Ep. 172 How Much Oil Should Humanity Use This Year?
Harold Hotelling in 1931 wrote the pioneering article “The Economics of Exhaustible Resources” that described the equilibrium prices over time for a finite resource such as oil or coal. Bob explains the answer and how it matches with the Austrian view of time preference. Mentioned in the Episode and Other Links of Interest: Bob’s EconLib article…
Ep. 171 Mahyar Tousi on the Classical Liberal Case for Brexit
Mahyar Tousi has a popular show out of the UK who has been intimately involved in making the case for Brexit, coming from a classical liberal free trade perspective. Mentioned in the Episode and Other Links of Interest: The YouTube version of this interview. Mahyar Tousi’s YouTube channel. Help support the Bob Murphy Show. The audio…
Ep. 170 Bob Murphy Dissects the “Shopping Cart Theory” Allegedly Blowing Up the Case for Self-Governance
Recently Tim Poole alluded to the so-called “shopping cart theory” of why self-governance is impossible. Specifically, because people can’t even bother to take back the shopping cart when this is clearly the socially right thing to do, we can’t hope to have a system relying on everyone’s good nature. Bob explains what’s wrong with this argument.…
Ep. 169 Mario Rizzo on His History with the Austrian School and the Economics of Time & Ignorance
Mario Rizzo is a professor in the Department of Economics at NYU–where he was Bob’s dissertation chair. He talks about how he found the Austrian School and his own contributions to economics. Mentioned in the Episode and Other Links of Interest: The YouTube version of this interview. Mario Rizzo’s homepage. Mario’s books The Economics of Time and…
Ep. 168 Bob Murphy Responds to Dave Ramsey Calling IBC a Scam
Personal finance guru Dave Ramsey recently called IBC a scam on his popular show. Ramsey alleged that the dividends received from a mutual life insurance company were just deliberate overcharges to make the customer think he was earning a profit, even though it all came out of the customer’s own pocket. Bob sets the record…