(Sections of this are cross-posted from two Instaputz posts)
I am currently fascinated by Megan McArdle. She may in fact be the one perfect specimen of Everything Wrong with America – moreso than Easy Mac, Bridezillas, and the enduring popularity of zombie movies combined. As a certain blogger who shall remain nameless pointed out, her entire shtick is based on the premise that she is holds an elite MBA (from University of Chicago) and is thus a weighty voice in debates on all things financial.
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Yet she has never worked in the industry (or worked at all for that matter), bases none of her arguments on facts and half of them on anecdotes ("When I was unemployed, I felt like…"), and routinely gets undergrad-level shit about economics wrong.
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she uses the terms balance sheet and income statement interchangeably. She doesn't seem to understand when it is appropriate to use a mean versus a median or vice-versa. Her arguments – or "arguments" – are transparent regurgitations of talking points from lobbyists, right wing think tanks, and other equally ignorant bloggers. She is, in summary, a total idiot who for some reason has been given a prominent place in our public discourse.
That reason, of course, has nothing to do with the fact that doughy libertarian shut-ins and ex-fratboy mortgage brokers think she is fuckable.
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Earlier this week she brought the retarded to an extent which could only be described as retarded in this piece about "Why Medicare Costs are Growing Faster than other Healthcare."
One of the commenters offered a retort that I've seen in a bunch of places: "Of course Medicare is growing faster! It cares for a sicker population!
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"It's a common intuition, but it's wrong. Consider a simple model of a population with two groups: young and old. Assume that the old consume five times as much of an undifferentiated good, healthcare, as the young do, and that each unit costs $2,000. So the oung cost us $2,000 apiece per year, and the old cost us $10K. Now assume that the cost of healthcare in each group grows at 10% a year. At the end of five years, each young person will cost us $3,221 and each old person will cost us $16,105 – or exactly five times as much as a young person.
First of all, Megan reminds us yet again that there's no good reason to look up facts when you can just make up a hypothetical. Eight seconds of Google research would have shown that her entire premise is made of stupid and wrong.
Second, the CBO report on which she bases her entire argument that Medicare/Medicaid are growing faster than private insurance explicitly says that it shouldn't be used to say Medicare/Medicaid are growing faster then private insurance. Megan, you so bad! The sign says "No Loitering" but you loiter anyway!
Third, look at the math she feels compelled to show us. "Assume" that the old consume five times as much healthcare as the young. If each grows by 10%, after five years the old will consume five times as much healthcare as the young. Watch Megan's neurons fire wildly in an effort to understand multiplication. In other news, if Megan is twice as stupid as Jonah Goldberg and they each double their stupid over the next year, Megan will be twice as stupid as Jonah Goldberg.
Fourth, way to pull a McArdletm by throwing in a $5 phrase like "an undifferentiated good" in an effort to sound smart and cover up the fact that she hasn't the slightest idea what in holy hell she's talking about.
Fifth, stay tuned for the Oscar-baiting biopic of Megan McArdle starring Tara Reid as a dull young girl who overcomes her childhood addiction to eating Elmer's glue and her own shit to become a Real Financial Journalist.
In conclusion, if we assume that the elderly use far more healthcare than the young and that their use increases at a faster rate, we can clearly see that the elderly use far more healthcare than the young and that their use increases at a faster rate.
But wait. There's more. Check the comments. Here is a free tip for aspiring bloggers: when the first ten comments on your post are pointing out basic factual errors you've made or statistics you've twisted to suit your fancy, keep up the good work. You're doing great. She responds to criticism with a particular CBO report she used to justify her argument that Medicare/Medicaid make costs increase faster than private insurance. Quote from page 16 of said report, after an explanation of the data and methodology:
Consequently, the differences in excess cost growth between Medicare, Medicaid, and other health care spending should not be interpreted as meaning that Medicare or Medicaid is less able to control spending than private insurers.
But it's much more convincing if you ignore that part and cherry pick something that supports your recycled faux-libertarian bullshit talking points argument. Great work, Megan. Keep responding to your commenters with the indescribably feeble "You're misunderstanding my argument" rather that coming to grips with the fact that you are playing in a league that won't tolerate your shit. Being a right wing pundit may not entail a lot of fact checking, but putting yourself out there as a Very Serious Econ Person without being able to differentiate your ass and a hole in the ground…well, it doesn't work quite as well. The legions of sycophants enjoyed by Beck and Malkin are replaced in McArdle's case by dozens of people pointing out how stupid she is.
waldo says:
Fish in a barrel McAddled is one of the legion of walking morally dead employed by your Friendly Disinformation Media Conglomerate.
Her 'Pixie says cutsie things' schtick is pure pron for the basement dwelling, PJ's wearing, Cheeto absorbing wankers who hang around Freeperville guffawing at each others farts.
Blessed with a lack of conscience or self-awareness she'll be jibbering the same excrement 'til Stephen Baldwin takes the presidency, whereupon she'll become Sarah Palin's speechwriter.
And live happily, if not consciously, for ever after.
bink says:
Megan is one of these perfect idiots in that you can reliably assume the opposite of what she says is true. It's seldom you can find such a perfect counter-indicator on everything. She says the economy is going to rebound? Get ready for a huge dive. She likes to say we can't get universal health care in this country. This should be your best indicator it's coming. And so on….
bink says:
Another monumental one. She claims nobody is to blame for the economic melt-down.
http://www.ritholtz.com/blog/2009/07/no-financial-villians/
Please remember, Megan is PAID to write this stuff.
Desargues says:
McMegan is the epitome of everything that's wrong with affirmative action.
Displaced Capital says:
So, McArdle is to economists what Jonah Goldberg is to historians, someone who redefines reality according to their sponsor's specifications. Next up, the wingnut astral physicist:
dbsmall says:
I'm afraid she's probably retarded all the way to the bank.
(Maybe "nice guys" have some competition for who finishes last, is all…)
Desargues says:
Displaced: Black holes suck in government dole. Taxpayer's dollars go in, but not a cent ever comes out. They do emit fatherless babies, though. Every right-thinking man knows that.
jazzbumpa says:
That reason, of course, has nothing to do with the fact that doughy libertarian shut-ins and ex-fratboy mortgage brokers think she is fuckable.
Ed – Your sardonic, retroflex comment nailed it. This is also why Sarah Palin was so popular among so many right-wing males.
Unfortunately, I can't find any pictures of Megan scantily dressed, so I could give her the conserative cheesecake treatment.
I did uncover this, though.
http://firemeganmcardle.blogspot.com/
Haven't explored it yet, but if it lives up to its name it should her her the FJM treatment all the time. Fun!
On a different subject – could you possibly post in a larger font. I'm already in bifocals . . .
Cheers!
displaced capital says:
Desargues: Whoops, you're right. I guess I can't be an editor on conservapedia.
Desargues says:
Mystifyingly, she belongs to an ideological group whose flagship publication is called Reason,yet she displays little of it herself. Maybe they named it ironically, like postmodernists. Nick Gillespie and Matt Welch sure do look like they try to be achingly hip all the time.
Susan of Texas says:
McArdle is hysterical. One of my favorite posts of hers is this one (and this one), in which she mixes up number and percentage and ties herself into knots trying to avoid admitting she was wrong.
Satchel says:
She had a headdeskingly awful piece in last Sunday's New York Times Book Review:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/11/books/review/McArdle-t.html
SarahMC says:
It really pisses me off that she has a platform on NPR, too.
Paul says:
With luck, some day she will need to use the word 'burrow' in her blog one day. Chances are, she will spell it 'burro', because she doesn't know the difference between an ass and a hole in the ground.
I love that line. I stole it from an old AP Style Manual via Roy Blount Jr.
Ecks says:
Let's assume that health care costs go up for young and old by 10% both. Or lets not. Because, y'know, young people tend not to stay sick after you treat them, the way old people do. Fix a young girl's heart condition, she's back to solid and cheap health care for the next 30 years. Fix an old codger's heart condition, you've just bought him a bit longer to have diabetes, arthritis, brittle bones and poorer coordination, prostate screens, blood pressure medication, and spots that probably aren't anything but should definitely be checked out just in case.
So yeah, assume that costs go up by 10% for both groups, and now figure that keeping the old guys alive that much longer is going to make them much more than 10% more expensive.
There's a reason it's called glibertarian.