This week, the blogosphere buzz has been about Edmund Andrews' article in the New York Times magazine. Andrews writes about how he, an economics reporter, got himself so far in debt that the bank will soon foreclose on his house. At first, the story seemed to be about reporters' pay and easy credit. Andrews abdicates responsibility for his debt because the banks gave him money. And they let these people drive cars and vote.
But Megan correctly steered the conversation in another direction. Andrews' problem wasn't that he made too little money. The problem was that he made too little money to support two families. He couldn't afford to get married again and shouldn't have. Andrews never entertains this notion and, in fact, fails to ever say that child support payments are a good thing and that he had a responsibility to care for his first family.
As I was reading the comments on Megan's blog, I was stunned by the new direction of the discussion in her comment section. Now, it wasn't that Andrews screwed up by getting married again. It was that his wives were bleeding him dry and that his second wife, who was raising the kids, was a leech and idle. One guy called SAHMs, Yoga and Pilates women. Another commenter thought that the husbands probably liked having sex with the yoga moms. Then they all exchanged the usual crap about how women steal all your money. Lovely.
