The Economist is pretty much the only magazine I find worth reading - all the other magazines I've picked up many times, from Business Week to Newsweek to TIME, are utter crap.

However, I have now realized why contributors to The Economist are never signed.

I used to naively think that it was because of some professional or integrity related principle. Perhaps that editors have as much input in any article as the authors do. Perhaps that the magazine is more important than the authors.

Nope.

The reason could have something to do with that The Economist attempts to be a serious, considered publication that has weight. Apparently, though, the individual authors don't have such weight.

Don't get me wrong. Megan McArdle seems like an intelligent, above-average and intellectually well-versed person with lots of opinions I agree with - except, perhaps, on what best to do with the hard-core homeless people. She wants to take good care of them.

But her bio basically states her formal qualifications as... English major, and an MBA from UC.

That might be one MBA more than the requirements for most media outlets - which explains why so much stuff in magazines is crap.

But if an English major and an MBA is all it takes to write for The Economist, then... heck; I should be editor. ;)