. >> megan mcardle argues that united states is unique in letting it's citizens and businesses fail and this is what has made the country successful. this hour long program starts now on booktv. >>> thank you, everybody for coming. i am timothy carney. i am a visiting fellow and a senior columnist at the examiner. i am involved in the culture of competition where we talk about competition and subsidies in crony capitalism and the other thing i work on is called the program on human flourishing where we talk about happiness

. >> we turn to margaret carson and megan mcardle. supreme court this week ruled in favor of michigan voters who do not want affirmative action. is it good or bad? >> not as bad as -- justice kennedy writing for the plurality called it a "modest decision." if you doubt the vestiges of slavery are active in this country, look at the hero of the right, cliven bundy. i am waiting for a law to pass that says we should not give preference to athletes and alums. >> i actually think it would be upheld. it is hard to imagine that the decision could not say, you may not give preference to athletes or legacies. that was the hard part of this case that the supreme court was being asked to rule that affirmative action is not only legal, but mandatory. voters cannot control how admissions are run in state colleges they fund. i think that was too far. it speaks to the fact we have all of these compromises. we do not give quotas. affirmative action is not supposed be for the benefit of people admitted but because of diversity. it was hard to get a g

. >> megan mcardle argues that the u.s. is unique in its willingness to let its citizens and businesses fail and says that this is what's made the country successful. this hourlong program starts now on booktv. >> thank you, everybody, for coming. welcome to the american enterprise institute. i'm tim carney, i'm a visiting fellow here as well

is megan mcardle, she writes on business, economic and policy and has been living and breathing obamacareor longer than i suspect she'd care to remember. great to have you on the show. you raised a lot of questions that you say we should have answers to, including how many people have bought and paid for the policies, signed up, bought insurance who didn't have insurance, how the new policies compare to the old policies, how much subsidies are costing. why do we not know the answers? >> some are hard to know. for example, the sign-up, it's hard to know how many bought a policy and will not pay for a couple of days. some of the information that we don't have, we could have. we could know, for example, how many people have bought and paid for policies through the end of february, because the insurers could have asked and published the information. we could know what percentage of people sign up. sore they are young people between the ages of 30 and 25. we don't know the information because the administration has it but has not published it. we don't know how many were previously insured. th

. >> megan mcardle argues that united states is unique in letting it's citizens and businesses fail and this is what has made the country successful. this hour long program starts now on booktv. >>> thank you, everybody for coming. i am timothy carney. i am a visiting fellow and a senior columnist at the examiner. i am involved in the culture of competition where we talk about competition and subsidies in crony capitalism and the other thing i work on is called the program on human flourishing where we talk about happiness and both of thes are talked about in the book we are here to talk about which is "the up side of down: why failing well is the key to success" we have the author megan mcardle who is written at the news week and the columnist. and tyler cowen is our respondant from george mason university. a couple quick comments about the program. if you have a cellphone, turn it off, first. feel free if you want to do twitering stuff about this. we just don't want phones. there is time for questions but it will not be formal. it will be something like a question. think about making

it is from megan mcardle, a columnist.work strategies is that as soon as the network starts to decay, it is vulnerable to collapse. having its advantage rest more in proximity of its warehouses to users actually makes amazon more resilient." market, look at the ipo do you see stores, companies reliant on a physical presence able to get into the market? >> no, you have seen companies --e party city and michael's they have been on file for a very long time. toir pe backers are not able exit these investments because investors want to see digital, growth, future. with the brick-and-mortar stores -- the private equity owners have just been holding onto these companies for a long time. >> you mentioned toys r us. the former ceo -- i was speaking with him after thanksgiving -- said there are 80 different ways people can buy. it, othersnot do can. so much, leslie picker, our ipo reporter, covering the story when grubhub prizes -- prices its ipo tonight. we will talk more with our guest, michael lewis, when we come back. ♪ >> good

about which is "the up side of down: why failing well is the key to success" we have the author megan mcardle who is written at the news week and the columnist. and tyler cowen is our respondant from george mason university. a couple quick comments about the program. if you have a cellphone, turn it off, first. feel free if you want to do twitering stuff about this. we just don't want phones. there is time for questions but it will not be formal. it will be something like a question. think about making your question as concise as possible. we will break up at 6:30 for wine and cheese and we are selling copies of the book outside. if you like what you hear, i recommend you buy them. i am in favor of people buying books they find interesting. >> me, too. >> thank you for coming. megan, i read the book. i loved the book. i thought there was a dozen interesting things in here. more than that. stories from all sorts of things ranging from bad date to failed companies to drug addicts. my favorite line was if you don't already have trouble with delayed gratification the best way to get there is deve

megan mcardle from a bloomberg view. oh, good. better late than never. at the treating editor of national review and finally, we are very grateful to our moderator this evening, david brooks, columnist for the new york times whose very successful career has always been directed toward what is new and interesting in the world of ideas. again, thank you all for being here this evening and thanks to those of you watching over the internet. we look forward to the conversation and please join me in welcoming the moderator of this evening's discussion, david brooks. [applause] >> thank you, larry. i was thrilled when larry called to ask if i would take part in the panel. then it became clear that i was actually too old to be a panelist. [laughter] i used to be one of these people. now i am no longer on the leading-edge. i am just a dying ember. i am so pleased to be joined by my first research assistant. judging from the days when he and i work together, he is just waking up. it's good that he rolled out of bed in time for this. i am going to start. here are a

. >> megan mcardle argues that the u.s. is unique in its willingness to let its citizens and businesses fail and says that this is what's made the country successful. this hourlong program starts now on booktv. >> thank you, everybody, for coming. welcome to the american enterprise institute. i'm tim carney, i'm a visiting fellow here as well as a senior political columnist at the examiner. what i do here is the two programs, one is called the culture of competition where we talk about competition, we talk about things like subsidies and crony capitalism and when competition yields good fruits and when it might not yield good fruits. the other thing i work on is called the program on human flourishing where we talk about happiness. and both of those topics are addressed in our book we'll be discussing today which is "the up side of down: why failing well is the key to success." here to talk about this we have the author, megan mcardle. meg began is -- megan is economics writer at bloomberg. she's written at the atlantic, th