Deadwood

Let's clear out some Megan McArdle deadwood, working backwards:

 Go Ahead, Make Your Own Cronut:

I’ve never braved the line at Dominique Ansel Bakery in New York to buy a Cronut. My interest in doughnuts is low; my interest in lengthy lines, nonexistent.

She slept on the streets of New York for an iPhone for chrissake. Lying to yourself is not a sign of mental health.

Anyway, McArdle is all for new businesses copying other businesses' ideas because, " It would be hard to copyright a list of ingredients when a tiny change, such as adding a pinch of this or that, would effectively define it as a new recipe." And "competitors have to expend a great deal of time and money producing a facsimile of your product." Case closed; go ahead and set up a Dunking Doughnuts.

I am tempted to set up a website called Meghan McArdle's Asymmetrical Information at Blomberg and see if she protests.


Social Security or Savings? Um. Try a Little of Both If we raise Social Security taxes, producers will Go Galt.

"...[H]high earners in high-tax coastal states could be subjected to tax rates that have distorting economic effects on their output, as they decide it’s just not worth it to become a high-earning professional, or to put in those extra hours at the business.

And we would use up all the money.

It would also represent just about all of our remaining power to tax high incomes, devoted to a single program which is by no means our biggest fiscal problem.

The Neal Gabler article got a lot of press and as McArdle was able to turn an anonymous tip about Edmund Andrews into five minutes of internet fame, she couldn't resist commenting as well.

Shorter Parents Are Bankrupting Themselves to Look Adequate: It's up to the individual to give up and accept his new poverty and teach his children to be accustomed to their new class, instead of insisting on becoming competition for the people who have already sold their souls to get to the top.


Shorter Dining Out on Empty Virtue: People don't want to eat responsibly, they just want everyone to think they eat responsibly. Thus truth in food labeling is silly.


You heard her, America. It's up to you to protect businesses and the obscenely wealthy from the poor.