... (0 comments)I so love it when scientists take the time and effort to unleash the full power of their arsenal in the service of taking snippy dilettantes down a few pegs. I know Sully and Gherald will be hurt that this guy trained his sights on their BFF, Megan McArdle, but – well – the full post is just too delicious:
Megan McArdle in fact knows very little — not nothing, but not much either — of the formal apparatus of modern economic thought, nor of the rich bodies of content knowledge real economists have developed on a number of important questions, including, most important for the present discussion, medical economics and political economy…Read the whole post, you’ll be glad you did.I don’t read McArdle much because I know she doesn’t know what she’s talking about, and the glibness of her ignorance and the infantile quality of her ideology (that brand of libertarianism present in populations that include my nine-year-old and that can be summed up “you can’t tell me what to do”) piss me off. Why read annoying, uninformed –if glibly written — dreck?
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Unhinged vagina-shackler on Komen’s volte face:Cancer is Cancer! Aboration is Aboration!
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When one party climbs back to power by promising action on the economy, does nothing on it, and instead spends literally all its time trying to hurt the other party. (0 comments)New From The Gingrich-Cain Front
Newt rants about cable movies he doesn’t like, and flips out when Herman tries to seize control. Catch all the fun here. And the main site is here, as always. (0 comments)Headline of the Week: Making Rapeanade
Leave it to TBogg:
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It’s amazing to me that Mitt Romney brings up France as a scary comparison point to himself so often when he spent years there and speaks the language. It’s such a minor point, but telling. Of all the people running for president, Mitt Romney has to be the most aware that the rightwing caricature of ... (0 comments)Mother Teresa Doesn't Deserve Sainthood
Case in point. It’s amazing how all the famous/respected Catholic figures from the 1990s have turned out to be incredibly corrupt, isn’t it? I’m sure they’re somehow connected. Of course, as I’m a Protestant I know little about such things. (1 comments)I Fixed It! Ban Sitting Politicians From Running For Another Office
Wonkette reminded me of one of the provisions that I want to write into my fantasy Constitution:No person who holds any elected office shall be permitted to seek election to any other office until he shall have permanently vacated his current post.
(2 comments)The Kardashians want their own magazine?
Unintentionally hilarious: “Bachmann, 55, told a small group of supporters Tuesday night that she was staying in the presidential race…”What other kind of group of Bachmann supporters could there be?(0 comments)Santorum Finishes #2, Sliding Down In The Final Minutes To Lose To Romney
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Reading this lead-in to an article today made me think of cavemen and dinosaurs:“The long-running antitrust suit Novell filed regarding Microsoft’s alleged tactics to prevent WordPerfect from running properly in Windows 95 seemed to be on the verge of conclusion…”
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(DOWN THE VINE
Syndication
Ah, the perfunctory ad-hominems, stuff about her MBA and how much she doesn't understand. Reads like a typical anti-Megan screed from the left, and there have been many. There's a reason we affectionately refer to Megan as "the left's least-favorite MBA blogger"
I smirked when I read her saying "An academic identifies targets. A pharma researcher finds out whether those targets can be activated with a molecule", but it's a good thing nobody reads Megan for biomedical research insights. In fact, what academic and pharma researchers do is more similar and interrelated than she thinks. They differ in some ways--one is more applied than the other--but academic researchers have many of the same for-profit incentives. They want to file a patent on manipulating "molecules" just like everybody else.
I worked in academic research a few years ago, managing a database of drug and lab results for thousands of patients, so I know a bit about this. The interaction with pharma was always important--that's where grant money to research specific, hoped-to-be-profitable things came from. So I know Megan's broader point about pharma research is sound.
I don't think there's much worth saying about the rest of the post. Modern liberals have been calling libertarian analysis naive, childish, and "glibertarian" since long before I was born. While libertarians think them arrogant, overconfident, and blind to unintended consequences.
well, i've never understood your fascination with mcardle but you are welcome to enjoy whatever flavor of ice cream you like. it's interesting that you mention "unintended consequences". a routine failure to take account of unintended consequences and the practical real-world implications of policy positions based on narrow ideology is one of the main reasons why i've drifted away from much libertarian thought over the years (with notable exceptions of course , e.g., legalizing drugs, etc.)
If it's fascination to think many of her posts on economics and politics are worth reading, including this one Andrew and I thought a must read, then I suppose you can color me fascinated.
But it's hardly particular to me. As the first commenter put it at the post you link to:
If there's an economist out there with a blog that covers Megan's topics better than she, I haven't come across it. Who do you prefer to read?
A couple weeks ago, the WSJ listed hers as one of the top 25 economics blogs. Before the Atlantic, she worked for the Economist and its Free Exchange blog. Do you suppose they're in the business of hiring "snippy dilettantes" who "know nothing of economics or political economy, beyond that minimum of jargon needed…" ?
Please.
i admit she did have a couple of insightful posts in the political sphere back during 2008 that I read. as for the economics side of the equation, i've wandered over to occasional posts of hers via you and sully from time to time. i've never found any of her economic arguments very convincing, because -- in the main -- she strongly echoes the strain of do-nothing, can't-mess-with-the-free-market-no-matter-what thought within the libertarian/conservative movement that slowly drove me away.
As a blogger she's light years beyond my league. I'm surprised you can stand my amateur rants and not her much more carefully reasoned posts. If a top 25 economics blogger is dilettante then I think we need to create a new word for me, as I really thought this was my department!
But I'll ask again: Who do you prefer to read on economics? I don't see any econ blogs on the right, not even major guys like Yglesias or Ezra who don't strictly focus on it but are a lot more literate than average liberal bloggers.
On the dilletante side of things, I don't have any problem readingaverage folks with interesting thoughts who don't hold themselves outas experts in any sense of the word (eg you and me). I get suspiciouswhen people without the training to call themselves an expert in afield do so (and, no, in my mind, an MBA is not sufficient training tobe considered an expert in economics).As for who I read, I get most of my economics from The Economist(which I would characterize as a great example of realist, pragmaticlibertarian-in-the-model-of-european-liberalism thought) and,sometimes random people like paul krugman.
You're going to have to point me to an example of Megan calling herself an expert on something she isn't. In the year or so that I've been reading her blog, she's been quite up-front about her academic qualifications whenever it's relevant, which it rarely is.
Since when do we expect successful bloggers to be scholars? Do you read Andrew because he has a PhD in government, or because he's a popular blogger with many interesting things to say? Is Ezra Klein's health wonkery less relevant because he only has a BA in political science? Are you concerned that Matt Yglesias has only majored in philosophy?
What's so special about economics? Why can't someone who comes from a related field--Wall Street finance and journalism, in Megan's case--have informed things to say about economics and associated policy matters? And how can you even begin to justify the claim that she "knows nothing of economics or political economy, beyond that minimum of jargon needed…" ?
I can understand disagreeing with someone who's views and analysis you don't like. But pretending someone with Megan's considerable knowledge & understanding never knows what she's talking about is absurd.
Perhaps you should read Megan taking down someone who genuinely "knows nothing of economics or political economy, beyond that minimum of jargon needed" for a better feel of what that's really like.
Back to the grind, back later.
Ezra's response is a lot more worthwhile than the one linked in the post above. I'll probably reply to the non-obesity portion if Megan doesn't. (She's already fairly-deeply engrossed with the obesity issue in her subsequent posts, which you can read if you care)
Edit: Ok here's a good comment there:
Basically what we have here are three facets:
-innovative
-cheap
-government-run
Choose two.
There, I basically summed up libertarianism's general policy view. The facts seem to largely bare it out--in the case of healthcare, and in general.
In his reply, Ezra chastises Megan for not analyzing the innovation in detail. That is because she's generally more focused on costs. But she also doesn't want a cheap system if it loses too much innovation and makes our future and also the whole world worse off (because other countries with socialized insurance, like Canada, import a heck of a lot of U.S. R&D)
thanks. i'll take a look when i come up for air