Bob Murphy

Author Archive

Potpourri

* Tyler Cowen links to a piece that explains a strategy to game the Geithner plan. * Oh man, more talk about the Fed’s “weapons” at Mankiw’s blog…Check it out: Some people are concerned that in the the fight against recession, the weapons of monetary policy are nearly out of ammunition. That is certainly the […]

Two Narcissistic Notes

* Here [mp3] is my hour interview with David Hanson (who sounds like Ronald Reagan when you first hear him). I followed Tom Woods, so you know I blew the audience away. * Here is the itinerary for my May 16th talk at the North Dakota Policy Council. What the heck, I have to follow […]

Utopian Regulators

The people touting the market can plausibly say, “We never gave it a shot.” But those blaming the housing bubble on deregulation don’t really have a strong position. There really wasn’t deregulation, but instead changed regulation (or reregulation) after the changes in financial regulation that allegedly spawned the boom. The mysterious von Pepe and I […]

Shocker: Government Plan to Fix Economy With Inflation Not Working

This CNBC article explains: The Fed’s bid to lower long-term interest rates on home mortgages and corporate debt is already running into trouble. In the aftermath of last Wednesday’s announcement that it would buy back $300 billion of 2-10 year Treasury securities, yields on benchmark 10-year notes were cut 51 basis points, from 3.02 percent […]

Nice Review of Woods

This CBS review of Tom’s new book Meltdown is really good. I don’t just mean, that I agree with guy, but I’m also saying objectively, he is very well-read for someone who gets a CBS spot. I think the Internet is really opening up the floodgates in terms of nuanced analysis.

Reading God’s Book

In this post, I merely want to note the point that the existence of an omnipotent being who created the structure of reality–and who moreover is reputed to have an actual personality and enjoys interacting with humans–well that’s by far the most important aspect of your belief system. How you answer that question fundamentally influences […]

My Prediction Coming True Moments After I Make It

In the previous post, I said it would not be hard to imagine the government taxing the heck out of hedge funds that hadn’t taken a dime of bailout money. Well, von Pepe just sent me this NYT article that contains the following ominous paragraphs: WASHINGTON — The Obama administration will call for increased oversight […]

The U.S. Financial Sector Is Done, for a Decade

So I said in this unusually pessimistic appearance on Scott Horton’s radio show. This AIG bonus bill has really sealed the deal for me. Suppose you were put in charge of AIG. How would you structure compensation packages to attract the right people who would actually turn the company around? Why, I think you would […]