s, by standing […]

Tom Woods and Doug Casey on PBS (!) Debate: Chocolate Anarchy or Vanilla Anarchy?

Wow, I finally got around to watching the below video that Tom posted a few days ago. You know how normally, if you watch a political discussion on TV the spectrum of the debate is, “Should we steal 50% of taxpayers’ money, or just 48%?” Well a similar thing happened on this program, except the […]

Reduce, Reuse, Recycle (Citizens’ Money)

More fun tax facts: Massachusetts also has a tax on marijuana, but it has yet to collect any revenue from it. On the other hand, in Fiscal Year 2008, the state made almost $39 million from unredeemed deposits on bottles. See pages 26-27 of this pdf.

States Already Taxing Marijuana

During my research for a PRI paper on state tax policies, I came across this interesting nugget (see page 13 of this pdf): CONTROLLED SUBSTANCES TAXA tax is levied on marijuana and controlled substances which creates an economic burden on drug dealers. Payment of the tax is indicated by the affixing of stamps to the […]

Don’t Tell Matt Yglesias, But I Don’t Understand the Pending Health Care Legislation

Matt Yglesias is astounded at the ignorance of Mary Landrieu, Democratic senator from Louisiana, because she said, “I’m not for a government-run, national, taxpayer-subsidized plan, and never will be.” Yglesias sets her straight: The larger issue here, I think, is that unlike these programs the “public option” wouldn’t be a taxpayer-subsidized program. It would be […]