Writes Megan McArdle. I almost got fervid over the unfairness of the absolutism of the proposition she had to defend, but that's how to keep the affair from being tepid, so let me instead talk about the fascinating word choice, trepid.
We know "trepidation." Is "trepid" a word? The (unlinkable) OED says yes. It's officially rare, but why not revive the spiffy, short word that ought to romp and play in the living language if the clunky "trepidation" lumbers around like it's helping anybody with anything? "Trepid" means "Trembling; agitated; fearful," and it's traced back to 1650 and was notably used by Thackeray in 1859: "The poor little trepid creature, panting and helpless under the great eyes."
I'm sure McArdle was not panting and helpless under the great eyes of Jonathan Chait...
... but go to the link to read her account. And here's Chait's account.
Posts
103 comments:
Nah. We all know the Establishment Party (R) will rush in to fix Obamacare. Make it worse. Then accept ALL the blame.
I noticed this when I read the post too. I'd never seen the word. I've seen trepidatious many times, which seems kind of stupid in comparison. And of course, we see intrepid everywhere.
Professor, foremost be intrepid in advancing the cause of trepid.
Laslo, please email me.
I don't understand how the Democrats can simultaneously
- claim that Ocare was a Republican plan
- blame the Republicans for not having anything to do with it
and
- chastise Republicans for not coming to Ocare's rescue.
Schroedingers health care plan?
I don't understand how the Democrats can simultaneously
- claim that Ocare was a Republican plan
- blame the Republicans for not having anything to do with it
and
- chastise Republicans for not coming to Ocare's rescue.
Schroedingers health care plan?
"With the grand threats of a massive technical failure and an actuarial death spiral dispatched, what remains? "
What remains is the failure of the mechanism (to be kind) that the Democrats created to run national health care. It doesn't work and will result in the abandonment of the mandate before the fall election. What remains will be an expensive expanded Medicaid.
I missed the part in Chait's account where he mentions that he lost.
Trepid? It rhymes with tepid, vapid and stupid.
Insipid too.
The problem with the word was that it distracted me from the point she was making.
Seems to have distracted the professor too.
It's a good word. As you say, "spiffy and short." Easy to pick up the meaning from trepidation and intrepid. Good for Megan.
And good for winning the debate in frickin' Upper West Side Manhattan! And good for Johnathan Chait for confirming my opinion of his intellectual honesty by not explicitly mentioning that he lost the debate in his column.
I just blogged this as well, 'Megan McArdle is by far the most intelligent and well-informed commenter on the tectonic disaster of the ACA'.
In that situation I would be not just trepid but chalant as well.
Trip, tripped, Trepid.
@Meade.
Done per your request.
I remember doing Mock Trial, Model UN, etc., and hating being given an all-or-nothing proposition to debate.
If the libtards have lost the Upper West Side...
I missed the part in Chait's account where he mentions that he lost.
Well, in his favor, McArdle was using a fairly technical debate sense of "won" - the "for" side increased its initial share of the audience from a very modest minority of those present to a somewhat less modest minority, while the "against" side retained its majority, but only increased its margin by a few percentage points. Basically, when viewed as a fight for the undecideds, then yes, "for" won - but not enough to budge the needle. Admittedly, this was essentially one of those "Medieval priests debate some Jews in a cathedral for the benefit of the congregation" situations.
Chait... yeah. Still the same graceless, emotional tit he was back when I still read TNR.
Via Drudge:
One in ten Swedes now has private health insurance, often through their employers, with some recipients stating it makes business sense to be seen quickly rather than languish in national health care queues.
BWAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
It wasn't McArdle, it was the rules. Did she set the rules?
It's quicker to get a colleague back to work if you have an operation in two weeks' time rather than having to wait for a year," privately insured Anna Norlander told Sveriges Radio on Friday. "It's terrible that I, as a young person, don't feel I can trust the health care system to take care of me."
I'd say that's a win then. The undecideds are really the only ones who matter during a debate.
So why should I read or listen to Megan McArdle?
Is she still relying on the same genius brain that voted for Obama and thus Obamacare in the first place?
She won the debate and lost the nation. She's as dumb as Noonan, and neither seem to have any insight into the damage they've done.
Bitching about it now is like getting married to an abuser even when your friends told you repeatedly what he is.
Yeah, she's right about Obamacare.
The rest of us saw that in 2005.
Yes, 2005.
Chait writes: "The point I tried to make in last night’s debate — with limited success, at least as judged by the voting audience — was that Obamacare opponents had merely fallen back on their original, ideologically driven opposition to the law."
This is a perfect window into the mind of the law's defenders. Any detailed examination of the law's unjustified assumptions, hidden costs, negative side-effects, and utter failure to meet it's own standards for success is "ideologically driven opposition."
"Chait writes: "The point I tried to make in last night’s debate — with limited success, at least as judged by the voting audience — was that Obamacare opponents had merely fallen back on their original, ideologically driven opposition to the law.""
-- That argument has nothing to do with whether the law is working. No wonder he lost.
Megan McArdle presented an excellent argument. Obamacare is a disaster. The sad part is that when the Democrats achieved a filibuster proof majority in the Senate they became arrogant and didn't work to achieve a consensus which could have worked. Their bullying and smear tactics have poisoned the well so a future consensus will be difficult to achieve.
"It rhymes with tepid, vapid and stupid. Insipid too."
It put tepid (and fervid) in the post.
These -id adjectives are interesting. There's also torpid.
The Democrat left understood they had to compromise when their congressional majorities relied on "the Solid South." Now that "the Solid South" has been replaced by the Black Vote, they find it extremely frustrating and hardly to be borne that compromise should still be necessary.
Her trepidity was an affectation.
Using the Scrabble word finder for words ending in -id and limiting this to adjectives in the trepid mold, I get, in addition to those already mentioned:
livid
sapid
solid
tumid
valid
vivid
rapid
avid
lucid
timid
lurid
humid
rapid
bovid
liquid
rigid
arid
fluid
insipid
languid
flaccid
valid
squalid
gravid
horrid
placid
putrid
hybird
sordid
frigid
stolid
turgid
I left out all the adjectives ending in -oid, like spheroid, because they feel very different. And I left out variations on words already listed (like pellucid).
Also nouns, like caryatid, even though I was one once.
Did Chait ask Candy Crowley to moderate?
"Obamacare opponents had merely fallen back on their original, ideologically driven opposition to the law."
I think instead of "ideological" he meant "logical idea driven opposition," but couldn't bring himself to see it.
Is she still relying on the same genius brain that voted for Obama
More like she voted against John McCain. Hard to argue with that sentiment, really.
After reading McArdle's devastating criticism of Obamacare, with the facts and numbers to back it up, I just get this picture of Obama as Irkel saying "Did I do that!?!"
Hey, let's all ask Megan McArdle if she voted for Barack Obama. How about it, Ms McArdle? I think you did. Did you vote for Barack Obama?
I checked out "hybird" and it is a place, but not a word other-than-pronoun as far as I can make out.
Bovid I guessed something to do with bovine.
Gravid was a totally new word for me.
Trepid is definitely a word. But its used very infrequently in comparison to say "intrepid"
"More like she voted against John McCain. Hard to argue with that sentiment, really."
In retrospect, Obama was by far the dumber and more dangerous of the two. That argument no longer washes.
But no, McArdle was repeatedly touted as an “ObamaCon,” and she actively endorsed Barack Obama in 2008.
McArdle:
"His goal is not more government so that we can all be caught up in some giant, expressive exercise of collectively enforcing our collective will on all the other people standing around us in the collective; his goal is improving transparency and minimizing government intrusion while rectifying specific outcomes.""
What a complete an utter failure of diagnosis and prediction.
In 2012:
"Although most Obamacons have mixed feelings about Obama now, not one of those I interviewed expressed the regret about choosing the Illinois senator over John McCain in 2008, given what they knew at the time. Foreign policy was the issue they cited over and over again: “Four years ago, I disliked McCain intensely; it seemed like the choice between Obama and someone with policies very like Obama’s except that he would also invade Iran,” says Megan McArdle of the Daily Beast."
Yeah, Obama turned out to be a foriegn policy Sooper Genius.
But she's lying, given the fawning she gave in the original article.
She was wooed by a con man, and chose poorly.
McArdle articles from 2016:
Obamacare is STILL a Disaster.
The Horse is Out of the Barn: Non-Democrats Personal Info From Obamacare Database Revealed
My Mom Said the Oven Was Hot, But I Didn't believe Her"
Guys like Chait are intellectually flabby because they preach to the choir.
McArdle is a good example of someone who is sharp because she has to engage the other side all the time.
Obama is also a flabby thinker. He's never engaged opposing views.
The point of a liberal education is to help prepare you to think analytically. Chait and Obama, like many of their compeers, don't.
I think the word trepid isn't used much because we use intrepid so much. And would be confusing to use it. Since intrepid is the negative of trepid or means not trepid.
Trepid is a word denoting weakness. Adding the word in means not. Therefore the word intrepid is the positive meaning we're used to but also means not the negative we're used to.
Any time we get words like that, especially when one word is used more than the other through our history using its antonym becomes very clunky even though technically correct.
Mcardle wrote:
"Although most Obamacons have mixed feelings about Obama now, not one of those I interviewed expressed the regret about choosing the Illinois senator over John McCain in 2008, given what they knew at the time. Foreign policy was the issue they cited over and over again: “Four years ago, I disliked McCain intensely; it seemed like the choice between Obama and someone with policies very like Obama’s except that he would also invade Iran,”
Then Mccardle is a doofus. Just because Mcain said we should be stronger with sanctions or even threatened war doesn't mean that he would actually invade Iran.
What's certain is that when it comes to red lines Obama will put one down but then not honor it. And instead he will reward those who cross his red lines.
Does Mccardle want Iran to get nukes?
The best writing doesn’t draw attention to itself but works to get the reader to focus on the content of thought.
And “trepid” is easily confused with “tepid.” In this McArdle excerpt, in fact, “tepid” (meaning not hot and not cold, not energetic or excited) would have fit just fine with the rest of the paragraph.
Good job by McArdle itemizing future problems. She didn't list the perverse incentives for individuals and employees to pay the fines instead of insuring, but no matter.
Defenders of the law are still acting as if it's a political battle that can be won if only we say the right things. The war is about the economic viability of law, and due to perverse incentives the war will be lost.
""More like she voted against John McCain. Hard to argue with that sentiment, really."
In retrospect, Obama was by far the dumber and more dangerous of the two. That argument no longer washes."
I'm not sure about this. Obama is incompetent, true, but he is operating from an ideology that does not much reward competence.
McCain is a doofus, even though I supported him in 2000 against Bush, and his actions during the 2008 crisis, when he asked Bush to call a meeting and then at there while Obama dominated the meeting, are almost inexplicable. McCain is obviously no batter than Obama on domestic policy where knowledge counts.
McCain does, however, love this country and I'm not sure about Obama. He is a bit like those lefty English professors who don't teach English. Too many "Dead White Males" don't you know.
"hybird"
It means you need to look for your next clue in the birdhouse.
"Although most Obamacons have mixed feelings about Obama now, not one of those I interviewed expressed the regret about choosing the Illinois senator over John McCain in 2008, given what they knew at the time.
Obamacons? Now there's a group I imagine don't want to be associated with the word they are associated with.
"Although most Obamacons have mixed feelings about Obama now, not one of those I interviewed expressed the regret about choosing the Illinois senator over John McCain in 2008, given what they knew at the time.
Obamacons? Now there's a group I imagine don't want to be associated with the word they are associated with.
It doesn't sound to me that Jonathan Chait was in the same debate as Megan. He admits no loss and acknowledges no win for Mccardle's side although he seemed shaken by the fact that the arguments have not changed.
"The arguments McArdle and Gottlieb made last night bore little resemblance to the sorts of failure predictions that were widely circulating last November. Many of their arguments simply took issue with the law’s goals; they argued that Medicaid does not make people healthier, that healthy people ought to be able to enjoy the financial benefits of being skimmed out of the insurance pool, and that politicians will reverse all the mechanisms needed to finance the law. In other words, they argued that the law was doomed for the reasons opponents had argued it was doomed in 2010, or for reasons a conservative could offer to suggest Medicare and Social Security are also doomed."
I am not at all sure what other arguments are necessary except that the government will run health care costs ever upward.
But Leftists never admit that government interference is not the answer to anything.
All of these Marian the Librarian type bloggers who fell for The Music Man con... I always thought that The Music Man was the perfect allegory for the 2008 election.
Now if our economy would just work by the "Think System."
""More like she voted against John McCain. Hard to argue with that sentiment, really."
In retrospect, Obama was by far the dumber and more dangerous of the two. That argument no longer washes.
Unless you have access to some observable parallel universe in which McCain won the election, that isn't a fact-based statement. That's just your gut feeling that McCain couldn't have been worse.
My assessment of McCain's career before and after the election is that his political views are differently-idiotic than Obama's, not less-idiotic. We would still have had bailouts, runaway deficits, idiotic foreign policy decisions, intrusive "security", and so on.
We wouldn't have had ObamaCare... but we WOULD have had some bipartisan abortion of a national health care overhaul, which would still have been awful but that much harder to undo.
So no, I don't see it as a no-brainer that McCain would have been better. I think it is possible -- likely, even -- but McCain is a politician without redeeming qualities.
All of these Marian the Librarian type bloggers who fell for The Music Man con... I always thought that The Music Man was the perfect allegory for the 2008 election
Um... you DO remember that ultimately the townspeople are shown to be happier and better-off because Harold Hill came to town, right? And that he winds up forgiven and lives happily ever after?
I'm not 100% sure that's the metaphor you want for the Obama presidency. :)
In other words, they argued that the law was doomed for the reasons opponents had argued it was doomed in 2010, or for reasons a conservative could offer to suggest Medicare and Social Security are also doomed.
Was this supposed to be supporting evidence their arguments were weak? Detroit looked solvent, too...
Michael K wrote:
McCain is a doofus, even though I supported him in 2000 against Bush, and his actions during the 2008 crisis, when he asked Bush to call a meeting and then at there while Obama dominated the meeting, are almost inexplicable. McCain is obviously no batter than Obama on domestic policy where knowledge counts.
Do you think Mccain would have passed Obamacare? So then, you lose.
Yeah, that's why it is a musical. Musicals are allowed to make no sense in the end and the "think system" worked, and they all played "Seventy Six Trombones" while we are stuck here in real life, with a marching band without a clue running things.
...We wouldn't have had ObamaCare... but we WOULD have had some bipartisan abortion of a national health care overhaul,"
I guess Revenant has "access to some observable parallel universe in which McCain won the election."
hard to argue with that kind of logic.
McCain has a long record of RINO-osity. I knew we'd get the usual socialism by the installment plan.
Obama gave us the real deal, all at once.
Your inability to tell the difference between Obama and McCain -even now, after all BHO's clusterfucking- is why people think libertarians are nuts and/or useless.
So Livermoron and brpruit are either the same poster or they coexist in the superposition of quantum theory as does Schrodinger's cat.
Good thinking on a resulting healthcare plan whereby the ACA will cover the cat regardless of its simultaneous "dead and alive" quantum state.
"McCain is obviously no batter than Obama on domestic policy where knowledge counts.
Do you think Mccain would have passed Obamacare? So then, you lose."
The bill was written by Reid's staff. Had McCain won the election, we would very likely not have had the 2009 Congress with its veto proof majorities.
I meant that McCain had no clue about the financial crisis. Obama didn't either but he looked cool. That is what his followers wanted.
I lost when Romney was not elected. So did you and everybody else. A lot of them don't realize it yet.
McCardle word alert! Today she is at it again with another word not often used - "capacious" - as in "a capacious upright freezer."
McCain has a long record of RINO-osity. I knew we'd get the usual socialism by the installment plan. Obama gave us the real deal, all at once.
You think this is a fully socialist nation now? That's hilarious.
Perhaps more hilarious is the implication that moving us towards socialism is something on "RINOs" do. In reality, every Republican President since the 1920s has worked to expand federal government control over our lives.
Here's reality: McCain would have jacked up the deficit and expanded government power and you would have praised him while he did it. There would have been no Tea Party movement, no election of people like Rand Paul and Ted Cruz, no groundswell of support for cutting back. Just more of the same slouching-towards-oblivion bullshit you Republicans have been supporting since your grandfathers were in diapers.
Your inability to tell the difference between Obama and McCain -even now, after all BHO's clusterfucking- is why people think libertarians are nuts and/or useless.
I voted for McCain, dumbass. I agree he would have been better than Obama. What I disagree with is your histrionic claim that Obama is somehow *abysmally* worse than McCain would have been. That's not a supportable statement.
Also, libertarianism has gotten a lot more popular over the last five years. :)
"Also, libertarianism has gotten a lot more popular over the last five years."
Obama was pretty popular in 2008. =)
Obamacare was pretty popular in 2010. Still is.
Reality is generally unpopular.
"I voted for McCain, dumbass. I agree he would have been better than Obama. What I disagree with..."
Now you're moving the goalposts.
All I said is that many people knew well before 2008 that Obama was worse than McCain.
And that McArdle has no business writing now about how bad Obamacare is when she fucking voted for it.
If she was too stupid to see that in 2008, why should I listen to her now" was my whole argument.
Then you had to say "More like she voted against John McCain. Hard to argue with that sentiment, really."
This was untrue, because she actively endorsed Barack Obama in 2008.
""Here's reality: McCain would have jacked up the deficit and expanded government power and you would have praised him while he did it."
Prior Revenant:
"Unless you have access to some observable parallel universe in which McCain won the election, that isn't a fact-based statement. That's just your gut feeling..."
"Capacious" shows up now and again. The first time I saw it was in Mary Shelly's Frankenstein where she spoke of a "capacious intellect." I can't remember if it was about the Dr or the monster.
Obamacare was pretty popular in 2010. Still is.
Those must be polls from that alternate universe where America is completely socialist. In this universe, Obamacare is and has always been unpopular with voters.
Reality is generally unpopular.
What an amusing follow-up to your little "nyah nyah libertarians are unpopular" taunt.
I'll be fairly gruntled if we can somehow manage to prepone summer.
Then you had to say "More like she voted against John McCain. Hard to argue with that sentiment, really." This was untrue, because she actively endorsed Barack Obama in 2008.
So you keep saying, but you've yet to link to this "active endorsement". In reality she stated that she didn't like his politics but considered McCain and Clinton to be worse.
Michael K wrote:
The bill was written by Reid's staff. Had McCain won the election, we would very likely not have had the 2009 Congress with its veto proof majorities.
But also, I dont think Mccain would have even proposed Obamacare. And house most certainly would not have gone along with it.
Actually, neither would the dems since they'd slip back into their faux tea party characteristics and instead be arguing how deficits are bad.
Revenant wrote:
So you keep saying, but you've yet to link to this "active endorsement". In reality she stated that she didn't like his politics but considered McCain and Clinton to be worse.
That only works if she drank the koolaid. But then admit that you drank the koolaid and that it tasted like crap. A good chunk of the electorate knew what was what and were telling people like the Obamacons that they were fools.
Megan McCardle
FEB 19 2008
"How, then, can I support him [Obama]?
So how can I support the man? Well, I wouldn't, if there were better alternatives. But my choices are Hillary Clinton and John McCain, whose goals may be slightly more moderate, but whose instincts are for regulating the hell out of any market outcome they don't like. McCain is not a classical liberal; he's the product of an intensely hierarchical honor culture that he seems to think would substantially improve the rest of us if we adopted more of its values. I have no shortage of respect for the military, and their willingness to place their own lives between the rest of us and war's desolation. But that doesn't mean I think America would be a better place if we had a more martial state. His record bespeaks little respect for spontaneous order and individual freedom. What free-market instincts he evinces seem to have come as part of the conservative ideas combo-pack he bought because it was cheaper than buying the parts individually--all he really wanted was the national greatness and the moderately conservative social structure.
As libertarians go, I'm not a tax nut; I think deadweight loss is relatively low, and taxation is among the least intrusive actions the state can take. I'm far more concerned about regulation. The economic cost tends to be higher; it lacks the natural limits imposed by citizen resistance; and it doesn't so extensively accustom the citizenry to taking orders from the state.
I have the terrible feeling that for both Hillary and McCain, that last is a feature of regulation, not a bug.
Faced with that, I'm betting on the advisors. Obama's economic advisors are some of the smartest economists working in the field today, and they're people I deeply respect. I rest on the hope that they say something about the man who would choose them."
That is, McArdle endorsed Obama in 2008.
Sure, she hated McCain.
But she endorsed BHO.
Therefore, she is not to be trusted with advice about Obamacare now.
"You think this is a fully socialist nation now? That's hilarious."
Huh?
I was talking about healthcare.
And we now have a fascist healthcare system. National socialist.
Fully socialist?
We're getting there, fast.
As for libertarians, I didn't say they weren't popular, I said "... people think libertarians are nuts and/or useless."
Not the same as unpopular.
Should be, but ain't.
"In this universe, Obamacare is and has always been unpopular with voters."
Tell President Romney.
McArdle 11/4/2008
"...I wanted Obama to win. I may not have effected the outcome, but I did believe it was preferable to the alternative. Now if he's even more of a cluster**** than I expect, I'll have to admit I was wrong.
(Of course, I can always say McCain would have been even worse, just as many disappointed Republicans argue that Kerry would have been even worse. And it's possible that they're right; until we invent inter-multiverse transport, we'll never know.)"
Jesus.
Revenant IS McArdle!
Megan's first recognition she'd fucked up:
MEGAN MCARDLE
NOV 20 2008, 11:02 PM ET
"I'm flabbergasted. If true, this is a bloody embarassment:
Needless to say, given that Obama's sterling choice of highest-caliber economic advisors was one of my main reason for supporting him, my regret is mounting faster than ever."
Whoops!
Hey Pogo is Dead. Give it a rest. You're tedious.
That is really funny Pogo. Her quote was lamenting her disappointment that the far left lib Austan Goolsbee was not going to be part of the Obama administration. McArdle is a creation of Insty - she would be unknown without his links - I suspect he first did that as an experiment to see if he had the power nd influence to elevate mediocrity to great heights. in a way, Insty was McArdle's Dr. Frankenstein.
Pogo, did you actually read the McArdle post you copied? She flat-out states that she doesn't like his politics and is supporting him solely because she thinks Clinton and McCain will be worse.
Explain why you think that doesn't qualify as "she was voting against John McCain". Explain how you think opting for the lesser evil constitutes an active endorsement.
Pogo is often right and never tedious Henry. He fights for the truth and does not believe in lame bullshit. You have been here long enough to know that.
OINBR (Obamacare Is Now Beyond Rescue) will soon become a new acronym to describe a system that just cannot be saved.
Sort of like FUBAR but worse... much much worse.
"Explain why you think that doesn't qualify as "she was voting against John McCain"."
She says so herself.\
Repeatedly.
A welcome move from Obama
MEGAN MCARDLE
JUN 17 2008, 12:17 PM ET
"How can you like that raging lefty, Barack Obama, my readers cry?
There are many things I don't like about him, I reply.
But as far as lefties go, he has the right sort of left-wing ideas; he wants to model America on Denmark, not Germany or Italy."
MEGAN MCARDLE
MAR 12 2009
"Obama too sunny?
Having defended Obama's candidacy largely on his economic team, I'm having serious buyer's remorse."
@Henry said...
"Hey Pogo is Dead. Give it a rest. You're tedious."
Sorry.
Done.
That is, McArdle endorsed Obama in 2008. Sure, she hated McCain.
But she endorsed BHO. Therefore, she is not to be trusted with advice about Obamacare now.
Similarly, nobody who voted for George Bush can be trusted with advice on foreign policy or national security.
Bush was, after all, responsible for both the biggest national security fuck-up (9/11) and biggest foreign policy fuck-up (the invasion of Iraq) in half a century. We can bleat all we want about how awful Obama is on those issues, but the cold hard truth is that Bush's fuckups cost trillions of dollars and killed thousands of Americans (and hundreds of thousands of foreigners, assuming we count that). The worst anyone's pinned on Obama is the Libya/Benghazi fiasco, which wasn't one one-thousandth as bad as Iraq.
She says so herself. Repeatedly.
Funny how the quotes you offer say nothing of the kind, then.
"The arguments McArdle and Gottlieb made last night bore little resemblance to the sorts of failure predictions that were widely circulating last November. Many of their arguments simply took issue with the law’s goals; they argued that Medicaid does not make people healthier, that healthy people ought to be able to enjoy the financial benefits of being skimmed out of the insurance pool, and that politicians will reverse all the mechanisms needed to finance the law. In other words, they argued that the law was doomed for the reasons opponents had argued it was doomed in 2010, or for reasons a conservative could offer to suggest Medicare and Social Security are also doomed."
Pushing the formerly insured into Medicaid probably doesn't make them healthier. And, interestingly, pushing them into Medicaid over no insurance apparently drives up, not down, their ER visits.
But, he seems to have missed a lot of what McCardle argued. Some of the things that weren't apparent, even to her, until late last fall, were that the young and healthy were just not signing up at the rates needed to make the program viable financially, that so many would lose their policies, that the insurance companies would be competing on price by greatly reducing their networks, that unsubsidized prices for so many would jump so much, etc.
Looking back, all of these facts or features of ObamaCare seem logically to follow from its original design, but I don't think that many were really predicting how weak the house of cards were economically, until very recently. Maybe some, but some of these problems were exacerbated by Obama's waivers and executive orders, which, I don't think, were all that well anticipated until the failed rollout. Now, going forward, I think that she is probably right that we can expect to see more waivers, delays, etc. as other portions of the law are supposed to go into effect.
What, I think, will be humorous, is to watch what happens when a Republican gets into the White House and reverses some, if not all, of Obama's payoffs to his cronies and constituents. When labor unions start paying the Cadillac tax on their policies, etc. After all, what one President can do with an executive order, another can undo. Should be quite humorous.
Depends on who the President in question is, Bruce. The last Republican President who didn't insist upon expanding government control over health care was, I think, Reagan. And I'm not certain about him, either.
If the Republicans nominate another McCain or Romney type and he wins, I wouldn't expect executive orders rolling back Obamacare and I definitely wouldn't expect executive orders punishing political opponents (Democrats get a pass from the news media on that -- Republicans don't). Most likely we would see modifications followed by bipartisan acceptance of the new status quo.
mcardle wrote:
Faced with that, I'm betting on the advisors. Obama's economic advisors are some of the smartest economists working in the field today, and they're people I deeply respect. I rest on the hope that they say something about the man who would choose them."
OK, I just lost respect for her.
Revenant wrote:
Bush was, after all, responsible for both the biggest national security fuck-up (9/11) and biggest foreign policy fuck-up (the invasion of Iraq) in half a century.
HOw was Bush responsible for 9/11? ANd how is the biggest foreign fuck up the Ivasion of Iraq? Prior to Bush taking power we had Iraq in a containment that was in free fall, all inspectors gone, and with our national policy to get regime change in Iraq.
Bush got all that with low casualties compared to other wars we'd considder the previous biggest foreign policy fuckups.
And he pacified the region and handed Obama a nice stable country with no Sadaam Hussein. Mission Accomplished. What has Obama done.
And how again is Bush responsible for 9/11. Because there was a memo out there that said they were determined to attack us? Did it say when, or where, or how? Then isn't that like saying criminals are determined to commit crimes?
Both those assertions are and have been lefty talking points since Bush took office.
If they were determined to attack us it was because Clinton sent troops into SA and OBL objected. But we sent them there to contain Iraq. THe containment which led to the fatwah against us by Al Qaeda where they started targeting US interests. All that was gifted to the president by the previous president. How then is it Bush's fault if OBL was pissed off because of Clinton's containment.
At the end of the day, if we didn't remove Sadaam we'd still have to have containment. Which meant maintaining troops in the region. So now at least we dont need to contain sadaam because he's removed.
The next president is going to have to deal with Iraq in the handls of Al Qaeda, Syria strengthened after using chemical weapons, Iran rewarded for not complying with stopping its nuke program, Egypt in shambled, Libya overrun with extremists, the Saudis going with Russia because they feel we can't be trusted to maintain the peace in the ME. etc etc etc.
Megan wrote:
"Obama too sunny?
Having defended Obama's candidacy largely on his economic team, I'm having serious buyer's remorse."
"Having defended Megan's economic idea largely on her position as a moderately thoughtful libertarian/conservative economic voice, I'm having serious Megan McCardle remorse."
People who keep comparing Mccain to Obama keep forgetting or not factoring into the equation that the House would be controlled by Repubs. So, if Mcain wanted to appeal to his base he'd have to grow more conservative. And on spending he largely was. If he wanted to go more with the Senate he'd need to worry about his base not going along with him, and more especially not giving him a 2nd term. So, the same policies wouldn't be coming out from a Mcain president than would from an Obama president.
A mccain senator can stand athwart from his republican brethren and tweak their noses because he's one man among many and trying to rise up the ladder. If he's president though he's the man. It's his agenda. If he can't get republicans to back his agenda he wont get things passed. So, he could be kept honest.
Not so an Obama. Since of course the House doens't control anything and can't convince Obama that Keynesianism economics are going to bankrupt the country. If he believed that he would have passed his stimulus.
If hte choice is a reluctant conservative versus a commited statist always vote for the reluctant conservative.
ANd how is the biggest foreign fuck up the Ivasion of Iraq?
We spent a couple of trillion bucks and thousands of American lives to replace a regime that posed absolutely no threat to the United States.
I supported the war at the time, but at least I have the brains to admit I was wrong. :)
Obamacare and Schrodinger's cat:
You have to open the box to know if the cat was alive or dead
You have to pass the bill to find out what's in it.
Obamacare was dead when it came out. That's settled.
But Obamacare supporters: are they alive or brain dead?
Answer. They never come out of the box.
Obamacare and Schrodinger's cat:
You have to open the box to know if the cat was alive or dead
You have to pass the bill to find out what's in it.
Obamacare was dead when it came out. That's settled.
But Obamacare supporters: are they alive or brain dead?
Answer. They never come out of the box.
Iranian ships in the Atlantic, missiles in Venezuela.
Pig, can you prescribe yourself meds? You sound suicidal.
I
It's a thin line between love and Chait.
Revenant wrote:
We spent a couple of trillion bucks and thousands of American lives to replace a regime that posed absolutely no threat to the United States.
I supported the war at the time, but at least I have the brains to admit I was wrong. :)
Actually you were right in the first place. Its just too bad you closed your mind.
Clinton was right to maintain containment, and Bush was bequeathed with an Iraq who's containment was in free fall. And the Iraq Liberation act which called for regime change. And Osama bin laden passing a fatwah to attack us because of our involvement there.
If we did end containment, there is absolutely zero percent chance that Sadaam and Iraq wouldn't be rearmed in a year. Since, even he admitted that he needed to maintain the illusion of having weapons so that he appeared strong to his enemies.
At the same time, we'd have Iran trying to get nukes looking at how Iraq was able to get out of disarmament despite noncompliance and know that we and the international community will do nothing to stop aberrant behavior, even if we are tasked to do so.
The mistake was taking our eye off the ball and listening to people like yourself and other lefties. And ceding our victories to our enemies, when projecting strength would have actually led to a more stable region.
Look at Iran now, look at Syria now. How is projecting weakness doing anything but making regimes that would use chemical weapons or develop nukes despite being "contained" stronger.
For you, maybe the chicken hawk argument is fair. Since you think itsa. Mistake, you were for sending other people's sons and daughters to war for a mistake. I on the other hand, think there mission was necessary, vital and won't dare suggest they died for nothing. The mistake was not going in, the mistake was pulling out too soon.
Back when we were in Iraq, the left was doing all it could to scare people into thinking that we were going to invade Iran. But they, soon enough realized, that we weren't. And so, knew they could call our bluff.
Libya, turned over its WMD program to,us, out of fear that we would deal with them. And note, we didn't have to actually invade them. The same could have held true with Iran if we had the threat hanging over their hands, and we seemed as if we would actually carry out the threat.
But if we are shown to put down red lines, but then fold as soon as we are faced with the possibility that we have to back up our words, our enemies know we are in fact weak, and they get to win. Over and over.
Back when he was alive Osama bin laden called us paper tigers. He said:
" The youth were surprised at the low morale of the American soldiers and realized more than before that the America soldiers are paper tigers. After a few blows, the Americans ran away in defeat.
After a few blows, they forgot about being the world leader and the leader of the new world order. They left, dragging their corpses and their shameful defeat, and stopped using such titles. They learned in America that this name [i.e., God] is larger than them."
Shame on anyone trying to prove Osama bin laden right. That certainly includes our commander in chief.
Even moreso, considering our military is the most powerful on earth.
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