Bob Murphy

Author Archive

Glenn Beck Whiffs

Folks, I really do like Glenn Beck, especially when he and Stu (sp?) get into an argument over something absurd and spend 20 minutes analyzing it from 18 vantage points. (“In fairness to General Zod, Glenn, Jor El did condemn him to the Phantom Zone, when Krypton wasn’t that far from extinction. That was just […]

Fed Official: "Don’t Monetize the Debt"

So argues Dallas Fed president Richard Fisher in today’s WSJ. Apparently the Chinese have been reading my blog (though from my traffic reports, presumably only 0.00001% of them), because the WSJ reports: [Fisher] has just returned from a trip to China, where “senior officials of the Chinese government grill[ed] me about whether or not we […]

Is the IPCC Saying What I Think It’s Saying?

(UPDATE below.) Ever since I tackled Joe Romm’s argument (in which he is just reproducing the IPCC’s own statement) of how “cheap” it will be to stabilize greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions at safe(r) levels, I have been trying to dig up the IPCC’s estimates of future GDP losses from climate change in the absence of […]

The Tea Parties Weren’t Protesting Higher Spending?!

Brad DeLong links (with apparent approval) to Andrew Samwick’s criticism of the “Tea Party” protestors. Here’s Samwick: At moments like this, we go back to Milton Friedman’s adage, “To spend is to tax.” I cannot really come up with a better word than juvenile for the tea parties — don’t protest the taxes unless you […]

Freedom Fest: I’ll See You in Vegas

It is confirmed: I am speaking at this year’s Freedom Fest on Saturday July 11. Here is the tentative schedule [.pdf]; other stuff might change but Mark Skousen assures me my time slot will not. Note that if you buy a signed copy of my book, it doesn’t have to stay in Vegas.

President Nationalizes More Companies

You thought I was talking about Obama, right? Nope, this time I was talking about Hugo Chavez. According to CNBC, such moves are to “spread socialism” when they are conducted by foreign leaders. Now you might say, “C’mon, Chavez openly boasts of the benefits of socialism, unlike Obama who gives lip service to capitalism. So […]

Elizabeth Edwards: President of United Health Care Made Almost $3 Billion a Few Years Ago

Check out the clip below of Elizabeth Edwards on the Daily Show. Start it around the 3:00 mark. She is a policy fellow at the Center for American Progress, where she works on health care reform. In the clip, she says that a few years ago, the president of United Health Care earned so much […]

Glenn Greenwald Asks: "Is there anything the Right isn’t afraid of?"

This was an aspect of the debate over Guantanamo prisoners that I hadn’t considered: The “debate” over all the bad and scary things that will happen if Obama closes Guantanamo and we then incarcerate those detainees in American prisons is so painfully stupid even by the standards of our political discourse that it’s hard to […]