Bob Murphy

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A Silly Article on Inflation

I still need to say 8 Hail Marys regarding my erroneous gold call, but in the meantime let’s have some fun with today’s CNBC article on inflation: Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke must find a convincing way to explain why his central bank is in no hurry to raise interest rates even though the economy […]

Krugman’s Waterloo

Even though he won’t act like it bothered him, Krugman has to know he got busted on the housing bubble quotes. Lilburne gives Krugman a li’l burn in this article: And what about his strawman protests that he didn’t cause the housing bubble, much less the Enron scandal or Kennedy’s assassination? The man is willfully […]

My Most Extreme Gold Call: Hey, this crow’s not bad. Tastes like chicken.

I’m still in Florida recovering from my numerous trips. Tuesday morning I head back home (a 10-hour road trip). But an anonymous poster in a recent blog reminded me of this rash statement I made on January 23, 2009: I don’t know why gold isn’t a lot higher, frankly. Part of it is the general […]

Murphy vs. (Hernando) de Soto

In this month’s Ideas on Liberty, I take on Hernando de Soto’s WSJ op ed calling for stricter regulation of derivatives. An excerpt: Regardless of what caused the crisis, government efforts to regulate derivatives will only lock in undesirable aspects of the current market and ensure that politically connected players reap artificial gains. It is […]

The Danger in Macroeconomic Tautologies

Tyler Cowen has been on fire lately. Check out this: You’ll also read many commentators breaking national income into its components of C, I, G, and X-M (consumption, investment, government spending, and net exports) and asking where the growth will “come from” to “drive” the recovery. Of course national income accounting is an identity, so […]

Would North Korea Get Spanked by its Neighbor?

I cannot verify the claims of this FFF piece (HT2AWC), but the author, Carlton Meyer, is a former “U.S. Marine Corps officer who participated in military exercises in Korea.” He writes: If North Korea attacked South Korea, the South Koreans would fight from mountainous and urban terrain which heavily favors defense, and complete air superiority […]

Austrians: Our Victory Is Complete

Discussing Krugman’s racy PIMCO quote, Scott Sumner says: As everyone knows by now the once kooky and discredited Austrian business cycle model has now become conventional wisdom. Easy money creates bubbles, which inevitably cause depressions when they pop. It’s Greenspan’s fault. Paul and I are still not on board the Vienna express, but we are […]

What’s the Best Way to Short Treasurys?

Von Pepe sends these articles (here and here) on ways to short U.S. Treasurys. If anyone has free time and a Bloomberg, can you give us some scenarios with current prices? E.g. I’m interesting in statements like: “If you buy this particular put option on 10-year Treasury futures, then on January 2, 2011, so long […]