You really have to pat yourself on the back for the epic amount of fail you have produced when you are getting repeatedly schooled on economics by Andrew Sullivan. So hats off to Reason’s Tim Cavanuagh, who has been taken to the woodshed two days in a row.
Do all glibertarians use McMegan’s calculator or something?
MikeJ
And yet he still calls for “a Simpson-Bowles type-deal.” Never mind that there never was a deal struck by the committee, and never mind that it would be the worst thing you could do for the growth he demonstrates.
What a fucking moron.
ornery_curmudgeon
Oh Sully said something thank you for the very important information.
Violet
Speaking of Sully, did anyone notice that he endorsed single-payer yesterday?
That’s not something I ever thought I’d see.
Legalize
Two smug assholes in a slap-fight.
Villago Delenda Est
I figured out that single payer was the solution 20 fucking years ago.
But then again, I’m a vile leftist US Army veteran.
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
@Violet: Once upon a time, that type of reasoning would have been called conservative: “Having the government do something is not something I would have chosen, but all of the alternatives have failed, so we don’t have any other choice.”
He’d be getting called a RINO right now if he had any type of authority.
Violet
@Belafon (formerly anonevent):
He can’t be called a RINO because they won’t even acknowledge that he could ever have been a conservative since he’s gay.
I know he’s decades behind those with common sense in figuring out how to deal with the health care mess, but it’s still kind of fascinating to see him endorse it, albeit rather tepidly.
CraigoMc
For German conservatives, every year is 1923.
For American conservatives, every year is 1979 (unless it’s 1938 or 1968).
trollhattan
So Sully thinks Carter’s energy policy was “ill-conceived”?
Does he 1. have the foggiest what Carter’s energy policy was and 2. know what sort of benefits we’d have today if we’d followed it?
Just can’t help himself, our Andy/OU Randy.
Villago Delenda Est
@trollhattan:
Well, Saint Ronaldus Magnus’ first act was to trash the White House solar panels.
So you can’t expect Sully, a vile toady of Ronaldus and his Brit counterpart, Dark Lady Thatcher, to gainsay them.
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
@Violet: I find it interesting as well. Sully just seems to be portraying a fixed point of conservatism while the rest of the right moves further away.
Forum Transmitted Disease
I do not, and never have, read Andrew Sullivan and will not.
dr. bloor
@Villago Delenda Est: You also figured it out twenty years ago for all the wrong reasons, so it doesn’t really count.
Villago Delenda Est
@dr. bloor:
There is that, too.
Kinda like I figured out, for all the wrong reasons, that the invasion of Iraq would be one of the greatest incidents of a Charlie Foxtrot since, well, that unpleasantness in Southeast Asia a few decades back.
Redshift
@trollhattan: Yeah, Carter’s energy policy was such a failure that our national energy consumption didn’t rise about Carter Administration levels until 1992, even after Reagan trashed as much of it as he could.
CraigoMc
Remember, to these people more consumption is the goal. So from that perspective, the energy policy was indeed a failure.
cokane
meh gotta give sullivan credit on this one. he’s been on it from day one of obama’s admin. It’s not some position that he slowly evolved towards sanity such as Iraq or the craziness of the GOP.
And he stands up for it without hedging and without apology. He’s about as strong on this as he is on gay rights or torture.
I think not enough attention is paid to the role of Congress in all this. It is important, glib stereotypes aside.
MosesZD
Which is sad, because Sullivan is no great thinker when it comes to economics… It’s kind of like losing on ‘Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader.’
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zqi0DwNLJdM
RossinDetroit
@Violet:
Note that he’s talking about it in terms of value for money and not ideology. That’s old school conservatism (actually conserving something) as opposed to Neoconservatism.
Time to go pick out a rocking chair, Andrew. The dash to the extreme right has left you behind.
cmorenc
@John Cole:
Problem is, the folks at Reason such as Tim Cavanaugh live in an alternative universe where facts (like words in Alice in Wonderland) only exist and mean what they want them to mean, and are consistent with conservative ideological free-market thinking. It’s like trying to take a Cardinal at the Vatican to the woodshed back around Galileo and Kepler’s time over “facts” which contradict the Church’s certainty that the earth is the center of the universe and everything revolves around it, the sun, the stars, planets, everything in “epicycles”.
Tractarian
@Forum Transmitted Disease:
Yeah, but you DO read Balloon Juice, and that’s kinda like the same thing, amirite?
kindness
Funny cause Sully has been on a tear this last week saying how screwed up Republicans are and then giving fielty to Republicans because of what he wishes they were. He’s a better Tory than a Republican and can’t quite wrap his psyche around the fact that on this side of the pond, his chosen warriors are hateful and crazy. Not a good combination no matter what.
@Tractarian: No! BJ has comments. Sully would be peeing his pants all day every day if he had to put up with what we do here.
khead
It’s not about schooling – it’s about delusion. Cavanaugh will get up tomorrow and repeat the same old shit.
No different than the folks in WV complaining about Obama’s “War on Coal” while enjoying the biggest coal employment boom since 1992.
Martin
It’s the new HP 42L Libertarian calculator. Very popular. It’s different from the regular 42 calculator by not having * and + keys, so you can only divide and subtract.
Professor
@Belafon (formerly anonevent): Nah, That is the American mentality. They eventually get there after trying all the wrong options!
Brachiator
@Villago Delenda Est:
Why do people keep asserting that single payer is the best solution when it is not the funding method most often used by countries with universal health care systems?
The UK, Canada and Taiwan have single payer systems. But that’s it. And the UK is having problems maintaining the NHS (and yes, many of these problems are political, not economic, but this will always be an issue).
It is just amazing how the Reason crowd insists that they are hard headed clear thinkers, but keep getting it wrong. But as others here have noted, they will simply bounce back and repeat the same nonsense. In this, they closely resemble creationists and other morons.
Nick
Wow, I almost didn’t read this because Andrew Sullivan is involved but it’s really mind-blowing. This guy’s defense to Sullivan pointing out that interest rates have actually been quite low is to:
A) Pretend that they’re high. (Really, that’s it. Basically just say the number in a way that gives the impression that it’s really high.)
and
B) Blame Obama for the housing bubble.
I have low, low expectations but I’m still just sitting here stunned. Is Reason having some kind of “Who can say the stupidest thing” competition or something?