Another “bloggingheads”:http://bloggingheads.tv/video.php?id=200, this time with Megan McArdle on global warming, minimum wage and healthcare, for those as wants to see (not as much in the way of fireworks as those who have seen our interactions in the blogosphere might expect).
{ 10 comments }
Jane Galt 02.14.07 at 11:23 pm
The most interesting part is our respective partisans saying “You kicked Henry’s ass!” “No, you whipped Megan like a rented mule!”
Personally, I had a great time, and hope we really do get that lunch . . .
Maybe next time we can take on something *really* contentious, like “Should there be a death penalty for Americans who go to Ireland and act like they own the place because their great-great-great-great-great-grandfather emigrated from Cork during the Famine?”
Kieran Healy 02.15.07 at 1:04 am
In my experience of of Yanks returning to Cork, far from administering the death penalty, in the late ’70s we had to stop some of them from killing themselves when they returned after fifty years away and found things like cars (instead of pigs) in the street, and indoor toilets and so on. At least they didn’t get to see Ireland in the past 10 years.
Robert 02.15.07 at 11:42 am
On minimum wages, Megan talks about “substitution of machines(?) for labor”. And she talks about the most vulnerable not being hired because of the minimum wage. Megan is echoing, at best, economists who cannot add. I don’t think she’s correct about what’s needed for the theory with market imperfections either. As far as what economists who specialize in labor economics, Krueger reports on a survey in a reference Michael Greinecker tells me about. There doesn’t seem to be a consensus. But more than 2/3 reported subjective confidence intervals that contained an estimate that a 10% increase in the minimum wage would have no employment-decreasing effect on teenage workers. And certainly this survey reflects conversations after the publication of Card and Krueger’s book.
Scott Lemieux 02.15.07 at 2:02 pm
Hmm, for some reason it’s not working for me…
No Longer a Urinated State of America 02.15.07 at 4:20 pm
“Maybe next time we can take on something really contentious, like “Should there be a death penalty for Americans who go to Ireland and act like they own the place because their great-great-great-great-great-grandfather emigrated from Cork during the Famine?†”
Yes. Why are you calling this a contentious issue?
No Longer a Urinated State of America 02.15.07 at 4:27 pm
To echo Kieran, you might find US citizens killing themselves via heart attacks when they find that property *in South Belfast* is as expensive or more expensive than most of San Francisco. Christ knows what it’s like in Galway or Dublin.
When said Irish American (or plastic paddy as they are fondly called) finds out just how much that cute little holiday cottage in Galway would cost, a heart attack might just do the job.
nick s 02.15.07 at 6:25 pm
in the late ‘70s we had to stop some of them from killing themselves when they returned after fifty years away and found things like cars (instead of pigs) in the street, and indoor toilets and so on.
Now, they just achieve the same result by driving on the wrong side of the road, especially in those less populated areas where there’s little traffic to remind them.
Steve LaBonne 02.15.07 at 7:20 pm
I love that! If I ever have a chance to visit Ireland I will be sure to have a few T-shirts (green of course) emblazoned with the slogan “Kiss me, I’m a plastic Paddy!” to wear during my visit.
Of course, the chances of my ever being able to afford such a trip, given my income and Irish prices, are not too good…
otto 02.16.07 at 3:42 pm
I didn’t think this was the best BH.tv. There wasn’t much actual conversation, in the way Bob and Mickey do it, it was more superior quality information dump from left-liberal and libertarian perspectives on a series of topics, without much actual engagement with what the other party was saying.
May have suffered from repeated recordings…
chris miller 02.18.07 at 6:24 pm
I found this discussion really irritating. “American’s don’t go abroad to get treated?” Hello? Mainers do. Or “I don’t have a problem with health care, my problem is going bankrupt.”
Seems to me this is rhetorical [in the classical sense]; the proponents of free-market fundamentalism have their globaloney down pat – and the culture propagates it – but those advocating alternatives have not. Essentially, that meant Megan got to fall back on argument from authority – simply stating that American health care was the best and the problem is her risk of going bankrupt. It’s simply false that everyone gets the same level of access and care. Of course health care is about paying for it [and profiting, etc…]. Doh. So let’s talk about paying for it and stay on topic, eh?
That Bangladesh is flooded off the map – well, it costs us too much to do anything and besides, we don’t really know it will happen so how much do we want to pay to handle the uncertainty a long way off and besides it’s someone else. That’s the free market fundamentalist way: it will cost us money to stop it, so let’s leave it up to the free market to decide if Bangladesh is worth saving. And, of course, it’s really the victim’s responsibility because look at all the energy India and China are starting to use; it’s their fault, those asians. So now you start to get into racism and the underpinnings of the “clash of civilization” aka “war on terror”.
There’s a bigger problem. Except for the starry-eyed, liberals know just as well as the right wingers that their sustained prosperity depends on the Bangladeshis drowning, only they don’t seem to have the ability to compartmentalize it as well. That makes for unconvincing arguments.
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