Bob Murphy

Author Archive

EDF Summarizes Bastiat in One Picture

Dan Kish sends along this handsome graphic from the Environmental Defense Fund: They should put this on the paper placemats at Cracker Barrel and ask, “Kids, can you find millions of things missing in the above picture?”

Human Events Review of the PIG to the Great Depression (and some other books too)

Elizabeth Kantor offers her readers some choice book reviews, including: As we wait on tenterhooks to learn whether Washington’s feckless and free-spending politicians will manage to turn this recession into a Greater Depression (or possibly a Weimar-style hyperinflation), or if we’ll escape with only a few years of Carter-era stagflation, it’s a good time to […]

Orwell, Geithner; Geithner, Orwell

I am doing “real work” this morning so I can’t torture myself by reading this whole CNBC story. But the first sentence is worth the admission price: U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner Thursday said that a bailout for banks was steadying the financial system but care must be taken to ensure that normal market forces […]

Austrian Economics in Iraq

Editor’s Note: A few weeks ago Edward Gonzalez contacted me and explained that he had come to believe that only Austrian economics could explain his experiences as a Marine in Iraq. I encouraged him to write short essays explaining what he had witnessed and the lessons he drew. For lack of a better outlet, I […]

Oh Mr. Sandman, Bring Me a Book

One of my former students, Heidi (not sure if she wants me to use her last name) is launching her independent bookstore this Saturday. (My birthday also falls on May 23rd this year.) The store is located in Punta Gorda, FL, but will do business online (I think?). Details here. Presumably Heidi will stock rare […]

Potpourri

I am really cheating on this one; my Firefox browser is filling up with tabs, so I’m putting things in this blog post to which “I shall return!” * Jim Manzi gives a quick and dirty estimate of the costs and benefits of Waxman-Markey. Note that I literally haven’t even skimmed this yet, but in […]

I Hope You Didn’t Spend Your Cap & Trade Rebate Check Yet

Check out the latest [.pdf] on the Waxman-Markey climate change bill. Are you on the list for free allowances? When that MIT professor said the $3100 annual hike in prices for consumers would be offset by the government doing something socially productive with the auction receipts, is this what Keith Olbermann et al. took him […]

Richard Duncan’s The Dollar Crisis

Tim Swanson sent me this review of what appears to be a very insightful (or “inciteful” as the person at the link humorously misspelled it) book. Some excerpts: Japan’s total reserves minus gold rose from around $5bn in 1970 to $100bn in 1989. Its money supply (including M2 and CDs) grew from 50 trillion yen […]