The Art of the Rant...

When it comes to producing collectible rants, few living authors can match Megan McArdle.  She's just published another fine one, this time on the (apparently dead serious) proposal by some Democrats (and their fanboys) to mint a few trillion dollar platinum coins and use them to pay off the national debt.  An excerpt from Megan's beautiful rant on the subject:

The Great Platinum Coin Caper is everything that is wrong with Washington: a stupid partisan maneuver that erodes the institutions of our government for no gain other than an immediate political win. The only good thing that can be said about it is that the President seems to be too sensible to actually consider doing it. Nonetheless, the fact that intelligent people like Professor Krugman are even discussing this debacle, much less endorsing it, is a depressing reminder of just how nasty and short-sighted our nation’s capital has become.

When I was reporting on Wall Street, I used to be told with some regularity that government was needed to counteract the short-term thinking of the business sector, who never thought much beyond the next quarterly earnings report. This now seems as quaintly adorable as picture hats and daily milk deliveries. An ADHD day trader with a cocaine habit and six months to live has considerably more long-term planning skills than our current congress.

That last sentence is my quote of the day.  You will most definitely want to go read the whole beautiful thing!