Bob Murphy

Author Archive

Does the Salmonella Outbreak Prove the Need for Bigger Government?

Earlier I blogged about the Georgia peanut butter plant (I love that misleading phrase) and how leftists automatically assumed it proved the need for a stronger FDA, when a hardcore libertarian would argue that it shows you can’t trust government to keep your food (or your planes) safe. Today at LRC’s blog David Kramer offers […]

Three Articles From Readers

Now that the book manuscript is turned in, I am attending to the black hole known as my Inbox. Here are three items of interest: * Arthur Foulkes (not related to Guy Fawkes) sent his column giving a great critique of Keynesianism for the layperson. * Foulkes also sent this Keynesian professor’s response. * Brian […]

Where to Start Reading for a Free Market Education?

I get this question a lot, so it makes sense for me to blog the answer. Whether you’re a homeschooling parent or a nerdy teenager who decides that learning is more important than dating, here is my suggested approach to learning free market economics in general, and Austrian economics in particular. Note that I am […]

Bank Bailout Blues

My column at Townhall today. I actually came up with a defense of golden parachutes that I hadn’t realized before: And so that type of candidate, who realizes he or she might get let go in a few years, is not going to relish a compensation package as CEO where the payout is $20 million […]

More Hilarious Job Numbers

One of the central points of IER’s critique of “green jobs” studies is that these studies would assume that jobs could be “created” without destroying other jobs. And it’s not just an issue of taxes or borrowing, but even of workers quitting their current jobs and going into the subsidized sector. To illustrate, suppose the […]

Banks Should Raise Prices in a Recession

In doing research for the book, I had an epiphany. And what is embarrassing is that this obvious truth has been sitting around for more than a century, but it was buried by Milton Friedman and others: During a financial panic, central banks should raise rates. An excerpt from my Mises Daily: If the owner […]

Murphy Interviewed on Roland and Diane Show

We conducted this interview (mp3) last Wednesday. It was a full hour, with (I believe) only one commercial break at the bottom of the hour, so lots of ground covered here. Also, their show wasn’t the standard right-wing shock jock stuff, so it was a different type of interview. The official topic was my book […]

"Great achievements in American socialism"

That is Salon’s title, not mine. Yes, they are adopting the term just to spite talk show hosts, but go ahead and check it out. It is a monument to “What Is Seen.” (HT2 my wife Rachael) Rather than publish another essay, though there have been some fine ones lately, about just what really happened […]