Old Fashioned Semi-Shorters

like Momma used to make.

The Cost of Taxation:

Higher tax rates induce people to earn less money, period, and this is unquestionably a bad thing. Sure, reality doesn't agree with the premise, but if you look at recent economic history you see absolutely no reason to believe society would be well served by the "masters of the universe" having slightly less incentive to strip down American society for scrap metal and parts or create artificial bubbles based on dishonestly selling unpayable debt to people who don't understand what they're agreeing to. It wouldn't be a net plus for the world if the people Megan is paid to excuse the misdeeds of went Galt, not at all. Think of the poor suit makers.

Is Comprehensive Health Care Reform Dead?:

Here we see Megan playing concern troll, basically. She's passive aggressively trying to bait liberal blogs into paying attention to her by making unsubstantiated, and unsupportable, claims about the emotional tenor of their current postings by agreeing with us that Obama isn't actually a socialist or radical, but rather a devoted centrist with a slight leftist bent. And that he's not FDR, which, as Susan reminds us, is a metapunditrical self-reference to the last time Megan engaged in unsourced liberal mind reading.

Who Will Regulate the Regulators?

Lost in all this debate about how to fix the regulatory structure which I cheered for the dismantling of over the last decade plus is the fact that the inherently dishonest and greedy nature of all too many of the people in the financial industry ensures that there will be periodic crashes and crises. I mean, the market is perfect except that it fucks up regularly and causes huge problems for humanity.
I mean... ummmm, the market is like weather, and if we try to plan ahead for hurricanes we make the gods angry.

Dubya on Defense:

I don't really have it in me to pretend I don't think of George W. Bush as a good Daddy who kept me safe after fucking up and letting me nearly die.

Did I Malign Paul Krugman Yesterday?:

Many of my commenters think so. [And Arnold Kling, who supplied the quote.] I don't.

After all, if you ignore that Krugman was not endorsing the creation of a housing bubble but accurately describing what the Fed would attempt to do in response to the collapse of the NASDAQ bubble, and that the very term "bubble" has strongly negative connotations, then there's this other stupid shit you can say about it. Plus, maybe, if she's lucky, Krugman will mention and link to her this time, despite the fact he's clearly done with her from here on out.

I'm not sure if Megan has returned to her Althousian trajectory while I was away or if I'd just developed overexposure induced blindness to it, but these cries for attention are just sad. How can she maintain any culture warrior cred if no name brand liberals will get outraged at her?

(Yes, yes, Ann Althouse is not a person who I am. You're a boring old lady, Ann.)