Bob Murphy

Author Archive

Don’t Hate Bernanke, Hate the Game

Von Pepe sends me this hilarious simulation on the SF Fed’s website. As von Pepe notes in his email, this is basically the Phillips curve with sound effects. I got fired after my first term as Fed chief. At the first opportunity, I jacked the fed funds target up to 19.0% (the highest setting) and […]

"We hold that all men are endowed by their state representatives with certain alienable privileges…"

I’m doing research for the next installment in PRI’s California Prosperity Project, and came across this rather ominous statement on page C-3 in a report [.pdf] from New Jersey’s Treasury: The Corporation Business Tax imposes a franchise tax for the privilege of having or exercising a corporate charter or doing business, employing or owning capital […]

Throwing in the Towel on Tyler Cowen and Milton Friedman

I just sent Tyler an email saying I was dropping this, because I don’t want to be a stubborn jerk in case I’m just missing something. So I hope it was understood that by “dropping it” I meant, “After I zing you one last time on my blog.” For the record, I have no idea […]

Going Cross-Eyed Thinking About TARP

I started thinking about this last night and had to reboot my mind. After writing this post, I realized that I had left out a huge consideration: risk. Even if the government ends up making an accounting profit on the Capital Purchase Program component of TARP, that doesn’t really prove that it was a good […]

Has the Government Made Money on TARP?

One of the ideas (btw I refuse on principle to ever use the word “meme”) bouncing around the geeconosphere is that the government has made money on TARP. For example, Brad DeLong says his prediction on this looks to be coming true (though in fairness he has not yet claimed victory), and I know I’ve […]

More Free Market Evangelism From Larry Kudlow

Long-time readers know that Larry Kudlow is not on my A-team for free market economics. (It pains me that this is so; I seriously used to love him when he worked for Bear Stearns and I was just getting into this stuff, reading Walter Williams and such.) I went ballistic over his flip-flopping endorsement of […]

Are We All Utilitarians Now?

Besides my disagreement with their conclusions, there is something similar in Tyler Cowen’s recent defense of the Paulson Plan, and Roger Koppl’s defense of Ted Kennedy. Both eschew arguments from natural rights or principles, and justify particular instances of the growth of the federal government by speculating on its possible net benefits. As I say, […]

Reflections on the San Fran Mises Circle

Over the weekend I was in San Fransisco for a Mises Circle. (Next stop: Seattle.) We had a surprisingly large crowd of around 175 (not an exact count), in an area that you would think would be slim pickings. A special surprise was that Edward Gonzalez showed up. I also met “Lilburne” (his secret identity […]