Megan McArdle
@asymmetricinfo
Columnist at the Washington Post. Opinions my own. Email me: Megan.McArdle -at- http://washpost.com Buy my book, The Up Side of Down http://amzn.to/1a3i2tK
I just muted anyone who doesn’t follow me. If you want to troll me on politics, you’re going to have to endure my opinions on DC traffic and the proper way to make pie.
this. and in my experience it is something a lot of Americans really don't understand.
A good moment to appreciate the foresight of the Framers to carefully define treason so that pandering demagogues would have a difficult time weaponizing it against their political rivals.
Kids need risky play and thrills. Dads have a special role to play. I hope this is not controversial, but dads more than moms seem to enjoy pretending to be a predator trying to catch and eat their own children. I discussed this with Parents Magazine: parents.com/next-gen-winne…
With continuously compounded returns a 1000% reduction leaves a very small positive number left, not the massive negatives the hysteric haters commenting on this say. I’m sure that’s what he meant. He is known for preferring continuous compounding.
Trump: We will have reduced drugs prices by a 1000%, 1100, 1200, 1300, 1400… Not 30 or 50%,
Writing about your current relationship with anything other than light affection hurts the relationship, which means that in these essays there is heavy selection on both the kind of person who writes these stories, and the quality of the relationship they are writing about.
This is a selection bias issue: Most liberal heterosexual women (ex. Dhaaruni) aren't tortured by their heterosexuality, but the majority of women that publicly write longform about love and sex are really bad at dating and relationships, and aren't representative of the whole
One of my favorite papers in recent years included this diagram. It shows the impact of controlling for three different types of variables: confounders, colliders, and mediators. With confounders, control is good. With the others, you ruin your result by controlling.
This, but unironically
Men have this thing where you mention an issue or problem and they have a response that is logical, correct and accurate. It needs to stop.
My prediction is that this would make some marriages better, while breaking up a lot of others that are eminently salvageable, but have hit a rough patch. So no.
Should married people be required to either re-pledge their wedding vows once a year on their wedding anniversary, or to request a divorce?
Finding another person to build a life with is hard! (So is building the life). Don't confuse the human condition for a political problem.
We've seen much more of this lately from men on the right, but I think the ongoing efforts to turn people's dating struggles into a political issue are really unhelpful.
Someone I know slightly worked in China in the 1990s, and has worked in and out of the country in the years since. The last time I saw him I asked when he was going back. He said "never, probably" because the last time he went, he was carrying his pajamas and toothbrush…
I had someone ask me recently if I had plans to go back to China any time soon and I said I can't ever go back nor can my kids. The reality that people still want to ignore is that if you are allowed in China, China sees allowing you in and to leave as positive(i.e. DC think…
Sometime in the 20th century, we decided that the American conception of democracy was democracy itself. But if course, that conception grew out of America's unique circumstances.
Today's column by @ezraklein is a perfect encapsulation of the propensity of American liberals to project their conception of American democracy onto the rest of the world, and the myopic belief that ethnic nationalism is incompatible with democracy. For a better understanding…
“Roughly two-thirds of economic historians surveyed rejected the proposition that the efforts of labor unions were the primary cause of the drop in work hours before the Great Depression.”
Unions bled and died for the 8 hour day. Just look at the massive 1886 strike led by the Knights of Labor, which ended in bloodshed.
There are sure to be lots of takes here because Trump said a thing, but worth noting the existing exclusion for primary residences hasn't changed for ~30 years despite avg home prices roughly tripling over the same period.
NEW -- Trump says he is thinking about eliminating tax on capital gains on home sales.
Left: NYT description; right: an example of said gracious derision
the US security establishment totally misread Martin Luther King. And this should remind people about the revisionism going around about blacklists and such. Yes, there was a Communist threat. But the conventional narrative that people overreacted was true.
Legal note: August 30, 1963 Domestic Intelligence Division on Martin Luther King Jr (MLK Jr). "Most dangerous Negro to the future of this Nation from the standpoint of communism".
The year is 2210. American & Chinese officials meet in Lisbon for the ceremonial "extending of the tariff deadline", celebrating the two countries' trade relationship in an annual tradition whose origins are now lost to history
Bessent says Aug. 12 China tariff deadline likely to be extended, talks planned in Stockholm cnbc.com/2025/07/22/bes…
I think a key challenge with the “Powell struggle” is that the supporters of President Trump, even the well educated smart non-finance tech bros, seem convinced that “the Fed cutting rates” equals rates falling across maturities. That a stubborn Fed is the only force holding…
This is so obviously talking about revenue, not profit, that you don't even need to look up the source (but the source confirms it)
2021 Emergent Ventures winner "Kyle Schiller, to study possibilities for nuclear fusion". 2025 see below. Other than Peter Theil does anyone have a better track record in picking winners than @tylercowen?