Big ole shorters

Lots to catch up on, lots to mock.

We must compel them to be free!

What?
DENNIS:
I told you. We're an anarcho-syndicalist commune. We take it in turns to act as a sort of executive officer for the week,...
MEGAN:
Yes.
DENNIS:
...but all the decisions of that officer have to be ratified at a special bi-weekly meeting...
MEGAN:
Yes, I see.
DENNIS:
...by a simple majority in the case of purely internal affairs,...
MEGAN:
Be quiet!
DENNIS:
...but by a two-thirds majority in the case of more major--
MEGAN:
Be quiet! I order you to be quiet!
WOMAN:
Order, eh? Who does she think she is? Heh.

When Hillary Clinton fixes the housing market, she really fixes it.:

This is a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad idea. Yes, multiple foreclosures can be bad for urban neighborhoods, and it would be nice if there were some way to prevent this.

Remember, profit is sacred, and thus cannot be placed in danger without committing economic heresy. AND THE LENDERS ARE BLAMELESS.

The teaser rates these people got can be lower than the rate on a prime fixed mortgage. This is, of course, very nice for the people who bought more house than they can afford. It will not be so nice for anyone who wants to get a subprime mortgage in the future, since this move will probably destroy that market for at least a decade or so to come. It will, of course, be very bad for anyone who happens to be a mortgage lender--aka the people the rest of us want to borrow money from in order to buy houses.

If the lenders have to feel the pain of their mistakes, how are they going to repeat them? Come on, people!

This move will leave them with a lot less money to loan out to anyone else, so hello, higher mortgage rates. Higher mortgage rates, for those following along at home, generally mean lower house prices, which means that the problem of negative equity will get worse.

In other words, Senator Clinton would like to destroy the mortgage market in order to save it.

I see this problem as roughly the same problem of pharmaceutical price controls. Yes, we can help some people now, but only at the cost of hurting a lot more people in the future. Those people, of course, don't vote, either because they aren't born, or don't know who they are yet; hence, politicians often ignore them. But that's no reason that the rest of us should follow suit.

Don't you realize fixing problems might make it harder for already well off people to profit from the problematic situation? Why make the housing market, or big pharma, actually serve people?

Another bad idea: Has Megan mentioned how much she loathes Hillary in the last 15 seconds?

The king of wrong?: Lecture time. Prof McArdle sez

Obviously you should not deceive people, much less manipulate their words to present a substantively false image of them or reality. But if you sit down thinking that no one you interview should ever be unhappy with the result, you are committing to a project just as dishonest as the filmmaker who starts out with a narrative and trims the facts to fit it. Probably the hardest thing about being a journalist is disputing the truth claims of nice people who have spent hours of their valuable time talking to you about their issues. But that's your job.

Which is why Megan doesn't bother with interviews or research or anything else actual journalists, the people who convey new information to others, do. It's because she's polite, and considerate of others, not because she's incredibly lazy.

∞ degrees of separation: This post... has a point?

Piracy: a symphony of spontaneous order:

Be quiet! I order you to be quiet!
WOMAN:
Order, eh? Who does she think she is? Heh.
MEGAN:
I am your queen!
WOMAN:
Well, I didn't vote for you.
MEGAN:
You don't vote for queens.
WOMAN:
Well, how did you become queen, then?
MEGAN:
The Ayn of the Rand,...
[angels sing]
...her arm clad in the purest shimmering samite, held aloft a steaming pile of crap from the bosom of the water signifying by Divine Providence that I, Megan, was to carry this steaming pile of crap.
[singing stops]
That is why I am your queen!
DENNIS:
Listen. Strange women lying in ponds distributing fecal matter is no basis for a system of government. Supreme executive power derives from a mandate from the masses, not from some farcical aquatic ceremony.
MEGAN:
Be quiet!
DENNIS:
Well, but you can't expect to wield supreme executive power just 'cause some watery tart threw a turd at you!
MEGAN:
Shut up!
DENNIS:
I mean, if I went 'round saying I was an emperor just because some moistened bint had dropped a deuce on me, they'd put me away!
MEGAN:
Shut up, will you? Shut up!

Stag + flate = uh oh!:

Seeing creeping stagflation paired with oil prices in the 1990s would tend to bolster that theory.

Megan was an English major? Has anyone verified her diploma?

Sick of being sick?: Then get a good job with good health coverage and a generous number of sick days, sickie!

There is probably some truth to this. But it bizarrely seems to assume that there is some steep demand in decline for long weekends after you've had three or eight, which is not, in my experience, true. The problem is, whether you call it sick leave or vacation days, a day off is a day off. Many people in America (and the rest of the world) already view their sick leave as a sort of backup vacation, which means that the temptation to hoard them by coming in when you're sniffly is intact. (This is why people in lower-skilled jobs are frequently put through the indignity of having to bring in a doctor's note.) If, as for most people, work is somewhere you'd rather not be, then when given the opportunity not to be there, you won't.

I guess Megan sees a problem in this. I do, too, but it's not the same one. The problem is the average American worker gets such little vacation time and is expected to put in so many hours that they end up valuing sick days more as extra vacation than as days to stay home when they are sick. Megan, of course, sees the problem as those lazy shiftless workers not breaking their backs hard enough.

Social and cultural rules can control this to some extent, but they seem to break down over time, which is why the Scandinavian countries, with their generous sick leave policies, are having increasing problems with absenteeism. The problem is worst in Sweden, but it seems to be a concern anywhere that has generous leave policies

Now, credit where it's due, Megan actually cited sources, with links I'm not gonna bother to reinsert. That said, it's only having gone to business school which allows Megan to see workers as assets instead of human beings and see only productivity and problems of overindulgence, not quality of life or human lives. Or at least that's my theory.

I'm in ur convenience store, enslaving ur kidz: Ok, first off, to whoever it was who introduced Megan to Lolcats, fuck you.
Second, the studied opinion of medical scientists means NOTHING compared to Megan's personal experience. Fuck the recorded experiences of many other people, they're just fooling themselves.
I'm actually like Megan, the physical withdrawal was easier to deal with, for me, than having to readjust my habits. But I've had friends who couldn't quit because they couldn't handle withdrawal. Megan would probably call them weak, I call them not me, so wtf can I say about it.