Bob Murphy

Author Archive

The Owners of Private Health Plans Politely Disagree With the President

Brad DeLong links to this interesting analysis of health insurer share prices, compared to Intrade’s odds of a government health insurance plan passing this year. The author, Arindrajit Dube (you spell it just like it sounds),concludes: It appears that after the group of 6 announcement on July 28, the share price of the Intrade contract, […]

Krugman Missteps in Health Care Debate

David R. Henderson has a problem with this short Krugman clip (from September 2008): I get what David is saying, but I actually thought Krugman’s reaction was pretty funny. If Krugman had started pooh poohing the statistical significance of a sample of size 7, people would and should have begun throwing Molotov cocktails at him.

Is It Joan Rivers or Maybelline?

Is this for real? I was flipping through the TV channels before crashing in the hotel, and saw this on some celebrity gossip show. I kept waiting for it to be an ad for her new movie or something.

Does That Word Mean What I Think It Means?

This Media Matters smackdown on a Fox lady (I’m not saying a foxy lady. mind you) is upset because she said “Social Security: already bankrupt.” But it’s not so much that what she said was false, rather it was nonsensical. You’re either bankrupt or not, right? If GAAP says I will be bankrupt in three […]

I Just Solved the Life Expectancy Problem

Oh my gosh, I made the mistake of actually reading the first 1/3 of the comments on this Bill O’Reilly Media Matters brouhaha. I don’t want to encourage you folks to read it too, but it’s kind of like when you smell something really awful and want to share it with others. In any event, […]

Old Testament Prophecies of Jesus

For believing Christians, one of the more convincing pieces of evidence confirming their worldview is that Old Testament writers seemed to have uncanny descriptions of the life of Jesus. For example, here’s Psalm 22: 1-18: 1 My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me? Why are You so far from helping Me, And from […]

US Life Expectancy Rates

The chief activity in the geeconosphere is to bring up alleged facts (which I doubt anyone verifies) and then bust out theories to explain these stipulated facts using economic logic and a dash of pizazz. The latest example concerns health care, of course. (Not only do the feds take half our money, they get to […]

If You’re Going to Establish a Cartel of Banks, Make Sure You Control It

Krugman links (with extreme official disapproval) to this Willem Buiter piece. Krugman excerpted Buiter’s funny opinion of Larry Summers, but I was more interested in his (Buiter’s) description of how the Fed installs its leadership. He concludes: This arrangement amounts to one where a regulated industry, the US banks regulated and supervised by the Fed, […]