Actually, My Real Point Has Always Been This [Updated]:
Megan McArdle’s ‘real point’ regarding supply-side economics, as of 5:34PM EST:
[…]
Overall, I’m mildly in favor of ratcheting back the Bush tax cuts, starting with the income breaks for the wealthiest brackets, until we hit budget balance. But on my list of policy priorities it’s somewhere around “What shall we do about France?”
[…]
It’s spending I care about.
Perhaps someday, someone will research this mysterious subject.
Above: Graph of uncertain origin
Nobody knows what the largest factor in the deficit might be, although we suspect the answer might be encoded in one of the jaggy, graphy shapes above, the nature of which is difficult to determine.
Megan McArdle’s ‘real point’ regarding supply-side economics, as of 2:34PM EST:
[…]
What I don’t think is that supply-side economics is dominating Republican policy, which is what Chait, and now Matt, and for all I know everyone to the left of Lincoln Chafee, are now claiming. To release a book subtitled “How Washington Got Hoodwinked and Hijacked by Crackpot Economics” you need a little more than “sometimes, in the course of selling their policies, politicians make ludicrous claims based on discredited economic notions”, because that is not exactly a unipartisan vice. To subtitle your book that way, you need the most extreme form of supply-sidism to be the driving force behind Republican tax policy. And it just isn’t.
I don’t know where we ever got such an idea.
Above: Obscure business commentator
It certainly hasn’t turned up in any of the mainstream journals.
How Supply-Side Economics Trickled Down
By BRUCE BARTLETT[…]
The original supply-siders suggested that some tax cuts, under very special circumstances, might actually raise federal revenues. For example, cutting the capital gains tax rate might induce an unlocking effect that would cause more gains to be realized, thus causing more taxes to be paid on such gains even at a lower rate.
But today it is common to hear tax cutters claim, implausibly, that all tax cuts raise revenue. Last year, President Bush said, “You cut taxes and the tax revenues increase.” Senator John McCain told National Review magazine last month that “tax cuts, starting with Kennedy, as we all know, increase revenues.” Last week, Steve Forbes endorsed Rudolph Giuliani for the White House, saying, “He’s seen the results of supply-side economics firsthand — higher revenues from lower taxes.”
Abracadabra Economics
The new magic makes supply-side economics old hat.
By Michael Kinsley[…]
Even after nearly three decades of Republican abracadabranomics, this may be a first. A transparently phony theory at least pays tribute to the hypothesis that money doesn’t grow on trees. Not even to bother coming up with a phony theory is an arrogant insult to democracy. It raises “because I said so” to a governing philosophy.
The classic Republican phony theory is, of course, supply-side economics. Every proposed tax cut from before Reagan until Bush’s own has been defended on the grounds that it will pay for itself by stimulating new economic activity. This is a theory based more on faith than on evidence, but at least it’s a theory.
See below for the ‘real point’ as of 08:52AM EST (and so on from there).
Update: Tyler Cowan, another prominently bonkers ‘libertarian,’ takes up the cudgel:
I know one can find cites to supply-side economics by Giuliani, McCain and others, but the “starve the beast” theory — rightly or wrongly — is far more popular with the Right these days. Many people will use Laffer Curve claims to hide their real agendas but that is distinct from the Laffer Curve having much influence.
He has a bit of a point there. What he’s stopping short of saying is that the idea behind the ‘starve the beast’ theory is to rack up so much Federal debt via tax cuts and deficit spending that the government will be unable to fund any major social programs — 4EVAR!!1
An analogue would be a scheme to curb your household’s spending on immoral crap like medical care and retirement by taking a huge pay cut, spending down the savings account, maxing out all the credit cards on random luxury items, and triple-dip mortgaging the house. As in: Ha ha suckers, try writing a check now! Sane people have no trouble identifying this as stupidity of historical, fall-of-Rome proportions.
But Gavin, you’re missing the real real point. It’s the blogginess that’s truly important.
Those examples from the likes of Kudlow and Bartlett, Gavin? That’s just nitpicking.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0088258/quotes
Higher revenues from lower taxes as a general rule?
Gee, how come the government doesn’t just eliminate all taxes then? Why, they’d have enough money to give us ALL ponies if they did that!
I already got MY pony, Jillian. Where’s yours?
Wait. Kudlow is that ditzy girl from “Friends,” right? And Bartlett is the fictional U. S. President from “West Wing?” And Kinsley is that perverted sex researcher?
What could any of them possibly know about Eco-friggin-nomics, anyway?
I WANNA PONEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!! GIMMEE A PONEEEEEEE NOOOOOOOOWWWWWWW!!!!!!! WAH! NOBODY LOVES ME!!!!
McArdle calls herself an economist when she has an undergraduate degree in English and an MBA. If that makes her an economist then I am a freaking astronaut for all my years flying coach.
I’m concerned about spending, too. Like spending for that debacle of all debacles in Iraqinam.
Education: Bush by a landslide.
The Supreme Court: Bush. A number of commenters have tried to convince me not to vote for Bush by trying to scare me with dire tales about another Scalia or Thomas appointed to the bench. Folks, this is like trying to scare me with a free Porsche. I’d be in heaven with nine Clarence Thomases on the bench.
I think that the decision to invade Iraq had a lot of reasons behind it, of which only a few were discussed with America. And I’m also okay with that, unlike a lot of libertarians. The government, unfortunately, can’t have a secret closed-door meeting with the entire country in which it tells us what it is thinking.
Andrew Golis, I don’t hang around the TPM Cafe much, I’m more of an Election Central and TPM Muckraker reader. But I think you got some splainin’ to do.
Jillian:
Re: Pony
Amazingly, this was all Google managed to bring up:
http://www.google.com/search?client=safari&rls=en&q=pony+coupons&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8
Jillian, when I was a child, I had a pony named Diablo. He did not like children. He once ran away with me, and as he had a really tough mouth I wasn’t able to get him stopped until we were back at the barn. It was very frightening.
How about a nice kitten?
I’d say . . . I’d say that pony was exactly like Republican tax policy. I was the poor American tax payer and the happy little plum grove I was trying to ride to when the devil-pony bolted represents domestic tranquility and health care for everyone. The barn represents Iraq and the feed in the barn to which Diablo was running was Chinese feed.
Needs a little work. I’m very sick and have a fever. That’s my excuse.
Candy, is your real name Liz?
Nope.
How in hell is it possible that this woman McArghle gets paid to type this crap? When she is repeatedly shown to be both totally wrong and unvelievably lazy? Too lazy to waste 30 seconds using Google?
That Ivy League Insider Club membership card sure has some great rewards, I guess. Or else she’s sleeping with the entire editorial staff of The Atlantic.
Or they just have no standards at all.
McArdle calls herself an economist when she has an undergraduate degree in English and an MBA.
A degree in English? No shit. From her Krugman piece:
“Paul Krugman is about a zillion times smarter than I am, and also, grows a prety impressive beard.”
OK, the spelling is maybe (who knows) a sloppy typo, but the comma abuse….
megan mcardle: so pathetic she can’t knock down the very strawmen she sets up.
Geez. Harsh.
I disagree with what I’ve seen of her “positions” too.
But c’mon, think about it.
If I’m drawing a paycheck and blogging for a national publication, just exactly how much do I freakin care if you guys, doin whatever you do, disapprove. I’m pickin and grinnin every damn day.
You may not like it, and there may be a corrupt explanation for it, but I’d sure like to be sitting where she is.
Part of my existence is producing what are classified as “industrial videos”. These are marketing or educational video pieces made for corporations. I write ’em, cast em, edit ’em, and make and distribute the media copies. You might look at any one of them and say “sheesh, mikey, that’s shit on a stick. I could do WAY better than that”. Know what? Maybe you can. But I have the job. You might think that’s not fair, or right, but my employer chose me, for whatever reason. So come on, it’s starting to sound like out and out careerist jealousy around here.
We all know it. There’s more to getting and keeping a job than simple competence. We all know in our darkest hearts there’s people who could do our jobs better. But we prefer to keep our jobs. Hell, we’re proud of our jobs.
No, I’m not defending a single word she’s saying. I’m just starting to get real tired of the whole “wah, wah, why does SHE have MY gig”. Get the gig. She did. You can. If you do EVERYTHING right. (Here’s a hint. It’s more than how good a writer you are. That’s just the way it’s always been.)
mikey
There’s no damn excuse for typos in a medium w/ spell check & preview, especially when she’s never posted anything more than six original paragraphs long, & is getting paid for her crap. Probably hurts to re-read her own stuff. And “Dalmatian” is still misspelled in her “Gadget of the Week” (Which by the way has been the same gadget since she started three or four weeks ago, she’s not even a very good whore.) though I’ve brought it to her attention. Lazy, lazy, lazy, types like a texter, changes her alleged position every other post. Aaagh!!
It’s spending I care about.
No, she’s not a libertarian, she’s Grover Fucking Norquist!
Shifty little booger, isn’t she? Guess she’s been designated as the official stress-tester for the new, improved, ball-bearing gyro-driven Ultra-Spin Ever-Righteous Turntable Mount™, soon to be found atop all the best quality Glibertarian Pillars of Rectitude™…
“Yes, fellow Objectivists, with our self-correcting super-sensitive “Blogger Model”™ Ultra-Spin, you too can spout a new and ludicrous Universal Theory every other hour and never be forced to acknowledge that you are a self-satisfied ignoramous spouting half-digested talking points that leave mere Normals agape with amazement!”
At least the Atlantic can claim a shallow advantage over the Washington Post when it comes to hiring unqualified conservatard larvae: We can be fairly certain that McArdle’s thots are entirely her own. Heck, who else would *want* to claim “credit” for such, um, busy little brain-drippings?
I’m just starting to get real tired of the whole “wah, wah, why does SHE have MY gig”. Get the gig. She did. You can. If you do EVERYTHING right.
This is untrue because publishers want right-wing opinions. She’s good proof of that: she’s a terrible writer and terrible thinker but her opinions are within the acceptable discourse.
I am sure that this has already been asked, but how are supply-side economics not dominating Republican policy, when we currently are maintaining massive deficits, and the only Republican policies on the table are making Bush’s tax cuts permanent?
Mikey, you didn’t produce that hygiene vid posted yesterday did you?
While I’d love to get paid to type my opinions & sarcastic observations all day & all night & all afternoon, I don’t think my schtick would go over too well @ The Atlantic, or anywhere else respectable (i. e., that could pay me). Sure, there may be some resentment/jealousy of La Megatron going on here, but most of it is justified outrage & disbelief that an organ like The Atlantic hires someone on the basis of her being everyone’s friend, or her degrees (or who knows what?) & then allows her to get away w/ sloppy stupid crap all the time. Just because that’s the way it’s always been doesn’t make it right.
I now dismount from the Soapbox of Whining™.
Get the gig. She did. You can. If you do EVERYTHING right.
Well, I don’t want her gig. The point of all this wah-wahing is not envy; the point is truth in advertising and the degradation of once respectable institutions. The people I bitch about are employed by entities which claim to have a certain editorial line. The employees write often in direct opposition of that line. I want liberal publications to be fucking LIBERAL. So, they can either fire the shitheaded semi-, de facto, quasi- and outright wingnuts they employ or they can explicitly state the truth that they are not by any means Leftist organs of the media.
What’s obvious is that no one whose politics are consistently worth a flying fuck *can* get the gig, and that’s by design. Or do you want to chalk up the fact that not a single Atlantic Monthly blogger consistently opposed the Iraq invasion to accident or coincidence?
If I have driven Mercedes all my life because of their quality, then discover that all the new models fall apart while the company still insists they build a fine product, and complain about it, does that mean I want a job on the assembly line or that I’m deeply envious of the engineers? No, it means I want the institution to shape the fuck up by cleaning house.
This question has been puzzling me lately: can a woman be a part of a circle jerk?
I think we are all forgetting how careful Ronald Reagan, who single-handedly saved Texas from a Nicaraguo-Communist invasion, was to make all of his arguments carefully and based on the best possible evidence.
To even think for one moment that Ronald Reagan would even for one minute consider cutting taxes on rich people just so rich people could pay fewer taxes — well, that may be treason.
Supply-sidism?!? Supply-sadism!
Well, I have some insight into Megan’s positions on a lot of issues. Mostly, doggiestyle, with an occasional reverse cowgirl.
I know her position on everything. DOG STYLE.
If someone’s gig is opinion journalism, then certainly their opinions are open for debate from all comers. No doubt about that.
But why is their employment in question? That just seems unfair, and even if it’s not, it smacks of career jealousy. Take on the opinions. Fine. Hell, do it well enough, get noticed, get a national gig.
But bagging the journal that employs the writer is more than silly. A publication has a reputation for embracing a particular worldview. They decide to bring in people with another worldview to expand their readership, why is it within our purview? I’m gonna say they ain’t quite as lefty as you want them to be anymore. It’s their rag. They get to decide.
Left or right, CNN paying Glenn Beck causes me to break medium sized things out of frustration. But they think he’s making a contribution to their success. I think they’re wrong. But they get to pick. But I can keep pointing out the problems with his positions. That I can do.
If I had a national publication or a TV network, I doubt I’d pay a whole lot of attention to any of you. Not because you’re wrong, but because you don’t have all the data I have, and your goals are different from mine.
All I’m saying is, if you disagree with what Megan or Matt or Ezra have to say, fine, write clear, powerful refutations of it. But to call their employers to task, over and over again, just seems, well, futile at best, and beneath you all at worst…
mikey
[…] A quick and very funny look at supply-side economics, but more so than that, a quick and very funny look at someone who gets paid a good buck to be a moron. […]
But why is their employment in question? That just seems unfair, and even if it’s not, it smacks of career jealousy.
You can’t compare The Atlantic to CNN for accomplishments. What HTML was talking about with the Mercedes bit was apt. It was once a magazine that contained the thoughts of some of the greatest minds writing. Lately it’s just a shit rag. That’s sad. The reason the employment is called into question is because that’s what the people were hired to do. If McArdle was an excellent copy-editor (unlikely it seems) there would be no issue.
McArdle has an mba?
Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh, ok.
Still, yeah. How did she get these jobs without an actual education in the topic she pretends to cover?
Christ.
The Atlantic has turned into the Bush Admin.
Lately it’s just a shit rag.
The Atlantic has turned into the Bush Admin.
Sounds a little like evolution to me.
Seems as if the management has decided to take THEIR property in a different direction. What part of “it’s not your magazine” are you having trouble with?
You can lament. You can miss ‘the old days’. What you don’t get to do is make the business decisions of a business organization that is NOT yours. They OWN it. They can change it’s editorial direction. Is that sad? Maybe so. And it might turn out to be a terrible business decision. But how is it up to us?
mikey
You can lament. You can miss ‘the old days’. What you don’t get to do is make the business decisions of a business organization that is NOT yours.
To an extent you do. Ann Coulter got dropped from a lot of papers because people bitched about what a creepy shithead she is.
Mikey, you’re right. They can take their toy & do anything they want to it. And if they don’t listen to their parents, but go ahead & break it, well, they don’t get a new one, & we get to say “We told you so!,” & “Nyah nyah, nyah!”
mikey, it certainly is the prerogative of Atlantic Monthly to take their property in the direction of their choosing, but they should be honest about what they are doing. They should not claim to be the voice of the left while their editorial and hiring policy clearly says otherwise.
This is true mikey, but the Atlantic is not just any old rag. It has well over a century of history of a certain degree of excellence, and a certain leftward bent. What this current crop of editors has done is shit all over the work of those that came before them and made the Atlantic a name that carries(carried) weight. It’s like McDonald’s getting a new ceo who thinks they should be about yogurt.
It’s not theirs so much as theirs to continue and maintain, and they have failed.
But that’s just weird. Everybody lies.
Bush says he listens to the generals.
Pelosi says she listens to her constituents.
Craig says he’s not gay.
They say they’re a lefty rag, I guess.
Ok. We know what they all are by watching, not by listening.
Argue the premise, not the fact they have a job. How is that so tough?
mikey
Favorite McArdle spelling moment: wrote “levees” as “levys.” Instant mental image of a retaining walll built from modular French Jews. All part of her blogginess, I suppose.
I hope Andrew Golis isn’t going to come to Sadly,No! everytime he wants to field test new blogging terms.
Point of clarification — she’s not sleeping with Sullivan.
Carry on.
I like Sony. I think they make nice products. However, they make this new product which has disappointed a lot of people who often buy Sony products. Many consumer review websites have seen a lot of commentators make fun of this new product.
Still, we should be pretty careful about criticizing this product, because the people who make it could find their jobs at stake.
Plus if they aren’t careful, the angry reviewers could make people think that other Sony products are less good.
Therefore, everyone should think very, very carefully about what they might comment on this new Sony product, and maybe it’s okay to disagree with its malfunctions, but only if you are very, very polite about it and only if you do not suggest that Sony made any kind of bad product choices.
This question has been puzzling me lately: can a woman be a part of a circle jerk?
Ohhhhh, I always thought a circle jerk was a wanker than lived in the suburbs (circle type roads, etc.), now I realise it means something else…..
Lobbey,
That would be a cul de jerk I believe.
“That stupid ugly idiot that works in product engineering for Sony is one stupid, illiterate immature asshole. Sony as a brand should be embarrassed about that fucking idiot engineer they hired to develop that product. That fuckhead should be unemployed, far as I’m concerned”….
mikey
I don’t necessarily agree 100% with mikey, but I’m kind of sick of the Megan McArdle stuff. I think she’s a legit target and everything, but where’s my Pastor Swank, Marie’ ‘Jon””, spaghetti pusher dude, etc.? Face it, the once venerable Atlantic Monthly is now shit. It’s been getting worse for years. I’ve let it go, it’s time for you to do the same.
If tax cuts = more revenue, then how come I can’t buy a hamburger for $.50?
All I’m saying is, if you disagree with what Megan or Matt or Ezra have to say, fine, write clear, powerful refutations of it. But to call their employers to task, over and over again, just seems, well, futile at best, and beneath you all at worst…
Jebus, mikey. There have been many fine refutations of their bullshit, over and over again. BUT THOSE FOLKS DON”T GET PUBLISHED, BECAUSE SAID EMPLOYERS HAVE OTHER ECONOMIC INTERESTS. That’s why Glenn Beck and Fucker Carlson are on the air, but Steve Gilliard never was. And you don’t see Glenn Greenwald on the air, but Cokie “the Liberal” Roberts is always there.
This free market of ideas bs doesn’t work when GE and Ruppert Murdoch and a few other billionaires control the public discourse.
mikey: Wouldn’t that depend on whether or not the Sony product engineer in question was, in fact, a stupid, illiterate immature asshole?
Like, was it the same guy who thought Sony should come out with a digital audio player which refused to play MP3 files, a product which sold like twice baked boogers?
I’m sure the internets can supply an answer, given that you’re not currently at work or anything.
Some Guy, if you aren’t working hard enough, or putting in enough overtime to get promoted, and thus share in the largesse that your “liberated from taxes” boss would let trickle down to you, it’s YOUR FAULT you can’t afford a hamburger. And don’t be silly about 50¢ hamburgers, it’s YOUR DUTY to work hard enough to keep up w/ inflation. [/glibertarian rant]
Also, they can charge more for a hamburger because everyone’s paying less in taxes. See, they’ve got you both ways.
Or, try Mickey D’s. There may be a “Wednesday is two $1 cheeseburgers for the price of one” promo going on.
“That stupid ugly idiot that works in product engineering for Sony is one stupid, illiterate immature asshole. Sony as a brand should be embarrassed about that fucking idiot engineer they hired to develop that product. That fuckhead should be unemployed, far as I’m concerned”….
In Sony’s world, he gets fired for a shit product, whereas in opinion journalism, he does not. If you want to talk business model, we’ve got to be honest about whether or not such things matter to the opinion club.
Mikey I see you point. As I see it, the basis of this is trying to save our country by addressing the corrupted state of our political discourse. Publius at Obsidian Wings says it much better than I can:
McArdle seemed frustrated that the liberal netroots doesn’t accept anything less than a groveling mea culpa on Iraq (she was also rightly frustrated at the unfair vehemence cast her way). The Iraq point is sort of true, but there’s a rational, substantive reason for it — one not based in spite or childishness. The reason the netroots demand admission of error is that the mindset that led to Iraq remains alive and well. Even worse, it’s shared by people who remain in power, or have influential platforms. Thus, attacks on Iraq supporters are less about petty revenge than about discrediting the worldview that brought us to Iraq. And the purpose of that is to prevent future unwise wars – like the one currently brewing in Cheney’s office.
Do you see how this might be our motivation?
Grrr, how the hell do you get the damned blockquote to work in this place? “Quote” tags didn’t work.
I don’t see anything wrong with a tax increase on the highest bracket, provided it kicks in a lot higher than it did before.
Yes, my little circle (of one) has an open invitation to “teh ladies.” Might have to have some sort of handicap, if mechanical assistance is not allowed.
The big question is, would a woman be part of a circle jerk?
It’s < blockquote > text < /blockquote > (without the spaces).
Get the gig. She did. You can. If you do EVERYTHING right.
No you can’t. Not in today’s journalism field. Not in the mainstream. There’s a status quo to protect and you buck that, you are out the door. It’s sorta like being a cop: you can fuck with as many poor folks as you want, but the minute you start screwing with the teenagers from that gated community, it’s your ass on the line. Doing “everything right” means towing the line and not upsetting the apple cart. Come on, you’ve seen Network.
If being a political pundit or even a journalist really meant anything in this world, McArdle and her ilk would be driven out of town on 2×4’s, her specifically because she’s such pitiful excuse for a writer. Gutless, whining toadies for the comfortable, people who’ve never had to earn their bones and will more’n likely never really understand what it’s like to hear the wolf at their doors. Lucky for McArdle and The Atlantic being a journalist doesn’t mean much at all, not really. Lucky for them the American people don’t really much care about things being done right as long as there’s plenty of it and it’s woooo pretty, what the hell. Why bother even complaining if it doesn’t do what it says it does.
Everybody lies, right?
Get the gig. She did. You can. If you do EVERYTHING right. (Here’s a hint. It’s more than how good a writer you are. That’s just the way it’s always been.)
Yeah, Mikey, but give us some numbers here — when it comes to getting those rep-killing but rent-paying jobs, what percentage of your success do you attribute to being physically intimidating, in only the Fitzwilliam Darcy sense of course? And what percentage to promising that you’ll share your… ummm… *resources* with the guy who signs the contract? (/snark)
Seriously, though… McArdle is seventeen kinds of a frigging embarrassment to everyone who’s also a political blogger, a political blog reader, an East Coaster, a (self-proclaimed former) nerd, a college graduate, a(n ex) New Yorker, a “liberal”, a woman, or possibly a carbon-based life form. And it’s really, really depressing to see what the Atlantic is getting for the money they pay her. Especially since — we have reason to believe — it’s money wasted, and they can’t afford such waste.
To use your analogy, let’s say that the Atlantic used to produce the journalistic equivalent of a Saab: kinda staid, nobody’s ‘concept’ car, and pricey as well, but a certain class of readers were committed buyers because they associated the brand with reliable intelligent commentary. But it’s been hard times for *everyone* in the print media for the last decade or so, including the magazines. And the flood of MBAs attempting to corporatize the art of editing so that they can insert this week’s “hot theory” widget into an interchangeable ad-separating slot for maximum profit with minimum expenditure has been just as bad for the American reading public as they’ve been for the American car-buying public. So the Atlantic is now the magazine equivalent of a 1980s Ford — a crappy piece of underpowered, overdiscounted, Fix-Or-Replace-Daily, Found-On-Road-Dead joke trying to disguise its unreliable guts with a shiny paint job and leopard-print seat covers. McArdle is an expensive “designer” tailfin job pasted atop the cheap fiberglass carcass of what used to be a respectable brand.
The Atlantic is losing, or has lost, its original “Saab” demographic, and it’s not attracting the hip young mouthbreather replacements the boardroom suits were hoping to entice. The Freepers and Little Green Fuzzballs who might be enticed by McArdle’s theoretical “hawtness” aren’t going to subscribe to a print magazine that includes neither porn nor DVD teasers. And the remaining Saab-era Atlantic readers aren’t going to keep spending their entertainment dollars on the dead-tree Atlantic just for the joy of pointing out how moronic McArdle’s arguments are, when they can do that online for free.
The good thing about the New Media Universe (blogoverse) is that now we’re not reduced to buying the media equivalent of crappy Detroit cars for lack of decent, affordable alternatives. The bad thing is, some of us were fond of our chosen brands among the *old* media universe. It’s true that nobody has to buy a Ford when there are so many decent alternatives available, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t a sizeable group of tired old boomers who aren’t going to be rhapsodizing about the classic Mustangs of their youthful dreams, either.
I don’t want McArdle’s job, and I doubt HTML does either (not that he couldn’t do it better, and with a lot fewer errors in spelling & grammar). Think of us as the grumps in the ill-lit corners of the party, listening to the young turks mouthing big about their kool wheelz, snarking for our mutual entertainment. “Pee-Us? Pree-On? You’re gonna brag about owning a car named after a fatal brain disorder? Ohhh, nooo, are you gonna tell me to get Sirius, *snerk snerk snerk*… “
Hmph.
Danke danke for teh tech support, dude!
President Bush is the first president to have an MBA.
That’s right, an M.B.A.
He is a Master of Business Administration. And you are not.
What percentage of what percent would provide a ratio of greater than break-even? “A lot higher” ? WTF?
He is a Master of Business Administration. And you are not.
He has some more credits to earn before he’s a Decider of Business Administration.
Sideshow Bob: Oh, I’ll get busy. I’ll get very busy indeed (ten seconds of maniacal laughter).
Chief Wiggum: (chuckles) Ahhh… still got it, Bob.
Yabba dabba d…
Do Nuts???
Bush Jr. has an MBA, but he is not an MBA.
Gavin: Uhh… great minds think alike?
And on top of everything (the sopomoric writing, sloppiness, muddled arguments, lame straw-people) she fucking claims “deeply proletairian roots” but won’t back up the claim when challenged. Anyone with anything like actual prole roots has a right to outrage.
HTML Mencken said,
If I have driven Mercedes all my life
I, for one, would be immensely disillusioned. I had imagined you at the wheel of a De Lorean.
[S]he fucking claims “deeply proletairian roots” but won’t back up the claim when challenged. Anyone with anything like actual prole roots has a right to outrage.
Must be some deep roots, as she was “born & raised on the Upper West Side.” She did mention relatives in Western New York once. Maybe a great-grandparent was a supervisor in a factory in Buffalo or something. That would qualify as “proletarian’ roots for someone as fact-challenged as Ms. McA.
My 1995 Aero takes offense to this.
Cokie Roberts is on the air because her daddy was a Washington mover and shaker. GW is President for the same reason. McArdle probably got her gig because she went to UChicago (all hail Milton Friedman) and met the right people.
Like most things in life, it’s who you know more than what you know.
Mike is right that The Atlantic has the right to publish whatever they want and to hire whomever they please. Others are also right that we get to bitch and moan and point and laugh at clowns like McArdle. There is another side to this that I think needs to be brought out.
There is an agenda. That agenda is to transform this country into a police state. We are already a surveillance society and we have some ways to go before we become a full blown police state but I am absolutely convinced that is the goal. We will take another step towards that goal next year when the Real ID Act goes into effect. People are in for a big surprise when that happens.
Many years ago, before even some people here were born, conservatives decided they had enough. They felt shut out and so they quite openly formulated a plan. If you can’t beat them, buy them. This is no secret, no conspiracy and the calls made by certain conservatives back in the 60’s or early 70’s to wrest control of the media away from liberals are public knowledge. CNN for instance was simply taken away from Ted Turner. He was paid well, it wasn’t stolen outright but he wasn’t looking to step down or turn the business over to Time either. It wasn’t his idea and he was not at all happy abut it.
So today those of us on the left look at the media and now we feel left out in the cold. Add to this that the internet lets us see how the media sausage gets made and people are I think justifiably horrified. But we should be very clear about one ting, the shift to the right in our national media has nothing to do with “business”. Media creates demand, it shapes conventional opinion. I suppose it could work the other way around but it rarely has.
I don’t know. Maybe The Atlantic isn’t a part of this and it really is just responding to the political landscape. I do however think that landscape is heavily slanted to the right, no, not even to the right but to the far right.
And Media isn’t just about business. They don’t produce widgets after all. They are a part of a conversation. as participants in that conversation we have the right to a voice also. No no no no.. strike all that. That isn’t what this is about. This isn’t old fashioned conservative vs liberal. Neocons are not conservatives, they are deeply, deeply radical and ultimately, I believe, fascists. They hide under the rubric of conservativism or libertarianism or whatever suits their purpose. We have to fight them every inch of the way or we will lose and lose big.
Maybe you all think I’m nuts but those are my thoughts about this.
But on my list of policy priorities it’s somewhere around “What shall we do about France?”
I understand your concern, Meggie-baby. Let me help here: the reason everybody hates the French is because they’re so smug. And why are they so smug? Because they’re French Face it: when you think of France, what do you think of?
1) Great food.
2) Great wine.
3) Movies full of sex.
4) Jean Reno.
How can any mere American or Australian beat that? Lordy, having a French accent automatically gives you an extra 30 cool points. There’s no way the nasal drone of the ocker, or the various amusing US accents, can ever hope to compete.
So here’s what I suggest you do, Megsy: suck up to the French. Wildly. Learn the language, read the philosophy, watch the movies. And by all that’s holy, eat the baguettes and drink the wine. Think of the children.
I can type thirty words per minute;
I can use a spellchecker;
I know little brown book grammar;
I understand sentence construction;
I can use Google while typing;
I can do math, algebra, calculus;
I can understand complex or previously unknown to me concepts.
…But none of those things are why they hired her. They hired her because she has connections and takes a conservative viewpoint.
I’d most definitely like her job.
Not to mention all the “Defense” spending going out to every asshole who can plop down $10,000 a year for the National Repug Club membership fees.
She’s 6’2″ – Wikipedia doesn’t tell you much about her background, but she did m
Darn! She did make the “list of tall women,” is what I was saying.
And as I apparently felt the need to post – twice – about a libertarian blogger’s height, I am off to reconsider how I am spending my life …
Here is McCardle’s explanation of her “deeply proletarian roots”:
So, it could be kind of like the Irish Jeffersons, with George McCardle moving on up when Megan was a kid, except, uh, the “born and raised” part.
Tangled Web Woven.
Actually, this could explain a lot of Megan’s disdain for the not-so-well-off getting sick and stuff. There’s no greater animus than that off the “well-off” branch of a family for those pathetic, loser relatives.
When the Randroids get their dream world, can I shoot them for setting foot on my property? I’d end with a stack of dead John & Jane Galts. I’m all for share & share alike, but once they get the lonely hard cruel world of Rand’s crappy books, I will play by their rules. I picture myself in a one-armed leather jacket ala Mad Max blasting through hordes of starving Randriod nerds.
I’d end with a stack of dead John & Jane Galts. I’m all for share & share alike
That’s charming but I don’t think I want one of those.
Great post.
That Ivy League Insider Club membership card sure has some great rewards, I guess. Or else she’s sleeping with the entire editorial staff of The Atlantic.
Or they just have no standards at all.
I submit to you that these statements are not mutually exclusive, and I would venture the first is strongly dependent on the second.
Ohhhhh, I always thought a circle jerk was a wanker than lived in the suburbs
No, that’s a cul de sack.
(For your European friends, coule de sac.)
Flip,
Or perhaps the “Cul de Whack”, non?
Touché.
This question has been puzzling me lately: can a woman be a part of a circle jerk?
In the name of all that is good, do NOT seek the answer to this question in Japanese porn.
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