Bob Murphy

Author Archive

What’s a Free Marketeer to Think?

Such is the series of columns at American Experiment. The founder, Mitch Pearlstein, invited free market think tanks to contribute essays on the topic. If you go to their main page (linked above), you can see a list of the volumes. Most people are against the Paulson bailout, but some think it is a regrettable […]

"Bailout Doesn’t Resolve Fears on Credit, Economy"

So announces CNBC the day the bailout passes. So let’s see: We’ll be generous and say the bailout only cost $700 billion, even though this thing actually is more, and even though the precedent will allow them to spend trillions when all is said and done. Also, we’ll be generous and say that there was […]

Humor in the VP Debate

The last two nights I have pulled “half-niters” so I have to crash now, rather than doing a full-length analysis. I am sure if I get an important project Friday morning, I will choose to write up more on the VP debate instead of the project… Anyway, I just wanted to note that both candidates […]

Two Questions on the Conventional Bailout Commentary

Two issues keep bothering me in all this bailout talk. (Well, actually there are about 202 things bothering me, but you get what I mean.) Up till now I have assumed I was missing something, but now that I am reading other people voicing my internal confusion, I feel more confident in proceeding… (1) “Instead […]

The Deflationists Have a Good Day

Many people, including Austro-libertarian Gary North, have been warning of deflation. This is unusual, since Austrians typically decry the Fed and its inflationary fiat money. Today is certainly a feather in the cap of the deflationists. The stock indices are all down 3% or more, and at the same time all the commodities are way […]

Chris Sciabarra Puts More Thought Into His (non)Blog Than Paulson Into His Plan

Chris Sciabarra has a long but excellent post on the whole mess. (Don’t worry folks, even I’m starting to get sick of this topic. It’s actually a subtle technique on my part: By the time this thing goes through, you will prefer an extra personal debt of $3000 in order to have me switch to […]

Tom Woods Interviews Murphy–Fortunately No Mention of the Bush Doctrine

Interview here.

Add Chadwick to the No-Short-Read List

I decided a few days ago to never ever read or listen to Jim Cramer again, on principle. Today I must add another frequent CNBC contributor, Patricia Chadwick, to the list. I have criticized Chadwick before. But that was nothing. In today’s “article,” she offers absolutely zero arguments. She simply asserts that the American people […]