Bob Murphy

Author Archive

My Apologies to the BLS

In this post, I ranted against the shady tactics of the BLS in suppressing price inflation. In my sleep deprived rage (my son woke me up far too early), I wrote: For example, both on NPR and in the CNBC story linked above, they talked about how prices for retail automobiles fell sharply, but they […]

Gold Closes at Record Highs

CNNMoney reports: Gold prices settled at an all-time high Wednesday as the dollar slumped and inflation concerns boosted demand for the metal as a hedge against rising prices. Gold for December delivery jumped $13.90 to close at a record high of $1,020.20 an ounce, well above the previous high of $1,003.20 that was posted March […]

Now Is the Time to Buy Ron Paul’s End the Fed!

If you have been meaning to buy Ron Paul’s new book, End the Fed, now is the time to place your order or swing by Barnes & Noble. Today is the official release date, and for purposes of Amazon and NYT rankings, you want to concentrate sales right when a new book comes out. I […]

My Thoughts on the CPI Release

OK first I’ll deal with the CPI numbers as the media is handling them, and then I’ll question the numbers themselves. First off, the headline on CNBC today says, “Inflation Still Tame Despite Jump in Gasoline Prices.” Huh, so I guess that means there was a CPI reading well within the “comfort zone,” right? Well […]

The Brain and Mind Are Not the Same Thing!

Fresh off Gene Callahan’s discussion of methodology and the analyst’s decision to impute intelligence to a process, we have this NPR interview on Neal Conan’s “Talk of the Nation.” (Click here to get either the transcript or to listen to the audio.) In general it’s a fascinating interview for our health care debate. Leftists will […]

A Clarification on Auditing the Fed

I believe I have already linked to Lew Rockwell’s qualified case for letting Congress run the Fed (as opposed to a cartel of private bankers with no accountability at all). Robert Wenzel disagreed with Rockwell here. I am not taking sides on this one. In general, I think it’s dangerous to ever say you “are […]

Liberal Democrats Should Treat Others the Way They Want to Be Treated

This is really getting ridiculous. On NPR Juan Williams explained that there was something really disturbing going on with Saturday’s march on DC. It wasn’t merely that these people opposed Obama’s policies, but–gasp!–they challenged his very legitimacy as president. (!!) And Joe Wilson actually called the president a liar to his face. (!!) Williams explained […]

Producer Prices Up (Adjusted) 1.7% in August

Producer Prices didn’t get the memo from Mish, and rose (on a seasonally adjusted basis) 1.7% in August from the month before. Now you won’t see a headline for this anywhere at CNBC (at least not as of 2 minutes ago). If you were curious as to what the PPI report said, you would have […]