Bob Murphy

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Potpourri

* Mark Weber passes along a Vanity Fair interview with Louis CK. Now in the middle you might think, “Wait a second, he sounds anti-consumer, not anti-Fed! I’ve been duped!” But c’mon, the guy’s a comedian. Just like you can love Carlin and Bill Hicks for their foreign policy riffs, so too can you appreciate […]

Too Much Bank Transparency

Earlier today I relayed some free advice regarding my empirical research at the bank. I thought my readers would enjoy visual documentation: I think we can all agree, this was no small hole. Immediately after the incident, Mel Brooks from Spaceballs* popped into my head. * If anyone can find me the right YouTube clip, […]

Murphy Triple Play

Oh my, once every 38 years, the stars align such that three hard-hitting articles debut on the same day. Today is such a day. (1) In this EconLib piece I dissect the paradox of thrift, using Steve Fazzari’s EconTalk podcast as a springboard. If you have the time (and haven’t already listened to it), I […]

Free Advice About Banks

This bit of important advice regarding banks is based on personal experience from this morning: If your laundry situation is dire and you consequently are wearing your “Freakin Sweet!” Peter Griffin boxers, and you are wearing rather tight jeans that already have a tiny rip in back, and you are walking out of the bank […]

Restricted Covenants: The Year of Jubilee

Just when you think you’ve got the Old Testament God all figured out, He throws a curveball at you. Now He literally is laying down the law throughout Leviticus, and it’s not exactly summer camp. But then in chapter 25, He explains the “Year of Jubilee” which is quite fascinating: 8 ‘And you shall count […]

Louis CK: Everything Is Amazing Right Now, and Nobody’s Happy

This is a wonderful clip passed along by Robert K. I saw Louis CK live and he was really good. As the clip below demonstrates, he has a pretty cool moral code as far as comics go. (Notice how Conan can’t even proceed because he realizes Louis CK is on a roll and that his […]

The Policeman Is Not Your Friend, Or, Why Monopolies Are Bad

Folks, I see tons of these videos; I only pass along the most outrageous. And let’s get something straight: The point isn’t so much, “Whoa, there are some bad apples in the police industry!” because yeah, there are violent thugs in most lines of work. Out of a million cops, surely some will occasionally be […]

Potpourri

* Here’s a great Wenzel analysis of censorship (perhaps self-imposed) in financial reporting. At a New York conference recently Luo Ping, a director-general at the China Banking Regulatory Commission, said, “We hate you guys. Once you start issuing $1 trillion-$2 trillion [$1,000bn-$2,000bn] . . .we know the dollar is going to depreciate, so we hate […]