This week, Bob talks with macroeconomist Roger Farmer—who places himself “between Keynes and Hayek”—about how twentieth-century macroeconomics evolved.
The Human Action Podcast
The Human Action Podcast features in-depth interviews on current topics in economics through an Austro libertarian lens.
Bob uses three recent controversies–Richard Murphy’s “Christmas all year” claim, Elon Musk’s net worth, and Ron DeSantis on the Great Depression–to clear up common economic fallacies about work, wealth, and wartime spending.
Bob uses clips from his recent interview with Eric Weinstein to explain why Weinstein thinks gauge theory can fix how economists measure the cost of living, and why Austrians shouldn’t dismiss him as a crank.
This week, Bob walks through two related debates: Hoppe’s criticism of Argentina's President Milei for not immediately closing Argentina’s central bank, and the follow-up exchange between Guido Hülsmann and Philipp Bagus over dollarization and the peso.
Bob walks through a recent WIRED video on “the economics behind the Great Depression,” correcting its claims on lax regulation, Hoover’s alleged inaction, the role of the Fed and the gold standard, and the notion that World War II ended the slump.
Bob revisits capital and interest theory to show why the textbook result “interest = MPK” only holds in a one-good world, and why in actual markets the interest rate emerges from time, prices, and capital valuation—not raw productivity.
Prompted by an online debate about whether economics belongs with the hard sciences, Bob reviews common defenses of mainstream practice and explains why they don’t settle the scientific status of the field.
Bob Murphy and Jonathan Newman walk through his claim that real‑world exchanges clear markets—even with supposedly “sticky” prices—and what that implies for money, contracts, inventories, and unemployment statistics.
Is paying down the federal debt a recession trigger? Bob takes on the MMT claim and checks the record, citing US debt payoffs, Canada’s 1990s reforms, and ECB case studies.
Alex Pollock joins the Human Action Podcast to explain his recent Congressional testimony on how Congress should reform the Federal Reserve’s mandates.
Bob explains Lerner’s Symmetry Theorem and shows how tariffs ripple through exchange rates, exports, and trade balances—then tests those predictions against today’s Trumpov-era tariff shocks.
Bob breaks down the fears about AI-driven unemployment and shows why economic reasoning still favors human prosperity in a high-tech world.
Jonathan Newman joins Bob to unpack Eliezer Yudkowsky’s viral bubble theory and contrasts it with the Austrian view of boom-bust cycles.
Professor Georgy Ganev joins Bob to explain that, contrary to the claims of David Graeber and the MMTers, the barter origen of money has not been refuted.
Bob explains why blaming private equity for America’s housing woes misses the deeper economic forces at play, from speculation to Federal Reserve intervention.
Jeff Degner joins Bob Murphy to explain how inflation reshapes marriage, fertility, and family life, linking Austrian monetary theory to today’s cultural hurdles.
Bob analyzes the myth of Federal Reserve independence, exposing its political nature and long history of serving power.
Peter Klein joins to discuss the Mises Institute's new book, Hayek for the 21st Century—exploring knowledge, competition, money, and why freedom beats central planning every time.
Rothbard argued that the Fed stripped away the natural checks of free banking, paving the way for endless credit expansion and inflationary cycles.
Bob breaks down the mechanics behind how commercial banks create money out of thin air—and why that power fuels economic booms and busts.
