Bob Murphy

Author Archive

Fed Credit Charts as Fine Art

For those who have long suspected that economics is not a science, I am ashamed to report that several of us PhDs can’t even agree on whether there was a “credit crunch” during the first half of the year. Exhibit A is the Mark Thoma/Alex Tabarrok feud. They look at the exact same charts and […]

The Problem With Minarchist Analogies

This post will be critical of John Stossel, so I just want to make clear that he is awesome and is doing a lot to spread free market ideas. Now then… In a recent WSJ op ed, Stossel compares society to an ice skating rink, and explains that he filmed an attempt to “centrally plan” […]

Wanda Sykes on the Bailout

A surprisingly libertarian analysis. (She’s actually pretty good on other issues too since her Bush-bashing matches up with most of my views. I’m sure I will hate her comedy routines during an Obama administration, though.) HT2 Mitche.

Scott Horton Interviews Murphy on Credit Default Swaps, etc.

This interview is another long one–you people are probably wondering how I get anything done. What’s good about these ones is that Scott and I are close enough that if he sets up a premise, I’m not afraid to disagree with him. Incidentally, in our original interview Scott asked me whether things would have been […]

A Call to Popperians: How Can We Pit Cowen vs. ABCT?

In this post, Tyler Cowen acknowledges my capital-consumption story, and contrasts it with his own explanation. In a nutshell: Tyler is saying that the housing boom was fueled by the real savings of foreigners, and this explains how it is physically possible that Americans consumed more (TVs, iPods, etc.) at the same time that they […]

Jeff Tucker Interviews Murphy on Austrian Business Cycle Theory, and the Sinister Bailout

This is a fairly long one [mp3], but I know some of you are students and some are retired.

I Can Die Now

Tyler Cowen links to my article “The Importance of Capital Theory”–via a foreign website, strangely enough. You can read his post and my response, which is about 30 comments from the top. What I don’t get is that Tyler keeps thinking the coincidence of high consumption and high investment is a problem for Austrian business […]

Tom Woods, Manipulator of Crowds

I don’t understand how this happened. I knew Tom Woods was going to be giving a rousing speech at the Ron Paul rally (down the street from the McCain convention), and I kept asking him when it was going to be on YouTube. And then somehow, I didn’t end up watching it until a few […]