A Shoebox Under The Bed
Lifted from the comments, a revealing choice of words:
Also, while there is nothing wrong… Again, a revealing tone, I think.
Mr Yglesias, since you ask, is currently said to earn around $1.4 million a year, chiefly from his 18,000 Substack subscribers. It therefore seems quite likely that he has savings and investments of some sort. I wonder what it is that he thinks happens to that money while he’s terribly busy complaining about the rich.
Consider this an open thread. Share ye links and bicker.
Philosophy major doesn’t understand economics shock.
Well, you’d think that grasping the rudiments of your society’s operating system, or what is a very large part of that system, would be… helpful.
For a pundit on politics. A self-styled philosopher.
And the above is hardly some esoteric subtlety. It’s pretty basic stuff.
I stopped caring what Matt Yglesias had to say way way back when he said he was in favor of paternalist government.
She didn’t want to put a black man in jail.
And hey, what could possibly go wrong when you start exempting people from normal moral and legal consequences, based solely on their skin colour?
Discourse was attempted.
She didn’t want to put a black man in jail.
This is an extreme example of the type of person who ignores traffic rules to be kind – instances where they have the right of way but they’re waving at you to go forward, likely because the conundrum of simultaneously arriving at a four-way stop is just too much for them to handle, so they opt to be “the better person.”
“We won’t be coming here any more.”
“Okay.”
Context: Ruth’s Chris Steak House is considered an upscale steakhouse that recently announced it is implementing a dress code.
Glenn Reynolds used to link occasionally to Matthew Yglesias 25 years ago, and unless my memory is fuzzy Matthew has gotten much more extreme (or more honest about his views.)
Post update:
Doesn’t seem entirely irrelevant.
Let’s see what is going on in the general vicinity of the 49th parallel…
On the northern side:
I don’t know about you, but that is the first thing I think of when I think of a play about “indigenous” rights.
Meanwhile on the southern side, another day ending in Y from this charming “BLM Supporter” and “Killer of Bigots”.
Needs.
[ Slides tip jar to more prominent position, adds glitter. ]
I do hope someone bought that chap a drink.
Didn’t know the carnival was having tryouts.
I do hope I’m allowed a chuckle or two.
Matty Yglesias has always been a moron who’s made his money writing trite, pseudo- intellectual midwit nonsense that is regularly ridiculed and savaged by anyone who has done a smidgen of serious research or lived for a minute in the real world.
He got in early on the internet punditry racket, after Harvard of course, and has never held a real job in his life.
The fact that anyone has ever taken him seriously as a writer or “thinker” and anyone deeper than your typical freshman school paper columnist is beyond absurd.
It’s the apparent incredulity, the inconceivability, and the rush to denounce others as “uneducated,” while themselves seeming oblivious to the mood and concerns of so many of their fellow citizens. Talk about not reading the room, love.
The Pentagon has begun releasing images from its UFO files.
Again, that oft-announced progressive empathy.
If Matt’s annual income income is $1.4 million, it’s not from his 18,000 subscribers. Safe bet is he has at least $10 million of invested capital. Which investments he controls. He’s a capitalist. He’s a 0.1% capitalist.
The Z-Man (PBUH) used to remind us to ask “Says who?” By what moral authority is Matty Yglesias lecturing us? Not only do we not have to accept his conclusions, we don’t have to accept his premises, because he is not our moral arbiter, and he is almost certainly not appealing to a shared objective moral arbiter such as the Christian God.
Right, I am being taken out for a late lunch / early dinner. We are getting a cab. So there may be a refreshing beverage involved.
That is all.
#TrueLifeDrama
Beware men offering drinks.
You’re about 30 years too late with that warning.
Extreme wealth: the possibility of getting rich is a powerful motivator. In times and places where the gov will not allow it or seizes it (such as absurd tax rates) innovative people do not bother and great businesses don’t happen. All of Europe is an example. Their rate of new business formation and of large business growth is tiny compared to the US.
And yet he’s pulling in…$1.4 million a year. Only an enormously wealthy society can support such BS to that degree. Though with only 18,000 subscribers I question why he is given so much attention by the right.
This. What separates him from every other idiot? Why did Glenn Reynolds (apparently…I forget that part but sounds familiar) promote/repost the guy?
Added:
At 18,000 subs that’s about $77/sub. Not hard to imagine. I would be more inclined to question the 18,000 subs. Smells like some money laundering is going on there. Be curious to know how many of them are real, private individuals and how many are “researchers” or NGO associated in some way.
The rich: take Elon Musk. Most of his wealth is tied up with the businesses he created and currently runs. Most of the world’s satellites are launched by his company. There is no “pile of gold” for him to sit on. It is pure envy all the way down. For politicians, they want to grab wealth so they can support their own organizations and buy votes. Plus, targeting the rich appeals to their base.
It’s the same with all wealthy people, regardless of whether or not they personally own businesses.
It really is staggering the amount of public money being washed through NGOs to propagandize la revolucion.
A quibble on the envy all the way down thing, partly because it blinds us to some degree of control. If I may repeat myself from the previous thread…
I might also add, I have interacted with and even read somewhat prominent conservatives who believe the steady-state concept of wealth.
To back up my statement regarding “conservatives”, one specifically that I remember was Orlando Sentinel columnist Charley Reese. I didn’t think grok would be able to find this, and grok indicates that the original column is behind the OS paywall, which is why my previous attempts to find it have failed, but grok did just give me this:
Economic ignorance is a huge problem that we ignore at our collective peril.
[ Returns from outing, suitably refreshed. ]
IIRC, this was what Prager University was trying to do.
Keir Starmer introduces the new ‘Knife Crime Czar’ as the latest government advisor following Thursday’s election defeat.
Yes! And God bless them for their efforts. I have donated to them and will continue to support them as I see more effort. But I don’t see much promotion of them from other sources. In fact, I had kinda forgot about them until you just mentioned them. Maybe Prager’s accident is overshadowing their message right now. I think Khan Academy may have had something in the economics area but he seems rather lefty. Which is all the more reason conservatives need to do more to promote this stuff. Thomas Sowell’s books* are great as well but there’s very, very little promotion of these ideas outside of the conservative bubble. I think Vivek has talked up some of this stuff but where is the RNC? Gobs of money they pour through sending out surveys and printing campaign signs and conventions and other rah-rah BS that accomplishes very little as far as enlightenment on basic economics goes.
*I had an idea to purchase a box of TS’s Black Rednecks and White Liberals and leave a few of them in these insipid mini “libraries” I see popping up in parks and stuff. I thought maybe $14 for hard cover but when I checked Amazon they want $54. I may still pick up a couple copies to do so but that’s pressing my limit a bit. Seems the RNC or other such organizations could leverage mass purchases for such an effort.
When I pay $20 for 2 yards of silk fabric, I haven’t lost because I exchanged $20 worth of my labor for fabric I wanted more than that $20. The person that took my $20 gave me 2 yards of fabric didn’t lose either because they wanted that $20 more than the 2 yards of fabric (and so on up the supply chain of that fabric).
The free market is a positive sum game.
Remember this? Fake, though, because they hit their targets.
It’s all so
tiresomedeeply, deeply depressing.What Charles Murray said. And Friedrich Hayek before him.
“Reducing a Marxist to silence” is fun. But could we make it an Olympic sport?
I would be cruel and tell the WSJ journalist that he himself doesn’t matter.
Free market: leaving aside scams, which are crimes, the only way to get rich is to do something people value. The result is that we have millions of people trying to figure out how to make other people’s lives better. A better soap, shampoo, car, phone network, all if you can improve them you will make more money for you. A cheaper product likewise. The free market motivates people to work their asses off to improve the lives of others. In communism, there is no such incentive.
commenter over on the vampire thread claimed the famine in Ireland was “capitalism-caused”. It was not. It was caused by the British government. There is no possible mechanism by which capitalism could cause such a famine among poor peasants all acting independently.
Victor Davis Hanson on the joys of dealing with the weasels who infect academia.
You don’t hate politicians and government bureaucrats enough.
After so many years, I cannot remember what first told me that he had nothing of value to offer.
Oddest spelling of wobbly I’ve seen.
I think he did, just not directly.
Historical ignorance and economic ignorance do seem to overlap.
Easy mistake to make. Oregon. California. They’re pretty much the same place, right?