Bob Murphy Show

Bob goes solo to explain some of the most important points in his new QJAE article on the fractional reserve banking debate. Bob shows why Mises thought *any* issuance of fiduciary media caused the boom-bust cycle, and he points out a major flaw in George Selgin's defense of fractional reserve banking.

Ben Powell, head of the Free Market Institute at Texas Tech, discusses his newly released book Socialism Sucks (co-authored with Robert Lawson). Powell and Lawson toured countries around the world to observe firsthand life under ACTUAL socialism--in places like North Korea and Venezuela--versus places that merely have large welfare states (like Sweden). They concluded that, well, socialism sucks.

On July 19, 2019, Bob gave a talk on private military defense at Mises University. It was an elaboration of his standard talk from previous years on "The Market for Security."

This episode continues the discussion that Bob had with Dr. Michel Accad back in ep. 43. There, Bob reviewed the development of concepts like "efficiency" and "market failure," so that now he and Michel (in the current episode) could understand the pioneering 1963 article from Kenneth Arrow on health care economics. Specifically, Arrow outlines reasons that (in his mind) a free market in health care and health insurance won't work very well.

Steve Patterson--host of "Patterson in Pursuit"--talks to Bob about one of his recent essays, in which Patterson challenged the standard Misesian/Rothbardian view on economics. Specifically, Patterson claims that you can't get very far with pure a priori reasoning--even pretty basic economic laws rely on empirical assumptions.

Michel Accad practices cardiology and general internal medicine in San Francisco, and holds a part-time clinical faculty appointment at the University of California San Francisco. This episode reproduces a discussion Bob had on Michel's podcast, where they discussed the development of "welfare economics" in mainstream theory, in preparation for their subsequent discussion (which will be Bob Murphy Show ep. 45) of Kenneth Arrow's famous paper critiquing free-market health care delivery.

Like the Matrix, you cannot be told about a 3-hour conversation with Donnie Gebert; you must hear it for yourself. But here's the blurb from his book: "All members of a direct republic sign...the constitution/social contract. This contract states you will not engage in murder, rape, theft, and basic crimes against humanity. Once signed, the individual becomes their own representative and places social contributions directly into the funding pools for the social projects they approve of."

Bob has a friendly discussion/debate with Karl Smith. First Bob pushes Karl to clarify the conditions under which government deficit spending could, even in theory, help a depressed economy. Then they switch to the economics of climate change, and Bob's view that the case for a carbon tax is much weaker than most economists admit.

Tucker Carlson gives unambiguous approval for Elizabeth Warren's call for "economic nationalism," saying her proposal sounds like "Trump at his best." Carlson pillories American companies for outsourcing their operations to other countries, and blames Republican leadership for its dedication to doctrinaire libertarianism and Austrian economics. (Not a joke.) Bob disagrees with this take.

Bob talks with Stephan Kinsella about the basis of libertarian law, and how we could have justice without a coercive State. They then discuss Stephan's pathbreaking work making the case that property must be in tangible things, rendering "intellectual property" an incoherent and dangerous concept.

Bob replays a recent Contra Krugman episode where he went solo, covering a Paul Krugman column on infrastructure spending. In addition to getting the economics wrong (as usual), Krugman also make a shocking admission about his willingness to harm the country so long as it denied Trump a political victory.

Keith Smith is an anesthesiologist who founded the Oklahoma Surgery Center, and the Free Market Medical Association. He is a medical doctor but also a student of economics. Bob and Keith discuss the recent FMMA conference in Dallas, and explain how patients and doctors right now can break out of our broken health care / insurance system.

Bob goes solo to point out a common fallacy among even self-described anarcho-capitalists, when they blame a social problem on "too little government." For example, in standard arguments over drug prohibition, sometimes libertarians will argue, "A drug dealer can't call the cops if he gets robbed, so this leads to more violence in the industry." Bob explains what's wrong with this way of thinking.

Scott Horton returns to the podcast to share his wealth of knowledge on a variety of topics. Bob first gives Scott the opportunity to express his unhappiness with the recent episode (#29) on Ilhan Omar. Then they discuss the economic crisis in Venezuela, the carnage in the Middle East, the Mueller Report, and finally answer questions from the BMS Secret Facebook Group.

Bob brings on special guest Avi Loeb, who is the Frank B. Baird Jr. Professor of Science and Chair of the Astronomy Department at Harvard. Among other positions, Prof. Loeb is founding Director of the Black Hole Initiative, and is thus ideally suited to explain the recent images of a massive black hole circulating on social media. Loeb also has been at the center of media discussion concerning the strange object in space named 'Oumuamua, which has several properties that make Loeb hypothesize that it might not be a strictly natural phenomenon.