Episodes
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This week, Bob talks with Dr. Patrick Newman about his new book, Cronyism: Rise of the Corporatist State, 1849–1929, which reviews how big business built the regulatory state, the Fed, and cartels like the AMA, all justified in the name of the "public interest." Related: Cronyism: Rise of the Corporatist State, 1849–1929: Mises.org/HAP562aBob on the Speaker Panel, Why Is the Healthcare System Broken?: Mises.org/HAP562b
Bob returns to the fractional reserve banking debate to clarify a point the critics keep missing: in the Mises-Hayek-Rothbard framework, it's fractional reserve banking itself that sets the boom-bust cycle in motion, not merely central banks. Related: Lawrence White, Free Banking in Britain: Mises.org/HAP561aBob's Previous Episode on Rothbard vs Free Bankers: Mises.org/HAP561bBob's Paper on the History of Fractional Reserve Free Banking: Mises.org/HAP561cRoger Garrison's Presentations on Capital-Based Macroeconomics: Mises.org/HAP561d
Bob reviews Murray Rothbard's 1988 essay "The Myth of Free Banking in Scotland," his sharp response to Larry White's influential account of Scottish free banking. Related: Rothbard's Article, "The Myth of Free Banking in Scotland": Mises.org/HAP560aBob's Debate with George Selgin on Fractional Reserve Banking: Mises.org/HAP560bGeorge Selgin's Article, "Scottish Banks and the Bank Restriction, 1797–1821": Mises.org/HAP560cJoe Salerno's Article on Mises as Currency School Free Banker: Mises.org/HAP560dLawrence White, Free Banking in Britain Mises.org/HAP560e
Bob sits down with the managing editor of the Libertarian Institute, Keith Knight, to sample arguments from his recent four-hour video cataloguing sixty-four problems with democratic socialism. Related: Find More from Keith Here: Mises.org/HAP559a64 Arguments Against Democratic Socialism: Mises.org/HAP559bKeith's Domestic Imperialism: Nine Reasons I Left Progressivism: Mises.org/HAP559c
Bob uses U.S. economic history, centering on the greenback era, to work through some subtle but important distinctions in Austrian monetary theory. He also addresses whether free-market economies have a natural tendency toward price deflation under a commodity standard, why the stock-versus-flow distinction matters for understanding gold production and the price level, and how to distinguish "bad" policy-induced monetary deflation from the "good" price deflation that accompanies genuine productivity growth. Related: Patrick Newman, "The Depression of 1873-1879: An Austrian Perspective": Mises.
In the wake of Alan Greenspan's recent passing, Bob revisits two contested claims about his legacy: did the Fed under Greenspan fuel the housing bubble, and did that bubble cause the 2008 financial crisis? Related: Bob's Article from October, 2007, "The Worst Recession in 25 years?": Mises.org/HAP557aPeter Schiff was Right (2006-2007 Edition): Mises.org/HAP557bMark Thornton, 2004, "Housing: Too Good to Be True": Mises.org/HAP557cBob's 2008 Article, "The Importance of Capital Theory": Mises.org/HAP557dThe Charts Shown in this Episode: Mises.org/HAP557e
Bob walks through what Ludwig von Mises wrote about slavery in Human Action, arguing that the institution was not — as the 1619 Project claims — the foundation of American capitalism. Related: Ludwig von Mises, Human Action: Mises.org/HAP556a
Bob sits down with fund manager and author Lawrence Lepard to discuss his book The Big Print, which argues that the core problem with modern America is not corporate greed or partisan politics, but a monetary system deliberately structured to benefit those closest to the Fed at the expense of wage earners and savers. Related: The Big Print: What Happened To America And How Sound Money Will Fix It: Mises.org/HAP555a
Bob sits down with Harvard Economics Professor Pol Antràs to discuss his new paper applying Böhm-Bawerk's average period of production to international trade, testing whether countries with lower interest rates tend to export goods requiring longer, more roundabout production processes. Related: Professor Antràs' Paper, "An ‘Austrian’ Model of International Specialization": Mises.org/HAP554aBob's Article, "The Reswitching Question": Mises.org/HAP554b
Bob sits down with economists Alexander Salter and Joshua Hendrickson to discuss their new paper arguing that the standard Austrian critique of the Fed while correct, is fundamentally incomplete. They argue that the Fed's actual institutional role is to backstop U.S. dollar hegemony: the deliberately constructed post-Bretton Woods system in which the dollar serves as the world's reserve currency, U.S. Treasuries as the global safe asset, and the Fed as buyer of last resort for sovereign debt worldwide. Related: Hendrickson & Salter, "Should We End the Fed? Can We?": Mises.org/HAP553a
Bob sits down with economist Emmanuel Maggiori to discuss his new book If You Can Just Print Money, Why Do I Pay Taxes?, a carefully researched, point-by-point critique of Modern Monetary Theory that engages MMT on its own terms, drawing on the MMTers' own textbook, papers, and responses to critics. Related: If You Can Just Print Money, Why Do I Pay Taxes?: Mises.org/HAP552aBob's Mises Daily Article, "The Upside-Down World of MMT": Mises.org/HAP552bJonathan Newman and Bob's MisesU Lecture on MMT: Mises.org/HAP552c
This week, Bob walks through three thought experiments to show how expectations of future supply changes ripple into present prices and production decisions in ways that purely mechanical monetary frameworks like MV=PQ can't capture. Related: How Can Mining Asteroids in the Future Make Us Richer Today?: Mises.org/HAP551aBob's 2008 Article on Oil Prices: Mises.org/HAP551bCelebrate Murray Rothbard's 100th birthday with a free copy of Anatomy of the State. Get yours at Mises.org/HAPodFree
Bob sits down with Dr. Jonathan Newman to discuss his Mises Academy course for homeschooling families based on Lessons for the Young Economist, using it as a starting point to walk through the full Austrian case against socialism. Related: The Mises Academy: Mises.org/HAP550aDr. Newman's Course, Lessons for the Young Economist: Mises.org/HAP550bBob's Lessons for the Young Economist: Mises.org/HAP550cBob's Lessons for the Young Economist Teacher's Manual: Mises.org/HAP550dDr. Newman's Article, "Star Trek Is Wrong: There Will Always Be Scarcity": Mises.org/HAP550eCelebrate Murray Rothbard's 100t
Bob argues that many Austro-libertarians (himself included, initially) have been too quick to dismiss the Trump administration's foreign and economic policy as mere incompetence or corruption, without grasping the strategic logic behind it. His thesis: the U.S. national security establishment sees China's rise as an existential threat and believes the window to act is closing fast, making the current flurry of aggressive moves less like random chaos and more like a desperate Hail Mary pass. Related: The Charts and Graphs Mentioned in this Episode: Mises.org/HAP549aThe Bob Murphy Show, "LEAKED:
Bob responds to a new working paper from the Geo-chartalism project, which claims to offer a complete theory of the price level by combining insights from Menger, Cantillon, and Warren Mosler. Bob argues that the paper overlooks a crucial prior contribution: Mises' regression theorem, developed in The Theory of Money and Credit, which already solved the circularity problem in monetary theory that the paper claims required Mosler to resolve. Along the way, Bob also explains chartalism, Georgism, and Mises's explanation of the absolute price level. Related: Bob's Paper Critiquing Kevin Carson's
Bob sits down with researcher Robert Aro to review his recent Mises.org article on why the widely anticipated post-QT crash never materialized. They trace the answer back to the Fed's reverse repo facility, which quietly injected trillions back into the financial system even as the official balance sheet was shrinking, and what the depletion of that buffer might mean for what comes next. Related: Robert's Power & Market Post, "Why the Crash Was Delayed": Mises.org/HAP547aBob’s Article, “The Inverted Yield Curve and Recession”: Mises.org/HAP547bThe Mises Institute is giving away 100,000 copies
Bob sits down with macro researcher Luke Gromen of Forest for the Trees to discuss the cascading supply chain consequences of a closed Strait of Hormuz. They also touch on why gold is already supplanting the dollar as the world's premier reserve asset, and what the surge in U.S. gold exports over the past five months tells us about where the global monetary order is heading. The Mises Institute is giving away 100,000 copies of Hayek for the 21st Century. Get your free copy at Mises.org/HAPodFree
After his recent Zero Hedge debate with MMT co-founder Randall Wray, Bob takes a deep dive into the sectoral balance approach. He explains why the MMT argument is technically a tautology, how it's deeply misleading, and why the private sector doesn't need government deficits to save, invest, and accumulate real wealth. Related: Is Paying Down Government Debt Bad for the Economy?: Mises.org/HAP545aBob's Article, "Does History Show Government Debt Paydown Causes a Crash?": Mises.org/HAP545bThe Mises Institute is giving away 100,000 copies of Hayek for the 21st Century. Get your free copy at Mise
This week, Bob explains Cantillon effects: the insight that new money doesn't raise all prices equally or simultaneously, but flows through the economy in a sequence that benefits early recipients at the expense of everyone else. Then, he shows why this phenomenon is the foundation on which the entire Austrian theory of the business cycle is built. Related: Richard Cantillon, An Essay on Economic Theory: Mises.org/HAP544aThe Mises Institute is giving away 100,000 copies of Hayek for the 21st Century. Get your free copy at Mises.org/HAPodFree
Bob untangles two arguments that even Austrian economists sometimes conflate: Mises' calculation problem and Hayek's knowledge problem. Then, he explains why the distinction matters, especially in light of recent claims that AI and modern computing could finally make central planning viable. Related: Bob's Article, "Socialism: The Calculation Problem Is Not the Knowledge Problem": Mises.org/HAP543aThe Mises Institute is giving away 100,000 copies of Hayek for the 21st Century. Get your free copy at Mises.org/HAPodFree
In memory of Roger Garrison, Bob walks through Garrison's famous capital-based macroeconomics diagrams, showing how they translate the Mises-Hayek theory of the boom-bust cycle into the language of modern macroeconomics. Related: Roger Garrison, The Austrian Theory of the Business Cycle: Mises.org/HAP542aRoger Garrison, Austrian Macroeconomics: A Diagrammatical Exposition: Mises.org/HAP542bThe Diagrams Referenced in the Podcast: Mises.org/HAP542cDr. Garrison's PowerPoints: Mises.org/HAP542dThe Mises Institute is giving away 100,000 copies of Hayek for the 21st Century. Get your free copy at Mi
In commemoration of Murray Rothbard’s 100th birthday, Bob shares five “greatest hits” from Rothbard’s economics, covering deficits vs. inflation, monopoly theory, excess capacity, the time structure of production, and his reconstruction of utility and welfare economics. Related: Rothbard, Making Economic Sense: Mises.org/HAP541aRothbard, "Toward a Reconstruction of Utility and Welfare Economics": Mises.org/HAP541bRothbard, Man, Economy, and State with Power and Market: Mises.org/HAP541cBob's Study Guide to Man, Economy, and State with Power and Market: Mises.org/HAP541dJoin the Mises Institute
Bob uses Trump’s call to ban congressional insider trading as a springboard to explain why, from an Austro-libertarian perspective, insider trading and speculation could help markets work, while still justifying special rules for government employees. Related: Bob's Article "Is Insider Trading Really a Crime?": Mises.org/HAP540aThe Social Function of Stock Speculators: Mises.org/HAP540bThe Social Function of Futures Markets: Mises.org/HAP540cThe Social Function of Call and Put Options: Mises.org/HAP540dThe Mises Institute is giving away 100,000 copies of Hayek for the 21st Century. Get your fr
This week, Bob walks through Javier Milei’s 2026 address to the World Economic Forum, explaining the Austrian and neoclassical ideas behind Milei’s defense of capitalism—from Rothbard and Kirzner to Pareto efficiency and the welfare theorems. Related: Bob's Breakdown of The Intra-Austrian Debate over Milei: Mises.org/HAP539aThe Mises Institute is giving away 100,000 copies of Hayek for the 21st Century. Get your free copy at Mises.org/HAPodFree
Bob lays out California’s proposed 5% wealth tax on billionaires, using it to explain why taxes on wealth are especially destructive, how different tax structures change incentives, and what recent migration data says about people voting with their feet. Related: Data on 2020–2024 State-to-State Migration: Mises.org/HAP538a"Where Americans Choose to Move and Where They Leave": Mises.org/HAP538bPoliticians don’t build prosperity. Entrepreneurs do. Join Keith Smith, Caitlin Long, Ryan McMaken, Per Bylund, and Timothy Terrell for our first event of 2026: Mises.org/OKCHA The Mises Institute is giv
