Quoting claymisher: I don't know BH has to resort to posers to talk about economics. It's not like the world is running out of real economists.

McArdle has a professional background in finance and worked as a journalist for The Economist. Drezner makes makes no bones about his lack of a background in economics. Who's the poser?

Quoting claymisher: I don't know BH has to resort to posers to talk about economics.

Megan is always interesting and informative on economic topics. Plus, I would drink her bathwater.

ooooo...Megan's workin' the 'sexy Palin' look...

Yeah, dude; economics and shit--that's the one area McArdle has credibility in. I've only just started this diavlog, and I would bet dollars to doughnuts that she gets through the hour without using anecdotes about her sampling error to ground her argument.

Quoting AemJeff: McArdle has a professional background in finance and worked as a journalist for The Economist. Drezner makes makes no bones about his lack of a background in economics. Who's the poser?

Yeah. And Drezner, while not an economist, is obviously a serious intellectual, and for my money, worth listening to. Same with Megan. Glad to have them both on BHTV.

Quoting KingFish: ooooo...Megan's workin' the 'sexy Palin' look...

I was thinking '40's starlet since she has the soft focus thing happening.

Yeah but Megan can probably name a couple newspapers and SC rulings.

Megan's assertion that the exact same thing would be happening now if Gore had become president and Dems would be getting the blame for too much intervention is absurd in the extreme. This is symptomatic of her tendency to lapse into modular plug-in idealist two-dimensional thinking far too shallow to constitute genuine analysis. (This seems to be a hard-wired built-in coping mechanism for Libertarians who, for the most part, subconciously never allow their minds to occupy the real world, this because it would mess up their utopian dreams so irreversibly. BTW Greenspan was originally a Libertarian as well.) Now as for the "sexiness" thing, please: Palin's just a plastic Barbie-doll and anyone who finds her remotely stimulating is, by definition a mere robot. As for Megan, well she's at least a little bit real, not of the same genre at all. But still, very much "an acquired taste." Just perfect for another pipe-dreaming Libertarian, I suppose. All criticism aside, I find both Megan and Dan abundantly intelligent and exemplary in demonstrating how to carry forth an interesting conversation wherein they sometimes agree, sometimes disagree. Would that more of these pairings were so pleasant to listen to. EW

I'd remonstrate to you kids the wrongfulness of expending so much energy on discussing Megan's looks, if I myself hadn't, not too long ago, drawn attention to Will Wilkinson's marvelously hairy chest.

i love how megan tried to save her dogma last week by assuming euro banks were more regulated than ours. wrong! megan, isn't it time for a new idiology?

Considering the amount of thoughtful, substantive posts, I think a few more mundane threads are a nice change of pace. It's like a a pressure release or a spit-valve on a trumpet. All in good fun. My only problem with the Megan/Palin comparison is that it's rather insulting to Megan (and the pig for that matter). Although Palin is technically attractive, her personality and the ridiculous things she says makes her disgusting. Megan's intelect (though I rarely agree with her positions) is part of her charm, Palin...not so much.

Quoting fedorovingtonboop: i love how megan tried to save her dogma last week by assuming euro banks were more regulated than ours. wrong! megan, isn't it time for a new idiology?

Perhaps I don't understand what you mean, fedro, and if you have a link handy I'd appreciate it, but it seems like you have Ms. McArdle wrong; here she is last Monday highlighting evidence that the different European regulatory schemes didn't help (and by extension that regulatory issues weren't at the heart of the problem, since nations with different regulations experienced/are experiencing similar problems) LINK.

I posted this comment at Daniel's blog about his hysterics about the bailout bill and the "evil" people who opposed it.
"As one of the people Daniel condemned for not supporting the bailout bill, I was hoping that Daniel would enjoy the crow when the bailout bill passed and did nothing.
But it looks like he has moved on.
Never admit when you were wrong."

Quoting claymisher: I don't know BH has to resort to posers to talk about economics. It's not like the world is running out of real economists.

nice zing! personally, i think drezner is a true heavyweight but i can't see how megan gets paid to spout libertarian talking points.

Quoting KingFish: ooooo...Megan's workin' the 'sexy Palin' look...

I actually checked last time ( I know... get a life) and she was sporting the look long before the VP pick...

right on, that's the exact post i was thinking about. the only problem is that she just assumed they were that way rather than actually checking (because she can't think independently and always needs to spins things as they relate to her religion of libertarianism):
"...European financial markets are even less regulated than their US equivalents..." http://crookedtimber.org/2008/10/06/...hts-revisited/ and most importantly....the fantastic Daniel Gross:
http://www.newsweek.com/id/163272 I'd love to see Mr. Gross (a real economist) or Mr. farrell (someone who is actually familiar with Europe) debate megan. that would be very entertaining!

Quoting Anyuser: Megan is always interesting and informative on economic topics. Plus, I would drink her bathwater.

The horror of the internet, summed up so succinctly.

I wonder if these two pundits are endorsing the current projected winner only because this will make their jobs as public critics a lot easier. Also Megan hasn't heard any serious critique of Krugman's scholarly work? What about the Austrian critique.

Quoting fedorovingtonboop: nice zing! personally, i think drezner is a true heavyweight but i can't see how megan gets paid to spout libertarian talking points.

Okay, I was too harsh. I've read Drezner's blog since 2005 or so. He's alright. But McArdle is a disgrace to real economics. She dresses up her social preferences (libertarianism) as economic dogma. Economics isn't scientific libertarianism. A lot of what she writes isn't really even about economics. It's just that unsympathetic glibness you get from juniors in college majoring in econ. I majored in econ too, and went through that phase too, but once you get to the 400 level classes and grapple with a bunch of models that your professors don't even believe, it's a lot easier to be humble.

I know that the book on Megan is that she doesn't really know what she is talking about. I just feel the need to call her on it once again. What was the quote? "Is he (Krugman) a Phelps? I don't think so." What BS. Here's a ranking of influence (none of these are perfect, but note that we are talking almost an order of magnitude difference and this is a ranking that favors macroeconomists like Phelps) http://ideas.repec.org/top/top.person.all.html
Krugman comes in at 46, Phelps is ranked 326. Megan seems to have learned well the key lesson of Washington: a mildly informed opinion is treated equal to an well-informed opinion. She denigrates the people who are denigrating Krugman, but she falls into to the same trap. Krugman is a guy who's dramatically changed international trade, and practically reinvented economic geography, and had his own significant contributions to open economy macro at the same time. Who the *@$% is Megan McCardle to offer her ill-informed opinions on this? I might as well read those crazy bloggers over at Henry Farrell. If you want to say something smart Megan, how about some research? You are getting paid for this; most of the

... on Megan's point that had Gore carried FL, we would be blaming the crisis on over-regulation instead of deregulation ... I find it an incredible (and unsubstantiated) assumption that the crisis would have occurred if not for excessive deregulation.

Quoting Xelgaex: I was thinking '40's starlet since she has the soft focus thing happening.

That soft focus thing is quite irritating.