Simply Incoherent

Don't let the perfect be the enemy of nothing at all:

Yes, she butchered the saying, but it gets much worse. The post is arguing to exact opposite. (Or is it? I'm not quite clear what she's trying to say, shockingly.)

I just gave a talk on market-based strategies for growth at the Institute for Emerging Issues conference in Raleigh. I talked about a lot of things, but one of the things I brought up, which seems particularly appropriate given the TARP and the stimulus debates going on right now: it's the idea that a compromise is always better than nothing.

Clearly, with experts like Megan McArdle out there spreading the knowledge, we'll move out of these crises quickly. Never mind the fact she's parroting the conservative tactic of obstruction in the hopes of eventual political gain, there's totally a good argument for doing nothing and hoping for the best.

Let's say that TARP proponents are right and that some program to pump a great deal of money into banks is better than just letting them fail. It does not then therefore follow, as night to day, that this package--or any politically feasible package--is better than nothing. It can be true that Ideal>0 without being true that 1/2ideal+compromise>0.

And what if the TARP money turns into velociraptors and eats everyone in the banks we're trying to help? Do you really want to sentence all those poor people to potential violent, painful deaths?

We are all guilty of formulating some ideal policy, and then acting as if whatever crippled version of that ideal policy survives the political process will necessarily be better than the status quo. But the pressures of the political process often require vast and counterproductive alterations. To take but one example, energy market deregulation can work very well. But energy market deregulation as screwed up by California's various interest groups (including the moronic consumer groups that proposed forcing all the utilities to always buy their power on the spot market!!) was much worse than sticking with the boring, inefficient old system.

No, you aren't hallucinating, Megan really did just try to blame consumers for the California energy crisis. She read an industry pamphlet on the topic, and rich people don't lie. Plus she used two exclamation points, which makes it extra true. But I digress, we're talking about why doing nothing right now is obviously the way to go, at least compared to stimulus that isn't all tax cuts for the rich.

It is not necessarily true that doing nothing would be better than either of these plans, of course. But I'd like to see 0 included in the solution set a lot more often.

Hypothetically, the stimulus plan might not work, therefore DO NOTHING!! (See?)
Megan has to rely on imaginary situations because she's deluded herself straight out of reality. The New Deal made the Great Depression worse, dammit, the facts of the matter be damned. The government doesn't create jobs. Trying to help people is bad. Why won't anyone listen to her? Her commenters think she's right on.