Comment: We’re finally mostly out of Iraq and getting there in Afghanistan, and we didn’t get into a new war in Syria (against Russia) like the Republicans wanted. We have relations again with Iran and Cuba. There are no new nuclear powers and no new effective terrorist networks aimed at the West. Latin America is as democratic as it’s ever been and mostly prosperous. China and the far East are in good economic condition and mutually interdependent trade continues to make war unlikely, including both among themselves and with us. The Ukraine and Russia thing is a mess but we kept our own feet out of the fire in the end. Illegal immigration has slowed: the same estimates of 12-20 MM illegals prevail as did eight years ago.
Back home, unemployment is down and the housing bubble has somewhat liquidated. Inflation is under control and the economy is growing again, though slowly.
That’s pretty good, not a rolling catastrophe.
I’d hope the next president does as well as Obama but I suspect that’s hoping for too much.
* Obama has probably kept the US out of a wider war in the Middle East, and arguably war with either Russia or China. He has given the neocons just enough to have some fun, but been able to take the ball away at the right moments. Look at who his opponents were in the Democratic primaries and the general election.
* The ID Channel had an episode on it a few nights ago on their “Killer Instinct” show. Another oddity was the main killer actually was executed.
The perps drove the car around with the 84-year old white lady bound and gagged in the trunk of the car. They went to their neighborhood and showed a dozen or so ordinary black folks what they had in their trunk. None of them (people Obama, Hillary, Rand Paul, etc would consider salt of the earth African Americans) saw anything wrong with it or asked them to let the lady go, much less contact the police.
* Instead of focusing on the cities where the murder rate went up, I would like to focus on the cities where the murder rate went down. What made Boston decrease its murder rate? Was it underreporting? Or people deciding to behave better? Or was it change in demographics?
My understanding is that the following groups are less likely to commit homicide than the national average:
1. SWPLs
2. Jews
3. Asians
4. White women
5. Young children
6. The elderly
Did Boston experience growth in population in low crime demographics? Did it experience decrease in population of the high crime demographics?
* I don’t understand the far right’s issue with #BlackLivesMatter. They are calling for a de facto return to Jim Crow-era policing tactics, and if they succeed in getting their agenda passed, the result will be increased homicides and violent crimes on minorities in predominantly minority neighborhoods. Probably won’t help property values either, destroying what little wealth in real estate people might have in these places. Just think, if you support #BlackLivesMatter, you can join in the fight against racism while at the same time supporting policies that have a disparate impact on law-abiding minority populations viz. increased crime victimization and murder. It’s like joining an anti-racist chapter of the Klan!
* Has anyone ever corrected those rates for “availability”? Whites do their best not to live around blacks, and so make themselves largely unavailable as murder victims for the black underclass. And whites who can’t afford to move away probably do a much better job of keeping their heads down in those areas.
* Economists Sethi and O’Flaherty pointed out in several papers on the black/white murder gap, small changes in fundamentals can have dramatic changes in murder rates. Fundamentals include policing intensity and methods.
The basic gist is that expectations of violence increases the incentive to act violent first. A simple point that when you bring to the data can have quite dramatic consequences.
* Trump’s stand on law-and-order and more policing in high-crime neighborhoods will play well to the great majority of older, law-abiding residents who are trapped in these inner city areas.
