Atlas Shrugged: The Mocking

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Wednesday, April 8, 2015

Getting It Wrong

Megan McArdle has written yet another post meant to undercut Social Security but this latest effort didn't just reach her devoted followers. It also reached the Los Angeles Times.  Michael Hiltzik:

With even mainstream Democrats coming to embrace the idea of expanding Social Security to help address our looming retirement crisis, it couldn't be long before the pushback emerged from conservatives and Republicans. 
Bloomberg's libertarian economics columnist Megan McArdle was quick out of the box, with a column published Tuesday titled, "The Left Gets it Wrong About Social Security." You should read it, because it's rare to find so much sophistry, misunderstanding and misinformation about Social Security packed into one article. You can count McArdle's disdain for retired people, seldom expressed so openly, as a dividend.
McArdle's target is a budget amendment that Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) recently persuaded almost all Senate Democrats to vote for, aimed at increasing Social Security benefits.
Hiltzik goes on to point out her errors and deceptions; read it all so I don't have to pick apart yet another Social-Security-Is-Doomed post. The best part, as always, is when McArdle pretends that top marginal tax rate on the rich can never be raised above 50%.

The 1970s called, Megan. They wanted to remind you that the top tax rate was over 70%.
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9 comments:

  1. AnonymousApril 9, 2015 at 6:50 AM

    This is bound to re-launch the age-old argument of "Is she extremely stupid or extremely dishonest?". With fodder like this, how can we tell?

    ReplyDelete
  2. Anatole DavidApril 9, 2015 at 9:13 AM

    Ignorance pays. Blaming the poor, elderly, single mothers,immigrants, etc always finds kind ears and eyes in this "exceptional nation". Beholding the ardent fealty of her claque(commentariat) prompts a catharsis of laughter and pity.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Clever PseudonymApril 9, 2015 at 9:33 AM

    "You should read it, because it's rare to find so much sophistry, misunderstanding and misinformation about [every subject Megan has ever written about] packed into one article."

    Edited for accuracy.

    ReplyDelete
  4. ifthethunderdontgetya™³²®©April 9, 2015 at 9:34 AM

    Don't forget laziness. It's the third leg of the stool.
    ~

    ReplyDelete
  5. Susan of TexasApril 9, 2015 at 9:51 AM

    Her comment section makes me depressed. Greedy, stupid and mean.

    Ah, laziness, the Shemp of McArdle's Three Stooges/Stages of Horrible. I keep forgetting she's not called the world's laziness econoblogger for nothing.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Susan of TexasApril 9, 2015 at 9:51 AM

    laziest!

    ReplyDelete
  7. DownpuppyApril 9, 2015 at 12:44 PM

    She doubled down on stupid - http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2015-04-09/social-security-trust-funds-and-promises

    ReplyDelete
  8. Susan of TexasApril 9, 2015 at 2:10 PM

    Of course she did, because the government could just decide that it wasn't going to pay out SS and that would be that. Too bad suckers!

    ReplyDelete
  9. mccamjApril 9, 2015 at 6:17 PM

    Concerning Downpuppy's link to Megan's further stupidity.

    I've been over this ground with RW friends and relatives.

    As concisely as possible I ask them how on one hand they reject my criticisms of America with talk of exceptionalism and shining City on the Hill bullshit and then turn around and tell me that the country is not good for its debts. A country that has always paid off its debts.

    Furthermore, the argument that the money is not set aside for say, various welfare payments in 2030, demonstrate that the gov't is bankrupt ignore that neither is the funding for the various security apparatus (DoD, NSA, CIA, FBI) put aside today. Yet they don't fear that those agencies will not be funded nor do they think that this lack of cash in the bank today for the DoD indicates the feds are bankrupt.

    These are people who are unable to think critically. It is that simple.

    ReplyDelete