Friday, December 18, 2009

Can We Go Back to Lazy and Incompetent?

This prolific and incompetent shit is getting fucking tedious.

Shorter Megan McArdle:

Personal Finance

Some have pointed out the ridiculous hypocrisy of my lambasting individuals for behaving in way to which I would not object if they were a corporation. I'm not sure which one of you it was so I'm just gonna put some random links and names in here and hope for the best. I would like to point out that if a corporation poisoned wells across the country, I'd think that they were bad. To further my point, let me explain to you about how I get outraged when I travel to other countries and find out that they don't act exactly as we do. Also, I am not after a sense of cosmic justice here. Now, I'm not done yet, as I've realized that if I string a bunch of random sentences together that don't mean anything it's harder to rebut. It's like, have you ever tried to argue with a person on LSD? That's impossible. So here I go. Anyway, my large point is that if people start defaulting on mortgages before they have liquidated their assets, raided the college fund, and emptied their retirement accounts, then no one ever will be able to get a house again. I'd like to point out that if you spend any money after you've defaulted on a house, clearly you didn't try to keep your house that much. So you see, me and old, uh, what's-his-name are on two sides of a different eschalogical coin and the economics of the issues really makes moral equivalency a bad thing. Have I met my quota yet? No? How about now? Two more words? OK! Done!

7 comments:

Ken Houghton said...

"Anyway, my large point is that if people start defaulting on mortgages before they have liquidated their assets, raided the college fund, and emptied their retirement accounts, then no one ever will be able to get a house again."

And if they walk away before doing all those things, thinking about the next generation?

(channeling William Shatner in an old TOS episode) "No difference."

Clever Pseudonym said...

I want to know where she got that idiotic idea that Europeans "queue" different than Merkins/Brits*/Aussies? I've lived in several European countries and they got in line at shops just like we do here.

*Who are also, in fact, Europeans.

And will somebody please tell her that making a "Shit I Have In My House" list is not a holiday gift guide that is useful to other people? What a self-absorbed git. "Peter and I have consolidated households, so we don't need new electronics. Which means you and your loved ones don't either."

Downpuppy said...

She has one true point : A slave mentality amongst the proles is essential to maintaining the current order.

That this is neither possible nor desirable is a slight flaw she hasn't noticed.

M. Bouffant said...

NoT: Thanks for beating me to this one. Happy Holidaze!

Not that I'd have had much more to type than: "It's OK If You're a Corporation."

cb said...

"then no one ever will be able to get a house again"

Oh they'll get houses, Megan. They just won't have to bother with those pesky mortgages. Unless you and your rich buddies want to pay for full time security for every empty house no one can buy

cb said...

OK, just read the post, well skimmed it, well all right the opening and closing paragraphs. But I do have to give her credit for this:

"But we've lived in a world where profit-maximizing corporations operate by different normative rules from individuals for 150 years."

Indeed, Megan. Even a blind squirell finds the occasional nut. No surprise her inflated sense of "morality" doesn't see this as a problem.

What it boils down to is individual people are not entitled to maximize profits, that's only for our betters.

Worker 17 said...

Megan is being very patient here, explaining to people who don't understand that if people default on mortgages that in another time would never have been written, no banker will ever write another mortgage again. Even those bankers who are in the mortgage banking business and who would be out of work if they stopped writing mortgages will stop writing mortgages, Megan says. This is because Megan has no idea of what goes on in banking, besides what bankers tell her at cocktail parties.