Bob Murphy

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More Convenient Data Sampling By Krugman

A reader asked me to investigate this Krugman blog post. Echoing DeLong, Krugman is arguing that the fiscal conservatives are wrong to worry that Obama’s deficits will push up interest rates: Brad DeLong has been writing about the falsity of the claim that large-scale government borrowing in a liquidity trap will lead to soaring interest […]

Has Andrew Sullivan Disavowed Barack Obama, Like He Promised?

Back in late October, I wrote: In a previous post, I admitted that I now feel quite foolish for being afraid that if Gore won the White House, he would have “wrecked the economy.” (Again, I didn’t vote for Bush, but I was rooting for him against Gore. I rooted for Kerry, though again I […]

Is the BLS Suppressing Producer Price Inflation?

As long-time readers know, I am very skeptical of the big deflation scare. The raw CPI numbers have risen at an annualized rate of 4.2% since December. The “seasonally adjusted” CPI numbers–what the press reports–are up only 2.4% (at an annualized rate) over the same period. Now it’s possible that it will all even out […]

Is It a Curse to Have a Printing Press?

Michael Pettis seems to think so, in this blog post (HT2 Tim Swanson): …I was recently interviewed for a TV show about – yet again – the awful continuing prospects for the dollar as a the dominant reserve currency. Besides expressing my deepest skepticism that the most recent hullabaloo about the dollar was likely to […]

Changing Demographics Will Wreck Social Security and the Stock Market

During a meeting with my co-author Carlos Lara yesterday, he raised a point that is obvious but that I had never considered: As the US population ages, this will exert huge selling pressures on the US stock market. Why? Because 401(k)s and other IRS-created retirement vehicles have a built-in exit point. As Nelson Nash explained […]

Potpourri

* A review of Gene Callahan’s novel, Puck. Incidentally, I read Gene’s book and thought it was cool. But it’s a bit weird. (Basically, my opinion of Gene.) * A scathing review of Transformers 2. My friend warned me off this (over the phone) when I was standing outside a movie theater during a recent […]

The Bogus Deflation Scare

This is amazing; a Bloomberg article explains why we don’t need to fear falling prices! (HT2 Jeff Tucker) I almost wonder if the guy read my book the Depression, because here his analysis is very similar to mine: In reality, anyone with a sense of economic history would have been aware that the whole deflation […]

Nevada Development Campaign Taunts California Legislators

I didn’t realize they were so blatant about it… Anyway the Nevada Development Campaign makes a compelling argument to business owners to relocate out of the Golden State. I’ll be writing an op ed on this in the next few days, which will have the relevant stats (like how many people moved out of California […]