Radio Free Delingpole #13: What About Bob?
Blue Yeti ·
April 5, 2012 at 9:56pm
Welcome to another edition of America's most dangerous podcast. This week, economist and author Bob Murphy (check out his new book The Politically Incorrect Guide to Capitalism) stops by to discuss gold, the Euro, the dollar, and an economy built on sand -- basically, why we're all doomed. Have a nice day!
Ricochet members, subscribe here (you'll also find the direct link there). Everyone else, listen in below.
Artists depiction of the recent Delingpole-Murphy economic summit courtesy of EJHill.
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Comments:
May '10
Re: Radio Free Delingpole #13: What About Bob?
Ah, Bob Murphy is among my favorite libertarian anarchists.
May '10
Re: Radio Free Delingpole #13: What About Bob?
Sorry, James. But, every time you say "Bob", I can't help but think of the scene in the movie French Kiss in which the American character struggles to understand the Frenchman's pronunciation of that name.
I searched in vain on YouTube for a clip.
May '10
Re: Radio Free Delingpole #13: What About Bob?
I wish this podcast was available to non-Members as well, so I could share it.
Some notes as I listen...
Exactly. Most other government are either just as insanely frivolous with their budgets or governed by dictators.
Everyone knows the American government is stretching the dollar, providing less value per dollar than we used to. Now, it's a waiting game to see how little actual value our lenders will accept before deciding to either stop dealing with us or try to secure reimbursement by force.
It remains to be seen whether the consequences will come primarily from within or without.
May '10
Re: Radio Free Delingpole #13: What About Bob?
Never underestimate the power of the human will to deny reality. Let liberals live under the delusion that any person given adequate knowledge will be forced into right action by that awareness. We conservatives understand that human history is driven by free will. Sadly, that will often drives us to ruin.
But we always rebuild.
May '10
Re: Radio Free Delingpole #13: What About Bob?
I can't speak for economists or Wall Street investors, but the reason most voters are so complacent right now is because they can still buy food at the grocery store, gasoline at the gas station, and so on. The price of gasoline might be double what it was just four years ago (and, with it, the prices of everything else have risen), but daily life is still generally like it has been throughout recent memory.
Assuming that politics is still driven primarily by voters — rather than by lobbyists, lawyers and aristocrats — the insanity of nanny state spending and taxation will only be curbed when Americans in general witness a dramatic dissolution of security and order in their daily lives.
The frog is boiling.
May '10
Re: Radio Free Delingpole #13: What About Bob?
Excellent point, Bob, about the false motives behind energy politics.
I share Murphy's optimism about oil reserves. But I would add two caveats.
The first point, which he touches on, is that some reserves are only made cost-efficient by increasing regulations (which remove access to cheaper drilling sites, for example) or rising oil prices. Oil drilling is always an expensive, high-risk business. Deep ocean drilling and increasing pursuit of natural gas are consequences of market pressures.
The second point, which contributes to the first, is that exploration estimates are far from exact. My dad was a senior petroleum geologist who worked primarily on sites in the Gulf of Mexico. It was his responsibility, after reviewing geological surveys and consulting with physicists and engineers, to decide the best locations for his company to drill. He always told me that they never really knew how much oil a site contained which could be cost-efficiently harvested until they started drilling.
In other words, it's right to be optimistic about the world's fossil fuel reserves (North America's included), but that optimism should be tempered by political realities and by an awareness than estimates are just that — estimates.
Apr '11
Re: Radio Free Delingpole #13: What About Bob?
Some questions for Bob:
1. What type of cave does he prefer?
2. Handguns or shotguns?
3. Favorite brand of water?
4. Favorite brand of dried food?
5. Krugerrand or Gold Eagle?
May '10
Re: Radio Free Delingpole #13: What About Bob?
This says it all, really:
Jan '11
Re: Radio Free Delingpole #13: What About Bob?
Delingpole Rocks!
I'm with Bob. I thought we would have crashed by now.
Nov '11
Re: Radio Free Delingpole #13: What About Bob?
The economy/currency is always backed by people's faith in it. I marvel at the amount of people I know who don't really work and still seem to live (and go to school). I am sure unemployment and other gov't pay outs are part of this unreality. That being said, I am glad it is so. I do not want a crash, and would prefer a hold out until the Dems are out and we can perhaps start turning it around (see, how hopeful I am?). Interest rates are huge. If they go up businesses alone will drop like flies, as so many are on the edge already. Commercial Loans are short-term. Does anyone else remember the days of 11% interest rates?
Feb '11
Re: Radio Free Delingpole #13: What About Bob?
Odd phrase you closed with, James. "Around America and across the world." Most of us would do that the other way round. "Across America and around the world."
Oct '10
Re: Radio Free Delingpole #13: What About Bob?
For whatever reason nothing could get any of my players to open in Mozilla for this audio. Everything else works and rebooting didn't help.
Here is the direct link in case anyone else is having the problem.
Feb '11
Re: Radio Free Delingpole #13: What About Bob?
Do you think it is for nothing that the "new" natural gas fields are precisely in those spots where the first oil finds in 1859 here in the US were located? When you tap oil, you never get all of it out of the ground. In fact, you get a relatively small percentage. Getting more out requires two things: technology and higher prices. We have technology that didn't exist even 10 years ago and prices are higher. So miraculously, there is an energy boom. That's the reason there will never be -- ever, ever, ever -- an energy shortage.
On the other hand, the fields in the Middle East will never be irrelevant precisely because there is so much energy there as well. It is far cheaper for East Asia and Europe to get their energy there, so it will. It also mean the Middle East will not be politically irrelevant. It just should be irrelevant as far as the US is concerned. Those crazy people should be somebody else's headache, and not ours.
Peak oil is a scam.
Oct '10
Re: Radio Free Delingpole #13: What About Bob?
I've enjoyed the podcasts all along and I enjoyed this one too. I do want to take issue with the talk about the monetary base expanding under QE. Now that the Fed pays interest on those reserves the banks hold with them it doesn't really matter that the monetary base is expanding. Indeed, the money in circulation hasn't increased significantly either. This isn't to say that we shouldn't be worried about inflation, just not for this reason.
Mar '11
Re: Radio Free Delingpole #13: What About Bob?
Aaron Miller: Sorry, James. But, every time you say "Bob", I can't help but think of the scene in the movie French Kiss in which the American character struggles to understand the Frenchman's pronunciation of that name.
I searched in vain on YouTube for a clip. · Apr 5 at 2:12pm
My thoughts were that he sounds like Rowan Atkinson. In the clip he discusses the name "Bob" and the humor in it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zByPDd1lctY