The World of Illusion

Princess Hello Kitty, with calculator and side of beef. Heed her words and obey.


We see the world through filtering lenses, created to protect us from thoughts we cannot bear. Our minds veer away from anything that threatens our illusions; we deny the truth and make up elaborate scenarios to account for this denial of reality. Those scenarios are fake worlds in which we are right and the truth is wrong, and everyone praises us for our suffering under the hands of all those wrong people. Existence is no longer painful, it is pleasurable and just feels--right.

Sometimes these delusions are dangerous, and bring economic ruin and war and great suffering. But Imaginary God is merciful, and sometimes they are freaking hysterical.

Mrs. Megan McArdle lives in an imaginary world in which she is a knowledgeable pundit on matters of economics, politics, and culture. She is one of the best educated, most well-bred, most moral elite or any elite in history, whose superiority is reinforced every time she shares her thoughts, which are the accumulation of thousands of years of cultural wisdom. And when reality rears its ugly head, demanding that its presence be acknowledged, Megan McArdle fights to protect her illusion with every half-remembered bit of common wisdom she can dredge out of the corners of her self-obsessed mind.

The backstory is unimportant; McArdle takes an opportunity to preach against eating meat, although she is no longer a vegetarian. The offense against McArdle's version of reality is in the comments, when one brave soul takes up his pen to disagree with Princess Hello Kitty, who has stated that game meat is lean.

K Aretae 1 day ago
Megan, I think you're working on old-paleo news (Cordain), not the newer stuff. Check out Kurt Harris's PaNu and his discussion of fats in wild animals.

McMegan 1 day ago in reply to K Aretae
He acknowledges that even tucking the fat trimmings into his deerburger makes it only 25% fat by weight--or about standard for fatty chuck. The other cuts would be much leaner. Cows are bred to be basically huge sacks of fat and muscle; they would never survive in the wild because they require too much pasture, and they're super slow. I'm not making silly arguments about how game has no fat, but everyone I know who has butchered both western game (where there are no unnatural suburban gardens to live off), and even grass fed steers, has told me the same thing: the steers are clearly designed for eating, not survival.

"Everyone I know." How many people could she possibly know who butcher game? McArdle must create a scenario in which she is the expert in everything and everyone else is not, a scenario guaranteed to lead to disaster. There is always someone who knows more than you on the internet and you risk looking like an utter fool.

Kurt Harris 1 day ago in reply to McMegan
@Ms McArdle

You are perhaps missing some of the information. The point is that aboriginal peoples didn't eat supermarket cuts preferentially, so comparing the fat content of the center of a 20th or 21st century lean steak tells us nothing about how much fat aboriginal people, who could and did exploit the whole animal, ate.

In fact, they exploited the fattiest parts of the animal preferentially, and the point of my posts is not that the steaks were fat in the center of the cut, but that that the center of a steak is not the relevant metric of what we evolved eating, any more than the fat in a skinless chicken breast would represent what hunter-gathers would get from a wild fowl.

And of course 25% fat by weight is about 60% fat by calories, due to the high energy density of long chain fatty acids. And that is wild deerburger with none of the omental or mesenteric or bone marrow or brain fat thrown in, which would elevate the fat calories in a whitetail to well over 60%.

My other examples, the hamburger made from grass fed lamb and steers, were over 30% fat by weight and therefore over 70% by calories, and this was artificially low as in the case of one steer, there was over 50lbs of suet left over, and none of the brains, marrow or mesenteric fat was counted. I know it was over 50lbs of extra fat because I had the container and I weighed it. This was a 100% grass finished organically raised steer.

The images of the bison on my website ( hardly "bred to be fat" given the recent history of domestication) and the anthropological data in "Imagining Head Smashed in" as well as other extensive data on hunting behavior before the modern fear of saturated fat, make it clear that animal fat was the most available and most exploited nutrient in game for most of hominin history.

The current preference for lean meats is a misguided cultural artifact of bad science and dietary superstition that is only about 50 years old.

Bad science? But McArdle had the most expensive science teachers! Superstition? That's for the poor and ignorant! That's not McArdle. Therefor McArdle reaches for the defense mechanism known in medical journals as "piling on the stupid."

McMegan 1 day ago in reply to Kurt Harris
Sort of. Without refrigeration (or in the case of plains tribes, much of any means of storage), aboriginals did not only slaughter meat when it was fattest and most succulent (and preservation techniques, for obvious reasons, frequently cut down on the fat content). We tend to confuse buying half-a-steer with what our ancestors did, but it's not true AFAIK. They ate fresh, deliciously fatty meat mostly in the fall on the farm and prairie, not all year round.

Again, I am not arguing that our ancestors ate no fat! But that you cannot reason from what your deliciously fatty grass fed bison looks like in September, to what the Sioux ate the other 11 months out of the year. I've seen what the animals look like after a Wyoming winter, and they're pretty damn skinny unless someone's been bringing them fodder. Furry, yes, but they've used up a lot of their fat stores. In other places, it's the dry season instead of the cold season, but the effects are similar.

A truly intelligent person would hesitate here. A glance at Dr. Harris' use of terminology and dept of knowledge indicates that he might just know what he is talking about. At the very least he might know more than someone who bases her knowledge of the history of the American West on The Little House On The Prairie.

Kurt Harris 1 day ago in reply to McMegan
Sorry, wrong again.

Animals were butchered preferentially when fattest, and pemmican eaten in the depths of winter.

Pemmican is mostly fat. Here is a nutritional breakdown from US Wellness Meats, where they make it the old-fashioned way:

Est. Percent of Calories from: Fat 78.8% Carbs 0.0% Protein 20.0% I know folks who make their own according to traditional recipes and the fat percentage is similar. Berries can be added for carbohydrate, but all pemmican was high in fat traditionally.

So native americans of the plains were definitely not on low fat diets for "11 months out of the year". They knew how to preserve game meat and they loaded it with fat. They were smart. You can stay alive indefinitely on 80/20 fat/protein (% by calories) but will die quickly on the reverse ratio due to protein toxicity

And even a western animal that looks skinny has plenty of fatty bits that are not steak. Like the tongue for instance. The lean meat meme is a modern cultural prejudice derived from the flawed diet/heart hypothesis. Aboriginals around the world ate as much fat as they could, and if the animals were always fat they always ate it. Think zebras in Africa.

You might wish to read this recent scholarly book, which backs my admittedly anecdotal personal experiences, and my conclusions, rather more than yours:

The Paleoanthropology and Archaeology of Big-Game Hunting

Protein, Fat, or Politics?

By John D. Speth

A truly wise person would stop right here, thank Dr. Harris for setting her straight, and move on with her life. But Princess Hello Kitty didn't spend 38 years clawing her way into the world of elite tv pundits to be shown up by some person who Kitty has never seen interviewed in The New York Times.

McMegan 1 day ago in reply to Kurt Harris
Yes, of course animals were butchered preferentially when fattest, as they are in every society. And I know what's in pemmican. But they did not put up a year's supply of pemmican every September.

Kurt Harris 1 day ago in reply to McMegan
They ate a lot of fat whenever they could - they certainly preserved fatty meat to eat for many months into the winter, which you initially denied. It is impossible to eat enough protein to live on without fat or carbohydrate and they certainly were not maintaining greenhouses or shopping at whole foods for carbohydrate in the winter. So they would not have survived at all without plenty of fat, unless you disagree with the metabolic fact that one cannot live on nothing but protein for months on end. Google "rabbit starvation".

Disagreeing with facts is a lifestyle with McArdle. She can do it six times before breakfast.

McMegan 1 day ago in reply to Kurt Harris
You're refuting claims I haven't made--that people weren't eating fat. I'm saying that the idea that they had these hugely high fat diets year round isn't true. There were periods of high fat good eating, and periods of lean. But the year round, super awesome high fat meat diet is not how anyone ever lived outside of the Amazon. If you're refrigerating meat to eat later, you're already eating very different from your paleo ancestors.

When in doubt, condescend. It will frighten off insecure people and intimidate a few others with its prep school sneering. Unfortunately for McArdle, Dr. Harris appears to be an adult, and immune to such techniques.

Kurt Harris 1 day ago in reply to McMegan
"The meat our ancestors ate in the wild was not mostly fat-rich steak--game animals don't have that much body fat, and their muscles are a lot less tender. We've selectively bred our domesticated animals for considerably more succulence than our ancestors enjoyed."

You made this claim implying that modern diets are richer in animal fats than what our ancestors ate when they ate animals. I am refuting it with what I have presented. You are claiming that our ancestors ate less fat when they ate animals. That is not true, no matter what you prefer to believe.

I have no idea what a "year round super-awesome high fat diet is". I've eaten about 60% of calories as animal fats (about 25% saturated fat) and 20% as carbohydrate for the last 4 years and my BMI is 21.5 and waist is 30". Maybe that is what you mean.

I have claimed that ancestral peoples that hunted animals had access to plenty of fat and exploited it as much as they could. You've presented nothing but assertions that they could not have eaten much fat, and I have refuted them.

"game animals don't have much body fat" is factually completely incorrect, as I have shown, unless you think skeletal muscles are the only constituents of the animal's body. I think more than 60% fat by calories cannot reasonably said to be "not much fat" -

An entire animal eaten head to tail would be at least 50% calories as fat no matter how "lean" the muscles are once you count mesentery, omentum, brains, marrow, subcutaneous fat and solid viscera. Every single cell in an animals body has fats in the cell membrane.

Whether eating an animal killed at the end of winter, the fattest, the leanest, or the pemmican which is 80% fat, there was plenty of fat available and eaten year round. I know that is not what you want to believe because you have been taught to fear animal fats, but that is the truth.

The amazon? Not sure what that would have to do with anything.

And FWIW, I don't blame the obesity epidemic on carbohydrates in general. I blame it on wheat, sugar (including HFCS) and linoleic acid. Not potatoes..

But definitely not fat - consumption figures and the arguments I have just used all refute that animal fat or fatty steaks has anything to do with the obesity epidemic.

Surely McArdle will give up now? Just how thick and impenetrable is that wall of delusion anyway?

McMegan 1 day ago in reply to Kurt Harris
Sigh. No, I am not arguing that our ancestors were on the Dean Ornish diet. I claimed that people who think that they are eating a paleolithic diet by giving up bread and ordering half a steer are fooling themselves. A steer is not an animal that our ancestors would have had access to. It has been bred by us to be more tender, and to provide relatively more of desireable cuts from large muscle groups, and it is not just preferentially slaughtered when it is fattest, but only slaughtered when it is fattest. Our paleolithic ancestors did not eat as if every day were high summer. And they ate a lot more organ meat. You are "refuting" me by arguing that the hamburger in your fridge sure is high fat. I was arguing that what the "paleo" folks seem to argue is closer to nature is no more natural than a pound cake.

I happen to agree that the low-fat obsession seems, in retrospect, to have been fairly silly, and that sweeteners seem to be objectively worse for you. But a modern paleo, unless he's spending several months a year living entirely on beef jerky, rendered tallow, and dried berries, is not eating anything remotely close to a paleo diet. You *couldn't*--it's only legal to hunt when the animals are fattest.

cateruli 22 hours ago in reply to McMegan
With due respect, you're either overthinking it or falling for the facile argument of reenactment. No one wants to forgo the advantages of modernity or is going out spear in hand to hunt over the hills. It's about a frame of reference, utilizing the observation that hunter-gatherers or traditional societies seem free of many of the maladies of modernity, the so-called diseases of civilization, and seeing that once they become "infected" so to speak by our typical western diet, then magically they acquire also our typical western maladies. Why is it? what can we observe and learn? Well lookey, they eat no or hardly any grains (too much effort for little nutritional reward), they have no vegetable oils (need heavy processing), and whatever fructose they get comes from fruit during a small window of time every year. Hm...

That the some animals are fatter or leaner than others? Who cares? It's not like we can even have the same animals depending on geography, yet Hunter-Gatherer populations occur around the world. If the Inuits eat a lot of fat, or the Kitavans a lot of carbs, or the Tokelauans tons of coconut, they're so different, yet only acquire our diseases when they adopt our diet. Wink, wink...

Kurt Harris 22 hours ago in reply to McMegan
Your still perseverating on how much fat could or could not have been eaten. I think I've addressed that adequately and shown that you are wrong. The only reason it matters is that you claim animal fat content as being different from the ancestral on a "paleo" diet. The point is that saturated and animal fat are harmless and you can eat a lot of it or not very much and be healthy, and you cannot claim as evidence that ancestral populations could not have eaten the amount of animal fat in a modern fatty steak because it was not available to them. That I have refuted, you cannot make that argument because it is not true as indicated by all the actual evidence.

And this is why our society is slowly (or quickly) going mad. When nothing is truth, there are no facts, reason is impossible, we have no frame of reference. Everthing is continually shifting, never sure, always frought with potential danger. So authoritarians look to their leaders to tell them what is true or false, and questioning that authority is questioning Truth. Dr. Harris actually has to point out to McArdle that she cannot make an argument that is verifiably false. It is unacceptable as a method of argumentation. You do not get to ignore the truth.

This is heresy!

Back to Dr. Harris:

"I was arguing that what the "paleo" folks seem to argue is closer to nature is no more natural than a pound cake."

Now that you've chosen to re-emphasize it, I will address this claim, which is even sillier than the one about fat.

A typical "paleo" meal, consisting of either a fat or lean steak, a green salad and a sweet potato, is not only healthy but is indeed closer to ancestral diets than pound cake. No because of what it contains, but because of what it does not contain.

Processed white flour, a concentrated source of gluten and wheat germ agglutinin, sugar in the form of sucrose or high fructose corn syrup, and especially, industrial vegetable oils heavy in n-6 linoleic acid - such as corn, soy, canola, peanut, etc...

This last, linoleic acid, is required in the diet in tiny amounts, but in the modern diet is up to 15% of caloric intake, versus 3% in aboriginal diets and most human diets more than 100 years ago. And none of these agents was present in large amounts in diets 15,000 years ago.

The paleolithic diet was not a single diet and was not constant, but it did have things that were consistently MISSING from it.

Animal fat, whatever vegans may fantasize, is not one of the missing elements. Animal and saturated fats are not neolithic agents of disease.

And by the way, I am only bothering with this because I highly respect the Atlantic - I'm a subscriber - and I've enjoyed your own market liberal oriented writings therein. But this is a topic I've been interested in as a Doctor for 4 years and I've more than a passing acquaintance with these issues.

read more here: http://www.archevore.com/

And it's too late, but you might enjoy this one in particular:

http://www.archevore.com/panu-...

Yes, it's much, much too late.

McArdle also had two other discussions with Dr. Harris, in which she continued to press her authority.

xp84 said...
Does what our ancestors ate matter this much, though, given that they had a very short life expectancy? I certainly believe that they were free from obesity--but weren't they mostly dead by 40? They didn't have to worry about heart disease, high blood pressure, or cancer, because they would be dead before it became an issue!

So even if we could conquer obesity by emulating the ancient eating habits and eating loads of fat, I think we'd probably be sacrificing our health later in life.

Not to say that we can't learn anything from this discussion, but life expectancy needs to be taken into account.

Kurt Harris 1 day ago in reply to xp84
Homicide, trauma, exposure, infant mortality and infectious disease. These affect mortality and average age at death. Modern hunter gatherers and pre-contact aboriginal populations have been described who, once they make it to early adulthood, live just as long as modern humans but have essentially zero diabetes, heart disease, stroke and epithelial cancers. This is very well documented. Google Lindeberg, Taubes, Weston Price, TL Cleave and Burkitt.

The paleoanthropological record shows decreases in many indices of health and earlier shorter average lifespan with the transition from HG to sedentary and agricultural lifestyle.

McMegan 1 day ago in reply to Kurt Harris
There's more than a bit of the observer effect going on. Anyone we're documenting has access to things like antibiotics.

Kurt Harris 1 day ago in reply to McMegan
And this biases the results in which direction?

McMegan 1 day ago in reply to Kurt Harris
In 1600? It killed them. In the modern era, when we don't come loaded with tuberculosis and smallpox, but do bring antibiotics?

Well, if you doubt that antibiotics extend human lifespans, I invite you to swear off them.

Kurt Harris 1 day ago in reply to McMegan
My point, which I assumed is obvious, is that the paleoanthroplogical record may show lower life expectancy than would otherwise be the case - as there were no antibiotics - the same is true of modern hunter gatherers living in primitive conditions. Ceteris paribus, people will live longer with access to antibiotics. I am sure you agree with this. So the bias makes modern humans with acceess to ABX look healthier than they really are.

Kurt Harris 1 day ago in reply to McMegan
"The paleoanthropological record shows decreases in many indices of health and earlier shorter average lifespan with the transition from HG to sedentary and agricultural lifestyle."

I see now you misunderstood this quote - I am talking about skeletal evidence from 10,000 years ago documenting the deterioration in health indices with transition to agriculture no antibiotics either 12,000 or 8,000 years ago. paleo- anthropology

One of McArdle's commenters jumps into the fray, eager to fight reality head-on.

anonprof 1 day ago in reply to Kurt Harris
I don't see how the opinions of the doctors and journalists you name are helpful here. The question is one for an anthropologist. What do we know about the adult mortality in hunter/gatherer societies. A cursory review of the abstracts in Google Scholar indicates that this is an open question that is still being sorted out by the experts. Here's a link to one paper that suggests an alternative to your view: http://courses.washington.edu/...

Perhaps it is true that we would all be healthier if we adopted a diet based on what our pre-ag ancestors ate. But the argument from human evolution is far more complicated than the advocates trying to sell books admit.

Kurt Harris 1 day ago in reply to anonprof
You can always quote a single article. Why not go to pubmed and look at Stefan Lindeberg's studies of the Kitavans. These are real live extant people without agriculture, studied over years by Lindeberg's team. They have vanishingly small western diseases as diagnosed with modern methods, including tests for diabetes, previous heart attacks, and insulin sensitivity.

If you want to take your cursory view of abstracts over my 4 years of reading the medical and scientific literature, be my guest. Keep eating bread and sugar and canola oil. It's your life.

"Opinions" of doctors and journalists? Are you serious? These are all scholarly works that are quite serious representing years of effort. Lindeberg and Price and Cleave and Burkitt WERE anthropologists, in addition to being medical professionals.

Sadly, the commenter is serious. His authority says Dr. Harris is wrong and that's all he needs. Facts are not facts, they are opinions and can be safely ignored. Bolstered by the support, McArdle joins in.

McMegan 1 day ago in reply to Kurt Harris
As far as I know, it's pretty settled by the paleoanthropologists that the life expectancy of our actual paleo ancestors was in the thirties, and around 43 if you toss out infant mortality. If you're making an argument from evolution, you'd want to look at them, no? If the argument is that hunter-gatherers with access to modern antibiotics live about as long as we do, okay, but that's a pretty underwhelming claim.

Megan McArdle is one of the elite and knows stuff, more stuff than 90% of the people out there. As far as she knows, which she always does because she knows a lot of people who know a lot of things, her facts are real and your facts are not.

Kurt Harris 1 day ago in reply to McMegan
without access - not with - they are not gathering penicllin

Heh.

Kurt Harris 1 day ago in reply to McMegan
see my previous remarks about actuarial life expectancy and infant mortality, homicide, exposure, predation, warfare, and infectious disease.

Eric Listern 17 hours ago in reply to McMegan
Life expectancy is a mean. You are disregarding variance. You can have everybody live till 35 and drop dead, or you can have half die in infancy and half die at 70. Immense difference that is ignored by the term "life expectancy."

But don't worry about McArdle. She's doing just fine in her lovely Victorian rowhouse, planting its rose gardens and muttering "off with their heads!" every time she carelessly lets herself think of her critics.

Let's let one of those critics have the last word, because it's a good one.

Daniel Kirsner 18 hours ago in reply to Kurt Harris
Kurt--with Megan, the concept of triage becomes important. I'd focus on the ones who are gonna live.

Post In Haste, Repent Never

Megan McArdle is so very, very impartial and above the political fray that drags down the Little People that she wants us to know immediately about what she calls "Voting Irregularities In Wisconsin."

The fight over Wisconsin governor Scott Walker's push to change the collective bargaining rules for public sector unions has now spilled over into the courts. Specifically, into the judicial elections for the Wisconsin Supreme Court, where the fate of the legislation will ultimately be decided. Liberals made a big push to get a progressive judge into the slot who would invalidate the statute recently passed by the Republican Senate. After a narrow recount, it looked as if the progressive candidate was actually going to eke out a victory--until a county clerk found 8,000 votes for Prosser (the conservative) that hadn't been counted due to a computer error.


I'm not saying that this is definitely fraud. These things do happen. But it sure doesn't look good, especially since this county clerk seems to operate her own system outside of the network used by most other Wisconsin county clerks for election results. I don't think there's anything particularly wrong with running the system on your own, but obviously, when something like this happens, the clerk needs to walk outside observers through exactly what the error was, and how it was detected. And if necessary, we'd better be prepared for one more recount.

Oh, no, mercy me, she's not saying that it's definitely fraud. Just that it looks like fraud, and that a Wisconsin clerk "seems to operate her own system outside of the network and must explain herself"!!11!

There's just one tiny little problem.

superfuzzbigmuff 48 minutes ago in reply to tgbarry

"I believe the woman in question is a democrat as well. "
Do you mean the Republican Waukesha County Clerk Kathy Nickolaus?
Basic facts...
Flag

A_K_S 57 minutes ago

I'll add that Megan seems strangely ignorant here.

Megan writes "the clerk needs to walk outside observers through exactly what the error was, and how it was detected". This has already happened. The clerk in fact held a press conference to walk outside observers through exactly what the error was, and how it was detected. She forgot to save a spreadsheet. I'm wondering if Megan has ever forgotten to save a document she was working on, or is that something that Megan thinks could simply never happen.
Flag Like ReplyReply

JoshINHB 57 minutes ago

There wasn't a recount and the error was in the vote counts submitted to the media, not the state certification process.

robpollard 44 minutes ago

Megan, this sentence is misleading:
- "Liberals made a big push to get a progressive judge into the slot who would invalidate the statute recently passed by the Republican Senate."

Actually, conservative groups spent hundreds of thousands more money than liberal groups on this election. You can certainly say "both conservatives and liberals," but your wording suggests that just liberals were involved in pushing this election.

http://millermps.wordpress.com...

Also, as noted below, the clerk did explain the error, though it makes her sound incredibly inept. Per usual (and this goes for liberals and conservatives) the error by this Republican clerk wasn't malicious, just stupid - forgetting to attach a file or check your work, which is something you think you would do 100 times in such a tightly contested and anticipated election.

She should be politely, but quickly, fired from the job (or at least not reelected, if it's not an appointed position) - b/c as you noted, this kind of "honest mistake" even if explainable, undermines confidence in the election process. 8,000 votes! C'mon!


simplebob26 44 minutes ago

Megan, your posts are normally much more thoughtful and well-researched than this one. A casual perusal of the news coming out of the press conference yesterday would have answered your questions.
Flag

Buckland 14 minutes ago

I'm not saying that this is definitely fraud.

I think that's what they call damning with faint praise.

The town of Brookfield wasn't included in the final results. That's auditable. The locals still have the results. It was just a matter of getting them back in.

A mistake was made, and corrected within 24 hours. The trail is pretty clear through the local sums, and it's pretty easy to see that they weren't in the original. Even lefty statistician Nate Silver was sending tweets last night to try to talk people off the ledge.

When it's this easy to see where the mistake was made and what the correct numbers were, there's no grand conspiracy.

When even your diehard fans are telling you to do your homework before you dash off a slanderous [libelous] post, maybe it's time to start doing your homework.

Teen Pregnancy Campaign a Success!

Who knew having a baby could be so lucrative??


The Candie's Foundation, "a non-profit organization that works to shape the way youth in America think about teen pregnancy and parenthood," announced recently that its campaign to lower teen pregnancy rates is a smashing success. On its website the foundation said:

Our campaigns are making a difference. Research has shown that teen girls who have been exposed to the foundation and its messages are more likely to view teen pregnancy and parenthood as stressful and negative, and they are more likely to be skeptical of the media's portrayal of teen pregnancy and parenting. They also think teens should wait longer to have sex than girls who are not aware of the foundation and its messages.

For proof of the foundation's efficacy we need look no further than its spokesperson, unwed teenage mother Bristol Palin, whom it paid $262,000 in 2009, and who has not been knocked up since she received the money. Congratulations to Candie's for a quarter million well-spent! And congratulations to Miss Palin as well, for investing her money wisely on birth control!

I'm recovering from the flu so posting will be light for a few days.

La Noblesse

(click on image to see larger version)

Americans have a great deal of repressed anger and not-so-repressed sense of entitlement and class envy. They will not remain passive forever and since they cannot attack the true source of their misery they will point their anger elsewhere.

Aristocrats are beyond reproach and consequences until they aren't.

Oh, Megan!

Megan McArdle is most concerned about the well-being of the rich.

The Rich Really Are Different: Their Incomes Fluctuate More
Robert Frank points out that a lot of the reason states are in so much trouble is that many have become incredibly dependent on high earners for their tax revenues: [snipped quote] This is one of the reasons that we can't fix all our budget problems with higher taxes on the rich--if we do that, revenues are going to collapse dangerously every time there's a recession.

Somehow I doubt the rich are losing sleep about fluctuating income.



I see it but I can hardly believe it. Where is her dignity, her pride? Her subservience to power, her groveling before money--it's just unreal. I've said that McArdle is like Mrs. Elton in her pretentiousness, but she is like Mr. Collins in her eagerness to praise the rich and ingratiate herself with them by carefully composing flattering and exculpatory odes of praise.


DURING dinner, Mr. Bennet scarcely spoke at all; but when the servants were withdrawn, he thought it time to have some conversation with his guest, and therefore started a subject in which he expected him to shine, by observing that he seemed very fortunate in his patroness. Lady Catherine de Bourgh's attention to his wishes, and consideration for his comfort, appeared very remarkable. Mr. Bennet could not have chosen better. Mr. Collins was eloquent in her praise. The subject elevated him to more than usual solemnity of manner, and with a most important aspect he protested that he had never in his life witnessed such behaviour in a person of rank -- such affability and condescension, as he had himself experienced from Lady Catherine. She had been graciously pleased to approve of both the discourses which he had already had the honour of preaching before her. She had also asked him twice to dine at Rosings, and had sent for him only the Saturday before, to make up her pool of quadrille in the evening. Lady Catherine was reckoned proud by many people he knew, but he had never seen any thing but affability in her. She had always spoken to him as she would to any other gentleman; she made not the smallest objection to his joining in the society of the neighbourhood, nor to his leaving his parish occasionally for a week or two, to visit his relations. She had even condescended to advise him to marry as soon as he could, provided he chose with discretion; and had once paid him a visit in his humble parsonage; where she had perfectly approved all the alterations he had been making, and had even vouchsafed to suggest some herself, -- some shelves in the closets up stairs.
``That is all very proper and civil I am sure,'' said Mrs. Bennet, ``and I dare say she is a very agreeable woman. It is a pity that great ladies in general are not more like her. Does she live near you, sir?''

``The garden in which stands my humble abode is separated only by a lane from Rosings Park, her ladyship's residence.''

``I think you said she was a widow, sir? has she any family?''

``She has one only daughter, the heiress of Rosings, and of very extensive property.''

``Ah!'' cried Mrs. Bennet, shaking her head, ``then she is better off than many girls. And what sort of young lady is she? is she handsome?''

``She is a most charming young lady indeed. Lady Catherine herself says that in point of true beauty, Miss De Bourgh is far superior to the handsomest of her sex; because there is that in her features which marks the young woman of distinguished birth. She is unfortunately of a sickly constitution, which has prevented her making that progress in many accomplishments which she could not otherwise have failed of; as I am informed by the lady who superintended her education, and who still resides with them. But she is perfectly amiable, and often condescends to drive by my humble abode in her little phaeton and ponies.''

``Has she been presented? I do not remember her name among the ladies at court.''

``Her indifferent state of health unhappily prevents her being in town; and by that means, as I told Lady Catherine myself one day, has deprived the British court of its brightest ornament. Her ladyship seemed pleased with the idea, and you may imagine that I am happy on every occasion to offer those little delicate compliments which are always acceptable to ladies. I have more than once observed to Lady Catherine that her charming daughter seemed born to be a duchess, and that the most elevated rank, instead of giving her consequence, would be adorned by her. -- These are the kind of little things which please her ladyship, and it is a sort of attention which I conceive myself peculiarly bound to pay.''

``You judge very properly,'' said Mr. Bennet, ``and it is happy for you that you possess the talent of flattering with delicacy. May I ask whether these pleasing attentions proceed from the impulse of the moment, or are the result of previous study?''

``They arise chiefly from what is passing at the time, and though I sometimes amuse myself with suggesting and arranging such little elegant compliments as may be adapted to ordinary occasions, I always wish to give them as unstudied an air as possible.''

Mr. Bennet's expectations were fully answered. His cousin was as absurd as he had hoped, and he listened to him with the keenest enjoyment, maintaining at the same time the most resolute composure of countenance, and, except in an occasional glance at Elizabeth, requiring no partner in his pleasure.

By tea-time, however, the dose had been enough, and Mr. Bennet was glad to take his guest into the drawing-room again, and when tea was over, glad to invite him to read aloud to the ladies.

The rich are different, alright. They have Megan McArdle's lips firmly planted on their metaphorical asses.

ADDED: McArdle in 2009:

Koch is pretty open about their connection with institutions like IHS, but from what I know of them, astroturfing doesn't really seem like their style. I've seen Koch in action at private events, and though I'll respect the privacy, I'll say that even in the company of other like-minded rich people, he displayed rather a mania for honest dealing. That's not to say that it's impossible that they do fund FreedomWorks--I'm not particularly conversant with the world of 501(c)(3) funders. But Freedomworks doesn't publish its donor list, and there's no source offered for the claim.

McArdle doesn't have the eloquence of Mr. Collins but she made up for it in volume.

Persuasion

At Fire Megan McArdle, which isn't quite gone yet, is an awesome clip of Dylan Ratigan interviewing Mark Ames and Yasha Levine about the Koch brothers. It prominently features our favorite blogger, the Princess of Payola, the Duchess of Deregulation, the Countess of Koch-whores, Mrs. Megan McArdle.

Ratigan gives a lot of credit to Ames and Levine for breaking the Koch story over a year ago and Ames gives a lot of credit to McArdle for supporting the Koches. Ratigan says "the story was crushed, one way or another" and the attack was led by Megan McArdle, who personally vouched for David Koch. Ames said they were shocked that oligarchs were able to crush the story using McArdle and The Atlantic's reputation.

Levine says that the Koches are trying to move the Republican party as far right as possible and Ames says that they are free market when it's convenient and abandon principle when it isn't. Ratigan says they are subverting the free market. The whole thing is very entertaining damning.

In the end McArdle will still be paid to shill, which is the only important thing in her world. But there is no reason why we all can't agree that this is an adversarial relationship and that McArdle is paid to pacify the ambitious middle class, who is seeing their comfortable, safe world become a little less of both. So what if she is a propagandist? It's what her customers want--reassurance that their beliefs are real and their success inevitable.

Here's Mark Ames' run-down of how their story was squashed; it's very familiar to us after McArdle's Elizabeth Warren attack. There's something extremely distasteful and repellent about McArdle's support for shifting all power from the individual to corporations and all responsibility from corporations to the individual. She's not selling entertainment or consumer or financial products--she's selling fascism.

This is what a no-talent Leni Reiefenstahl would sound like if she had a blog.

A Small Note Of Concern

Because any attention is better than no attention, Megan McArdle twitter-links to a Mark Ames article about the Koches and their, as Ames puts it, "whores."

@asymmetricinfo
Megan McArdle
What I like about Mark Ames is that every piee [sic] contains at least one completely new, easily checkable factual error http://bit.ly/gq93Pt
5 hours ago via TweetDeck Favorite Retweet Reply

Of course when one calls Koch employees who spread Koch propaganda to enrich their masters and themselves and families "whores" one is only speaking metaphorically, hence the quotation marks. We would never wish to malign real whores, who harm only themselves by taking money for sex. Koch "whores" take money to harm other people physically and emotionally, which is far, far worse.

Real whores dress up in revealing clothing, the better to advertise their wares. Koch "whores" dress up in vests and ties or Land's End dresses. Real whores tell their customers exactly what the customers are paying for. Koch "whores" hide what they are selling behind sweet words and veiled threats. Real whores deliver value for money to their customers. Koch "whores" have perfected the art of providing nothing in return for their customers' money.

Sadly, it is the Koch "whores" who are respected, not the real whores. Like the prostitutes in Firefly, this group of "whores" are educated, sophisticated and well protected by the elite. They come from well-to-do, politically connected families and were trained in rhetoric and philosophy, taught all the social graces, and groomed to be the most exclusive club of "whores" on this or any other world.

But no matter how elegantly they live, how much money they spend, how much influence they accrue, they are still just whores. They take money for services that others will not lower themselves to perform. They make a mockery of their religion, they betray their country, and they sit idly by while their work adds to the suffering of an already stressed people.

But there is one sad corner of this lucrative world. As the Koches become better known, the army of no-so-elite bloggers on the right are starting to realize that all that lovely wingnut welfare is not trickling down very far. Only the elite get the six figure salaries, the rest of your Toms, Dicks and Harriets have to raise money from their readers. Jonah Goldberg, thanks to his wealthy, well-connected parents, lives on the West Side and vacations in Europe. Megan McArdle, whose father grew wealthy while he trod the well-worn path between government and corporations, was able to throw a lavish wedding. Glenn Reynolds went to Yale. Even Ann Althouse, while not elite, is able to trade on her status as a law professor to make some extra cash. Most of the bloggers without family connections or wealth or Ivy League educations are left to scramble as best they can, unrewarded for their loyalty and unpaid for their labor. It's one thing to be a pampered courtesan; it's quite another to hang out on the street corner working for small change.

While they are warning us of socialism the lower class bloggers of the right might want to think for a moment about how much free labor they provide to people like the Koches, Roger Ailes, David G. Bradley, and other multi-millionaires and billionaires. The elite's friends and the children of their friends are paid hundreds of thousands of dollars every single year to blog while the elite make a fortune off the unpaid labor of the little people. The little bloggers work hard and spend a lot of time on their blogs. They promote Fox events and spread politicians' talking points and raise money for the elite. The lower classes sacrifice to travel to political rallies and tea party events and pour their energy and passion into electing politicians. And what do they get in return? E-mails telling them they haven't donated enough money, spent enough time, worked hard enough or campaigned smart enough. They just give and give and give and get nothing in return.

It doesn't seem fair, does it?

Across The Atlantic: All You Need Is Cash

Cash, cash, cash
Cash, cash, cash
Cash, cash, cash

There's nothing I can write that can't be sold
Nothing I won't do when I am told.
Nothing I can't sell, I can learn how to play the game
It's easy.


Nothing I can think that can't be bought.
No one I will fight that can't be fought.
Nothing you can do but you can learn to believe me in time.
It's easy.


All you need is cash
All you need is cash
All you need is cash, cash
Cash is all you need


All you need is cash
All you need is cash
All you need is cash, cash
Cash is all you need


Nothing you can know that isn't planned
No one I can damn that isn't damned
Nowhere you can be that's away from influence by me
It's easy


All you need is cash
All you need is cash
All you need is cash, cash
Cash is all you need

It's A Wonderful Life!

Awww, isn't this cute? So cute it's twitteriffic?

@petersuderman
Peter Suderman
@SonnyBunch I just think @asymmetricinfo is cute.
13 hours ago via TweetDeck Favorite Retweet Reply

asymmetricinfo Megan McArdle
@ @petersuderman A classic example of bias. The Kochs are probably paying you to say that.
13 hours ago Favorite Retweet Reply

Isn't that funny? Those silly leftists and their Koch complaints! How it makes Mr. and Mrs. McArdle giggle to see the Koches pay off the government to avoid punishment for their crimes! To watch Koch refineries release benzene, or see a Koch pipeline blow up and kill a couple kids!

They're one of the top ten polluters in the country but so what? It's not like the McArdles live next to one of their refineries--only poor people do that, and it's not like they were doing anything with their lives anyway! Those silly liberals. It is to laugh.

Also, be sure to read McArdle's ode to the wonderfulness of her charming Victorian rowhouse in a nearly-fashionable neighborhood of DC. She admits she paid too much for it but hey, it's only money. There's plenty more where that came from.

Taylor Mali And "What Teachers Make"

This is great; from a poet and former teacher. From Bay Area Houston.

Shorter Megan McArdle

Megan McArdle has written a post titled "ObamaCare One Year In." I didn't realize it was 2015 already.

That's So Gay

Ross Douthat might find sexually active women repelling but he makes up for it by finding manly men irresistible.

In its opening phase, at least, our war in Libya looks like the beau ideal of a liberal internationalist intervention. It was blessed by the United Nations Security Council. It was endorsed by the Arab League. It was pushed by the diplomats at Hillary Clinton’s State Department, rather than the military men at Robert Gates’s Pentagon. Its humanitarian purpose is much clearer than its connection to American national security. And it was initiated not by the U.S. Marines or the Air Force, but by the fighter jets of the French Republic.

Diplomats versus military men, helping versus security, beau rather than valor, Frenchies versus US Marines. How weak those lefties sound!

This is an intervention straight from Bill Clinton’s 1990s playbook, in other words, and a stark departure from the Bush administration’s more unilateralist methods. There are no “coalitions of the willing” here, no dismissive references to “Old Europe,” no “you are with us or you are with the terrorists.” Instead, the Obama White House has shown exquisite deference to the very international institutions and foreign governments that the Bush administration either steamrolled or ignored.

This is what a Harvard education gets you; instead of calling liberals gay, Douthat says they "show exquisite deference," not manly resolve. But under the high tone is the same low mindset and Douthat is just another conservative who needs to prove that his tribe is more manly than the other tribe and that he is a manly man in good standing. Just as Kathryn Jean Lopez is firmly convinced that the more conservative you are, the more feminine you must be.

I thought of the unceasing reactions to [Sarah] Palin as I sat with two generations of anti-feminists at a book launch last week. Phyllis Schlafly, that brave lone warrior against the Equal Rights Amendment, and her niece, Suzanne Venker, have a book out called The Flipside of Feminism. Schlafly is an unapologetic fan of Palin — much more so than Venker — because she sees this. [This is false; Shlafly has stated that Palin is not up to the job. SoT] She knows this. She’s lived it. Having been called the worst of names simply because she was the most empowered of them all; refusing to surrender what’s only natural to an ideology that, masked as freedom, waged war on the complementary nature of the sexes.

You don’t have to want Sarah Palin to be president to acknowledge that the frenzy around her may have more to do with us than her.

On multiple fronts, the former governor of Alaska is actually much more complicated than most of the debates about her ever indicate. She’s that pro-life mom, a poster gal whom the Susan B. Anthony List was waiting for. But she’s also been known to get her inner Gloria Steinem on — which is ironic given that Steinem’s among those who would excommunicate her from the global sisterhood if she could. She’s very much the product of her times in this way — very much of the moment in this way. Born and raised in a culture where girls were educated as if they were an oppressed class in need of empowerment, often at the expense of boys, she’s representative of a culture that is increasingly coming to grips with the fact that the sexual revolution messed with some very fundamental things. Our opinions about politics sometimes merely reflect our inner struggles and longings in the messiest of ways, providing endless fodder for a ravenous media.

Note how Lopez's definition of feminine adjusts to fit anything Palin does.

Lopez doesn't call feminists butch, she just satisfies herself by calling them unnatural and not feminine. Mark Krikorian, however, throws all discretion to the wind and has a great time calling Obama effeminate.

They Know Who Wears the Pants in This Country
March 21, 2011 9:43 A.M. By Mark Krikorian
Look, I’m a sensitive New Age guy — I cook, I do laundry, I choke up at movies (well, Gladiator, anyway). But does anyone think our enemies abroad are as enlightened as we are about feminism? Steyn is right that the specific lesson they’re learning is that nukes are the best insurance against invasion — but a broader one is that our commander-in-chief is an effete vacillator who is pushed around by his female subordinates. Prof. Althouse notes, “A feminist milestone: Our male President has been pulled into war by 3 women,” and Senator Graham scored points with “I Thank God for Strong Women in the Obama Administration,” but we’re going to pay for this.

One of the reasons Khrushchev gambled on missiles in Cuba is that he perceived JFK as a weak man when they met in Vienna. Conversely, one of the reasons Khomeini released the hostages just as Reagan was taking the oath of office was his “Ronnie Ray-guns” reputation (something the air traffic controllers ignored — which itself became another lesson for our enemies). Do you think Putin and A-jad and Chavez and the ChiComs are more afraid of Obama now? It was obvious to most of us that Hillary has more, uh, stones than Obama, but to have it confirmed so publicly for less-attentive foreign goons means they’re that much more likely to try to push us and see how The One responds.

Before you send me any burning bras, the problem is not with women leaders — the enemies of the Virgin Queen and the Iron Lady can attest to that. The problem is not even with the president having strong female subordinates. Rather, Obama’s pusillanimity has been hugely magnified by the contrast with the women directing his foreign policy and the fact that they nagged him to attack Libya until he gave in. Maybe it’s unfair and there shouldn’t be any difference from having a male secretary of state do the same thing, but there is.

So we have the worst situation of all. Instead of a strong leader resisting calls for an unjustified military action — or even a strong leader resolutely supporting the military action — we have a timorous and irresolute leader reluctantly caving in to the demands of his staff. We are in for a heap of trouble.

I assume that calling the president a Nancy-boy is not meant to convert liberals but instead is meant to amuse the tribe. Sexual manipulation does not work on people who define their own sexuality instead of submitting to the group's definition of their sexuality. But many conservatives dearly love a male homoerotic bonding ritual in which women are put in their place and the steel rod of manly conservative resolve is mutually celebrated.

The Invaders

We know we live in a world in which the elite have taken control of the political system. They have almost all the money, they use it to support or oppose political candidates, and politicians need that money to get elected.

As we have seen, political decisions are usually influenced by corporate demands. War is no exception. Invasion is always a choice, and we know who benefits when such choices are made. The military benefits and arms manufacturers benefit. All the corporations with government contracts benefit. The oil companies benefit. One thing that Megan McArdle has taught me is that it's about the money, almost always. Money is power and purpose, safety and pleasure. It is a source of self-esteem and a defense against insecurity.

Our elite steal from the poor, poison our air, water and land, torture and kill their enemies and prisoners, and then lecture us about our morals. Giving them the benefit of the doubt on invasion is insane; to believe what they tell us is to ignore reality. Libya has control over oil. We need oil. We have already invaded-what, four? five? countries in the middle east and financially support others. Everyone knows this but not many people like to admit it. They find excuses to ignore the facts and eagerly discusses them among themselves, examining each feeble act of cowardice in loving detail. And thus centrist punditry was born.

Let's watch Jonathan Chait squirm as he tries to justify his support for another invasion. It sure beats contemplating yet another American war. He can be useful for once by amusing us.

Why intervene in Libya and not elsewhere is a question that needs to be asked. But it's not a question that needs to be asked to determine the wisdom of intervening in Libya.

Refusing to ask questions is the hallmark of an ideologue who doesn't want to hear bad news. The answer to that question is "oil."

Should we also spend more money to prevent malaria? Yes, we should. But I see zero reason to believe that not intervening in Libya would lead to an increase in in American assistance to prevent malaria.

Yes, we should invade because it's not like we were going to do anything good with the money anyway.

Why not intervene in Burma or Yemen or elsewhere? I would say the answer is prudential: for various political, geographic, and military reasons, the United States has the chance to prevent slaughter in Libya at reasonable cost, and does not have the chance to do so in Burma.

I thought that question was settled? It must be worrying at his mind. The reasons are "oil" but telling us that we can do it on the cheap is an interesting twist. A familiar one, too. Just ask McArdle, who told us that Iraq oil would pay for the Iraq war.

But suppose there's no answer whatsoever. Does it matter? If it were the 1990s, and the Clinton administration were contemplating an expansion of children's health insurance, would it be important to determine exactly why we're covering uninsured children but not uninsured adults? No. The question is whether this particular policy intervention is likely to succeed or fail.

Does it matter if we know why we invade? Of course not! The only question is if we'll win or fail!

Now, I think there are very reasonable arguments to suggest that the operation in Libya could devolve into a quagmire, fail to achieve its objections, or achieve them at unacceptable cost.

It's the McArdle Technique--by stating something you are negating that thing, magically. If you have a conflict of interest you simply state that you have a conflict of interest and then it won't count anymore. Then you can go ahead and profit from it! This handy-dandy technique also works for very reasonable arguments. If you state that an argument is reasonable, you can then ignore it and go back to supporting your own unreasonable argument. This technique neatly cuts out the whole "prove your argument using facts" stage of punditry, which was the most tedious one anyway and will not be missed at all.

And, of course, some people -- not Sullivan or Klein -- think the U.S. has no right to intervene in places like Libya. But that's the question. The question of whether or not we ought to intervene in some other country, or in some other way, is an important foreign policy issue, but not an argument against intervention in Libya.

Stated, dismissed, hit post and go out for coffee. Best freaking job ever. He says the question of whether or not we should invade Libya is not an argument against invading Libya. Chait has to blather a bunch of nonsense to avoid examining the facts of the argument. He has to tell us that determining the facts will not help us decide whether or not to invade Libya--and he's right, because we don't decide and the elite have absolutely no intention of looking at any facts while they start more killing, destroying, and spending.

Poor Chait. Everyone else gets to argue from emotion but he has to pretend that he's presenting an intellectual argument. It's kind of amusing embarrassing.

Strike!

Let's try something new.

Here's a recent Megan McArdle post. It's about potassium iodine pills but it could be about anything. Let's cross out anything that she lifted from another blogger:

As some of you may know, there have been reports of crazy price spikes in potassium iodide, which can protect against thyroid cancer in the event of radioactive exposure. Some of this is natural--all the world's potassium iodide pills should not be flowing to Japan and its immediate environs, and price signals are a good way to accomplish this. But apparently the soaring demand is not limited to places near Japan--all over the US, people seem to be seeking the stuff.


Presumably at least some of this is for relatives abroad, but it seems unlikely that this is the source of all the demand. Derek Lowe explains, as gently as possible, why it's not a good idea to take potassium iodide:


. . . unless you're actually being exposed to radioactive iodine, it's not going to do any good at all, and can actually do you harm. Pregnant women and people with thyroid problems, especially, should not go around gulping potassium iodide. Nothing radioactive is reaching North America yet - there's the Pacific Ocean to dilute things out along the way - which makes it very likely that more people on this side are in the process of injuring themselves by taking large unnecessary doses of iodide. This is like watching people swerve their cars off the road into the trees because they've heard that there's an accident fifty miles ahead.

Okay, now let's cross out the bit on price spikes, since McArdle's source doesn't tell us anything about pricing except "some media are reporting price gouging." She could easily find a link to support this point but she didn't. Her second source is merely a link to a google search McArdle did for "price potassium iodide" but it does support her point.

As some of you may know, there have been reports of crazy price spikes in potassium iodide, which can protect against thyroid cancer in the event of radioactive exposure. Some of this is natural--all the world's potassium iodide pills should not be flowing to Japan and its immediate environs, and price signals are a good way to accomplish this. But apparently the soaring demand is not limited to places near Japan--all over the US, people seem to be seeking the stuff.


Presumably at least some of this is for relatives abroad, but it seems unlikely that this is the source of all the demand. Derek Lowe explains, as gently as possible, why it's not a good idea to take potassium iodide:


. . . unless you're actually being exposed to radioactive iodine, it's not going to do any good at all, and can actually do you harm. Pregnant women and people with thyroid problems, especially, should not go around gulping potassium iodide. Nothing radioactive is reaching North America yet - there's the Pacific Ocean to dilute things out along the way - which makes it very likely that more people on this side are in the process of injuring themselves by taking large unnecessary doses of iodide. This is like watching people swerve their cars off the road into the trees because they've heard that there's an accident fifty miles ahead.

Now let's cross out anything that is a guess or supposition.

As some of you may know, there have been reports of crazy price spikes in potassium iodide, which can protect against thyroid cancer in the event of radioactive exposure. Some of this is natural--all the world's potassium iodide pills should not be flowing to Japan and its immediate environs, and price signals are a good way to accomplish this. But apparently the soaring demand is not limited to places near Japan--all over the US, people seem to be seeking the stuff.


Presumably at least some of this is for relatives abroad, but it seems unlikely that this is the source of all the demand. Derek Lowe explains, as gently as possible, why it's not a good idea to take potassium iodide:


. . . unless you're actually being exposed to radioactive iodine, it's not going to do any good at all, and can actually do you harm. Pregnant women and people with thyroid problems, especially, should not go around gulping potassium iodide. Nothing radioactive is reaching North America yet - there's the Pacific Ocean to dilute things out along the way - which makes it very likely that more people on this side are in the process of injuring themselves by taking large unnecessary doses of iodide. This is like watching people swerve their cars off the road into the trees because they've heard that there's an accident fifty miles ahead.


So what is left? Basically, this:

Some of this is natural--all the world's potassium iodide pills should not be flowing to Japan and its immediate environs, and price signals are a good way to accomplish this.

This is the economic substance in McArdle's word salad and it doesn't make a bit of sense. The drug companies and distributors should jack up prices sky-high so that Japan can't afford to buy the pills? The Japanese need the pills now, most Americans can probably wait until more are manufactured. That's just a guess, but it's every bit as good as McArdle's speculation.


It's great to be a conservative writer!

edited after posting

The Upper West Side Horror

Quick! Before she takes out her calculator!


It's spring break and we are very busy so let's be short.

Shorter Megan McArdle: We don't need more trains; there's nobody to ride them.

Shorter Megan McArdle: New York City needs more trains if it wants to accommodate more people.

If money is spent on trains that means McArdle will have to pay taxes that might benefit someone else and she would rather not help anyone who isn't Megan McArdle, thanks very much.

Shorter Megan McArdle: Netflix might just be shooting itself in the foot again!

Our brilliant journalist makes some claims that she doesn't explain ("On the other hand, Netflix has proven itself an extraordinarily nimble and visionary company, repeatedly moving to cannibalize its own sales before competitors do it for them"). She also says," The competency required to be a DVD distributor don't really overlap that much with the competencies required to identify and support successful television programming." I'll bet Netflix has amassed a huge amount of information about what people want to watch, and as I spent all week watching Dr. Who on Netflix's instant download with the kids, I know it's not just mailing DVDs either. I would like nothing better than to get rid of cable altogether, and from what I hear a lot of people have switched to viewing tv via the internet. It's the wave of the future, as they used to tell us in the '70s.

It never ceases to amuse me that McArdle is able to make a living as a journalist by obfuscating instead of illuminating. Her writing is extremely unclear and she routinely leaves out information essential to understanding her point. Fortunately for her that's a feature, not a bug, in her line of work.

Shorter Megan McArdle: "10 Quick Pickups for Your Personal Finances"

This article reads almost exactly like one of those utterly useless articles published in a upmarket woman's magazine that is aimed at educated people but is written by someone who usually covers fashion and celebrities. "Add more to your 401(k)." That's sheer genius. Putting aside the merits of 401(k)s, if you don't know enough to do this you don't have a 401(k), and if you do, you don't need some silly cow telling you to add more to your 401(k).

Shorter Megan McArdle: For reasons that I will state but not explain, income inequality isn't that bad after all! "Rising inequality (and slower income growth) have been a rising trend across most of the developed world for three decades. We need a better explanation than greedier rich people, or stupider politicians." Don't tell me--it's systemic!

Shorter Megan McArdle: Obama seems to have become as bad as Bush regarding civil rights. The problem must be...systemic!

It doesn't occur to her that power-hungry people seek the presidency, or that people actually mean what they say. Obama's worldview was not hidden; he said what he thought. People just didn't want to believe him. Now they know better. Of course most people continue the same pattern of belief and disillusionment because they dislike the alternative, which is rejecting all automatic group loyalties.

There are also a couple of posts on Japan that tell us nothing; McArdle doesn't do original analysis, she just quotes Tyler Cowen or someone else. All noise, no substance.

Where's a Dalek when you need one? Exterminate! Exterminate!

K-Lo, Girl Blogger--Starring Kathryn Jean Lopez

God Bless
March 11, 2011 6:18 A.M. By Kathryn Jean Lopez
the people hit by the earthquake in Japan — and all the subsequent tsunamis . . . including in our Hawaii.


art.the.nerd
03/11/11 11:57
Do I understand this correctly? "God bless the people whose lives and property are at risk because of an act of God"?

If she didn't already exist I would have had to invent her. She's a human sitcom, a character for the ages. Bless her thick little skull.

But We Have Low Taxes

James Wolcott notes the Texan neglect of Dealey Plaza. He quotes Donald Barnat, who said:

The lion’s share of negative vibe in Dealey Plaza, however, isn’t generated by happenstance or traffic accidents. It comes from the fact that the place is in such a miserable state of disrepair that it amounts to a disgrace for the city of Dallas, the state of Texas, and the United States of America.

I live in Los Angeles. In what’s called the slums of Beverly Hills. But what I’m about to say goes for virtually everywhere in Los Angeles. There is more attention paid to the grounds keeping and upkeep and beautification of EVERY apartment building on my street, every street in my neighborhood, and just about every building, house, park, intersection, center divider or median strip, car wash, parking lot, and public restroom than there is at the site of the assassination of the 35th president of the United States.

Paint is chipping badly. Rust stains are everywhere. The grass is trodden over, smashed down to dirt and mud under the feet of visitors. Graffiti covers key components of this historical site including the picket fence behind the Grassy Knoll where some say a second shooter may have fired shots at the president’s motorcade.

But there’s one thing even worse than the disrepair at Dealey Plaza and it is an insult to history and everyone who visits the place as well as to the memory of the slain president and of the events that happened there

The first thing I noticed about Texas when I moved here as a kid was the ugliness of the public spaces compared to San Diego. But Mr. Barnat is unfair; one place, at least, is expensively cared for.

The George W. Bush Presidential Library




Dealey Plaza:

It's For The Corporations Children

This Megan McArdle post on obesity makes absolutely no sense unless you realize that McArdle believes that the government should make policies that help corporations but should not make policies that help individuals. Dr. McArdle says it is impossible to lose weight because genetics trumps all other factors. And since genetics determines weight, hunger cannot be controlled or ignored and the more you reduce your food intake the more your body will force you to eat. Therefore government health initiatives are nanny-state assaults on freedom.

Most people who exercise won't lose much, if any weight without calorie restriction. And most people who try to restrict their calories below what their body wants fail over the long term--eventually, their appetite wins.

McArdle links to a book written by a journalist, not a scientist, with a very debatable premise--being overweight does not affect health adversely and obesity is determined by genetics, so overweight people can't lose weight because their bodies will be overwhelmed by the desire to eat more if they try to cut back on the amount they eat. Why does McArdle, who equates fat with the lower classes and therefore self-indulgence, show this unusual sympathy? Let's ask Mark Ambinder, who responded in 2009 to one of her post on obesity.

McArdle approaches obesity as if it were a Foucauldian construct: a category invented by the government to justify an exercise of power. The government has no business intervening on the level of individual choice and it shouldn't get into the business of behavioral suasion because it always fails. She's right to note that information about health risks associated with overconsuming fat and sugar and salt are saturated throughout society, even supersaturated. Everyone knows how bad this stuff can be. For her, that's the end of the argument. Government can help to provide information about how to make better choices, but it cannot and should not try to persuade people to make better choices. Indeed, the push for people to make better choices produces the stigma that makes the bad thing bad in the first place.

This assumes that the stigma itself is misplaced. It isn't. Fat stigma is bad and harmful, and it ought to be reduced. But reducing fat stigma doesn't reduce the incidence of obesity; it actually seems to increase it in certain populations. What produces fat stigma is not a government or culture that hectors people to lose weight and exercise and then excoriates them when they can't; it's a government that expects individuals to lose weight on their own (which is next to impossible) while making policy that keeps people fat. The discrepancy between expectations and reality is cruel, especially for children.

...

Lo and behold, government policy has helped ensure that the raw foodstuffs that go into all the starchy, sugary foods that we eat are much cheaper. And when compared to the consumer price index, fruits, vegetables and healthy foods are more expensive than they were 30 years ago. If government policy influences diet on a macro scale, and if there is evidence that the diet is harmful, then, in theory, there would be no additional intervention if, say, Congress began to subsidize tomatoes in the same way it subsidizes corn, just a change in policy.


None of this argues for a soda tax, or a tax on sugar, or a ban on, say, food marketing to children. It's just to say that if the obesity epidemic was nurtured by policy -- and it clearly was -- perhaps it can be undone by policy, too.

But McArdle read a couple of books that prove her anti-government fantasies are correct!

Fat tissue makes people want to eat--it sends out for takeout. And hunger is a signal on par with thirst or pain. You can ignore it, if you have sufficient willpower. But just as most people can't withstand torture (a minority can), most people can't ignore the constant demand from their body for food.

The other is that while I do buy some of the arguments about hyperpalatable food like Doritos (though I personally find Doritos eminently resistable [sic] most of the time), the fact that a really attractive food combination has been cooked up by food scientists does not mean that you get some kind of free pass to deny it to everyone. Whether a dish was dreamed up by Mario Batali or the staff at the Cheesecake Factory, preventing people from having it "for their own good" still represents an actual hedonic loss, as well as an actual loss of freedom. You may think they have some meta-self which will thank you later, but their current self has still had both its liberty and its joy restricted. Invoking the demon food scientists of agribusiness does not actually relieve you of the obligation to prove that intervening in the liberty of both the customers and the company is morally pressing.

To be sure, even I, the pessimistic libertarian, do not see any actual means for the government to prevent food processors from making their food taste very good. (Thank God). I just suspect that more than one of my interlocutors is casting around for just such a means.

The government could raise the price of fat, salt, and sweeteners, processed food, and restaurant meals. But I very much doubt that if our legislators actually enacted a food tax adequate to prevent obesity, they would get much thanks from anyone except the sort of people who ask each other, with wide eyes, if anyone else has noticed how disgustingly fat all the people are at the mall--and never eat at Cheesecake Factory. So I think that this, too, is unlikely.

Ultimately, the answer to "what could it hurt"? is that all actions have costs, which you cannot assume away on the grounds that those costs don't interest you. But they should interest you, because not least among those costs is the simple fact that the government cannot do everything well. Making all sorts of changes in the name of obesity means not making others that might be more important, because we have limited political and bureaucratic bandwith. [sic] Do you want obesity intervention, cap and trade, or health care reform? You may not be able to have any of them. But you probably can't have all three. And if you did, you'd make it more likely that the government would screw all of them up.

And I suppose I would make the point that at the margin expenditures of funds to fight this tendency are going to do a lot more to improve public health than will expenditures of funds to treat people's diabetes.

That presumes you can find a marginal dollar that will reduce peoples' tendency to eat more than they burn just as effectively as we treat diabetes. Seven years ago, when I investigated fast food lawsuits, I found very little evidence for that proposition. Pretty much every public health effort to get people to eat less has proven a dismal failure. As Paul Campos has noted, telling people to eat less and exercise more is the most exhausitvely [sic] attempted experiment in the history of science. And we have 200 million data points that prove just how badly it works at keeping Americans slender.

I'm thus pretty skeptical that we're going to do much about obesity through the sort of mild nudges that a lot of the discussion about changing peoples' eating habits implicitly imagines. For example, I'm a big fan of Brian Wansink's Mindless Eating, which details all the ways that we take in more calories than we think. But I'm skeptical that in the long run, these factors make all that much difference. If you think about it, taking in an extra fifty calories a day more than you need--half a piece of bread, or a few cocktail nuts--is enough to pack on an extra five pounds a year. If we really at that mindlessly all the time, we'd all be morbidly obese. I expect that in any given sitting, things like portion size, or calorie counts, can cause people to reduce their intake. But over time, I doubt they'll have much impact.

That leaves more illiberal options, like forcing manufacturers to change their foods in order to make them less apealling, [sic] or massive taxes on fat, sugar, and salt. Even if I thought there was a practical, and politically acceptable, way to carry this out, I'd be against it. Enacting national health care, and then declaring that it now gives you the right to dictate how people will eat . . . well, that's exactly the sort of thing libertarians are talking about when they bemoan the creepign [sic] nanny state.

McArdle has grown more canny over the years and now declares that we must ignore corporate-friendly agriculture policies that adversely affect our national health because of freedom and puppies and it's-for-the-children. But it all comes down to the same thing--the lower class is fat because of genetics and nothing can be done about it, so leave McDonalds alone.

Blue Skies

It's not the view out my window but it could be.

Remember when Megan McArdle went to Florida? I do.

Since Megan McArdle is stuck in Tallahassee wrasslin' gators and listening with rapt attention while Jeb Bush's cronies tell her that there's never been a better time to Buy Florida, let's take a look at Paul Krugman's op-ed in the New York Times.

Her article is now out, and sure enough, it seems that risk is good and Florida might just recover (some day) and make you rich, rich, rich!

McArdle neglects to mention the BP oil spill, but that is understandable because her hosts probably did not tell her about it. Her odd style--which seems more like the musings in a personal memoir--is very much in evidence. I did some reading and it seems that the company McArdle profiles has already sold off most of its beachfront property to cover operating costs, but eh, who cares about the details when investing? Don't you want to be a millionaire? Somehow?

The day is too beautiful to waste on McArdle. We will let her enjoy her restless, twitchy drive to become rich and powerful while we enjoy other, more satisfying riches instead.