So, layoffs have come to the McArdle household, making this a depression by the most commonly accepted definition. The startup my housemate works for has gone out of business, and as we sat around last night talking about the financial implications of this, I pondered the Paradox of Thrift.Where do I even start?
Jebus.
Dear Megan,
This did not happen to you. The most important thing right now is not how you'll find a new roommate or cover the old one's share of the rent. Other people exist outside of how useful they are, or may be, to you. Most people realize this at some point in their teens. There was an episode of Growing Pains where Mike Seaver comes to this realization. You might have seen it. That's right, Kirk Cameron's fictional sitcom character was a more mature and emotionally developed person than you. Congrats.
Love,
Me
Oh, and she updated this post for clarity. Really.
Update: Sorry, let me be super clear that I still have a job. My housemate worked for a startup that got hit by the credit crunch. [Emphasis in original]Wow.
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14 comments:
Fuck her. This site should be called Fuck (You), Megan McArdle. Esp. since, unfortunately, it appears she isn't ever going to get fired by The Atlantic. They'll just let her help take the whole magazine down.
You can even keep the same acronym.
A person who judges whether or not there is a depression based entirely on whether her own household's situation is myopic and self-absorbed. But it is at least somewhat understandable if you aren't in any way professionally or personally involved with business or economics. But this whole business/economics writing thing is her job! And she barely even does that!
(side note: I am apparently the ultimate masochist. Over the lat week, I found this site and have read every entry. I am now a broken shell of a man)
"...making this a depression by the most commonly accepted definition."
So, the commonly accepted definition of "depression" is that Megan is somehow affected by the troubled economy? I like how she felt the need to clarify that she did not lose her job, which is blogging at the Atlantic, by -- blogging it at the Atlantic. Thanks for clearing things up, Megs! I might have been confused otherwise!
I really wish she would stop sharing. I don't want to know anything about her life. I don't want to know she has a four-room house and she never uses a personal pronoun for the housemate and therefore the housemate is probably her boyfriend. I don't want to know her car that she bought sight unseen has expensive transmission problems. I don't want to know that she decided to rent a house during a recession. And I really don't want to hear about her economizing and inevitable moralizing about how it makes her a better human (than others).
I love how she needed to edit for clarity to note that she wasn't laid off. Like I didn't guess that from the fact that she was still posting to her blog. Then again, I'm still not convinced she gets paid to write it.
If her "housemate" is her boyfriend, then my favorite part of this post is that she calls their pad the "McArdle household."
The update was necessary, given the quote she linked.
"It's a recession when your neighbor loses his job; it's a depression when you lose yours."
But she says it's a depression, even though it was not her job that was lost. Fail.
I spent much of my 20s and 30s with housemates. I never once thought of that as a "household," much less the Malaclypse Household.
How can an English major be this bad with language?
Megan's so lazy, I wouldn't doubt that she coasted through college doing the bare minimum amount of work she needed to in order to earn her degree. That's the only way to explain why her writing is so stinking awful in spite of the education she likes to brag about whenever she gets the chance.
Of course, unemployment compensation is something that John/Jane Galt would naturally refuse.
Live off the sweat of people who actually work for a living like a parasite? Jane Galt would never do that!!!
Yuppers: Our site or Megan's? Oh, never mind, no human could read all of A. I. & live to tell the tale.
I think we should give MM a bit of a pass on the "it's only a depression if you or the housemate in your household lose your job" thing.
In her own way, she's trying to make fun of people who are that way w/o self-knowledge. Not that she doesn't qualify, but doesn't that make it funnier?
Me, the voice of reason & restraint. What McArdle will do to you.
And the update must be because many of her readers are dense. It was very clear (yes, she's capable of that, once in a while) that she hadn't been laid off.
In fairness to Mme. McArdle, I'm guessing that this was meant to be a joke. However, given all the people who are now broke and/or unemployed, it is an incredibly callous and thoughtless joke, on par with Bush the Lesser's notorious "Finding the WMDs" routine.
already we have a candidate for best (worst) McArdle quote of 2009. We need a top 10 list at the end of the calendar year.
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