Bob Murphy

Author Archive

Janeane Garofalo Makes Keith Olbermann Seem Moderate

It’s a bit unclear, but I suspect that Olbermann and Garofalo did not contribute to the Republican National Committee last year. The two confident analysts have a decent point about the crowd booing the unemployed guy (featured in the beginning of the clip), but give me a break: He wasn’t trying to say, “Whoa guys, […]

More Obama Administration Backing Away From Climate Luddism

I have seen a few signs that perhaps the Obama Administration is trying to distance itself from the more radical proponents of economic restrictions to fight global warming. Granted, I don’t have my hands on a secret memo from Rahm Emanuel, but nonetheless I was surprised by the following recent events: * The NYT ran […]

Great Timing! Google Drops Free Advice From Its Index

So a few days ago I got an email purporting to be from Google explaining that my site had been dropped from their index because it didn’t live up to the Google quality guidelines. I thought the email might be spam, but then I noticed yesterday (when trying to find old Free Advice posts) that […]

Nudging Spontaneity

Just a reminder, if any of you already have copies of my new book, it would help if you were moved on your own to write a glowing review for it on Amazon. The book launch is Monday, and apparently some people actually read Amazon reviews when deciding whether to buy (go figure). I would […]

Goldman Sachs Discovers the Joys of Off-Budget Accounting

I am not versed enough in corporate accounting to talk responsibly about this. All I can say is, when Goldman Sachs conveniently decides to shift its fiscal year to exclude a December that had more than $1 billion in (pre-tax) losses…something is really fishy. Now if we had private financial markets, I wouldn’t care about […]

Ben Stein Suspicious of Those Untrained In the Ways of High Finance

This is too rich. Bob Roddis–a carbon-based Google Alerts–sent me this ridiculous Ben Stein article. It contains such gems as the following: They allowed simply criminal self-dealing in the form of executive compensation—and just plain stealing—from Wall Street to Main Street. They did not stop the pools of manipulators and looters on Wall Street and […]

Remaking Classic Movies: Homage or Sacrilege?

It’s a tough issue. If nothing else, it is undeniable that when someone does a remake of a classic, it generates more interest in the original. For example, I’m pretty sure that I rented the original The Producers only when the Lane/Broderick version was generating so much buzz. (I didn’t even watch the remake, mind […]

Orwell Lives! People Making Over $200k Don’t Work

Forget the fact that we are all going to be taxed to the mizax* because of Obama’s Bush Squared spending. This really annoyed me: President Obama seized the opportunity on tax-filing day to assert that his administration is easing the tax burden of working people. At the same time, protesters are expected to mark April […]