Single Payer.

Posted on May 17, 2016 by jsh54

The great achievement of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) has been to extend medical insurance to a large share of the previously uninsured. The great failing of the ACA has been to fail to address the comparatively high cost of medical care in the United States.

Many foreign countries have single-payer systems. They also pay a much smaller share of GDP for medical care. The real issue here is that single-payer countries pay doctors and other medical care or service providers a lot less than does the United States.[1] American physicians, nurses, hospitals, and pharmaceutical companies all make more than do their European or Japanese equivalents. For example, British general practitioners make between $81,000 and $122,000 a year, while the average GP in America makes $208,000 a year. Similarly, the pay differentials between GPs and specialists are much greater in the United States than elsewhere. Then, some kinds of care are less available or unavailable elsewhere. (For example, apparently European doctors don’t believe in allergies or depression. Or try getting a single-patient room in a European hospital.) One recent estimate holds that a single-payer system in the United States could bargain-down prices for prescription drugs to about 25 percent below the level that Medicare currently pays, which is lower than what the private system pays. That suggests the scale of pharmaceutical company profits in America compared to other countries. To get the cost of American medicine down to Western European or Japanese levels, the incomes of these people would have to be compressed.

One economic argument against the Sanders plan is that he proposes to extend coverage beyond the core insurance provided by the Affordable Care Act to include dental care and long-term nursing care. These would run-up the over-all cost of the program. At the same time, Sanders would do away with premiums and out-of-pocket costs. A huge cost increase.

However, the “real” economic argument against the Sanders plan is that it would require a massive tax increase to pay for government-provided universal health care. This is a misleading argument. Americans already pay for medical care through premiums, out-of-pocket costs, and lower wages in exchange for health insurance. They already pay for dental care and for long-term nursing care. They just do it as private individuals. (Employer-provided insurance is just an employment benefit that should be taxed like other forms of income.)

The Sanders plan would eliminate private health insurance companies; it would force down the incomes of hospitals and drug manufacturers; it would compress the incomes of doctors and nurses. None of these institutions or individuals is much inclined to give up the current income structure. There would be enormous push-back. Along these lines, Paul Krugman has argued that the U.S. should not try for a single-payer system. A Medicare-for-all system would require tax increases on the middle class, rather than just on the wealthy. People with employer-provided health-care would be forced into an inferior system, to their distress. Republicans would never go for it. So it is politically impossible.[2] However, that’s a political argument against the Sanders plan. It isn’t an economic argument.

There is a lot to be said for this argument from a political realist perspective. Real power doesn’t just reside on Wall Street. It also resides in suits, white coats over scrubs, and in flowery smocks and Crocs. Neither Democrats nor Republicans want to bell the cat. Bernie Sanders’s pull with young people means that the issue isn’t going away when he does.

[1] Margot Sanger-Katz, “Why a Single-Payer Plan Would Still Be Really Costly,” NYT, 17 May 2016.

[2] “Single-payer health care is a pipe dream,” The Week, 29 January 2016, p. 12.

It ain’t necessarily so 3.

Posted on May 13, 2016 by jsh54

Poverty-induced hunger used to be a grave problem in America. Michael Harrington’s The Other America: Poverty in the United States (1962) documented hunger among America’s large population of poor people, as well as many other ills. One response appeared in the Food Stamp Act (1964). Over the last fifty year, this program has greatly reduced hunger among poor Americans. Today, less than 1 percent of households worry about having enough to eat or go without adequate food on a daily basis. It is a remarkable success story about government’s ability to solve problems.

However, bureaucracies and advocacy groups foster mission-creep. Backed by advocacy groups created at an earlier time, the Department of Agriculture (USDA) has moved from reducing widespread real hunger to grappling with “food insecurity” and poor diet choices.

The USDA asserts that 14 percent of households are “food insecure” and another 5.6 percent had “very low food security.” Not so fast, say critics. It has been demonstrated for several decades now that average intakes of nutrients are similar for children living in poverty and children not living in poverty, and between black and white.[1] The real problem is obesity, not “food insecurity.” Currently, 38 percent of all Americans are obese, 42 percent of Hispanic-Americans, and 48 percent of African-Americans are obese.[2]

Similarly, “food desert” became a term much in vogue five years ago.[3] According to the USDA, in urban areas it is a place where at least 33 percent of the population lives at least a mile from a supermarket and at least 20 percent live below the poverty line. In rural areas, the distance to qualify is ten miles. This isn’t just a convenience issue in the eyes of the Obama Administration. It is also a health issue. Lack of access to fresh foods drives people to rely on processed foods and fast foods. A steady diet of Big Macs and soda leads to obesity, with a host of medical complications.

Not so fast, say critics. First of all, 93 percent of the people who live in these supposed “food deserts” have access to a car. In addition, in cities there is public transportation. Saying a grocery store is a mile or more away is meaningless.

Second, there are five fast-food outlets for every supermarket for a reason. That reason is market demand. Many people prefer fast foods and processed foods to fresh foods even when they have a choice. Fast foods cost less than do fresh foods. Fast foods are full of fat, salt, and sugar, so they taste better than do fresh foods. Fast foods and a lot of the stuff sold in convenience stores don’t require any higher-order cooking skills than the ability to work a microwave.

Well, is there a way to stop people from doing what they want, when what they want is bad for them? It’s difficult. In 2010, New York mayor Michael Bloomberg tried to have soda dropped from the “foods” eligible for purchase with food stamps. Advocay groups and minority communities pushed back. The USDA rejected Bloomberg’s idea. Los Angeles gave it a try by using zoning laws to restrict the number of fast-food outlets in poorer parts of the city. The question is whether the restrictions have just displaced fast-food consumers from their home “food desert” to some other area where no such restriction apply or if they have just led to longer lines at existing fast-food outlets.

Sometimes solving one problem can lead to other problems, even imaginary ones.

[1] Robert Paarlberg, “Obesity: The New Hunger,” WSJ, 11 May 2016.

[2] Paarlberg, “Obesity.”

[3] “America’s ‘food deserts’,” The Week, 19-26 August 2011, p. 11.

It ain’t necessarily so 2.

Posted on May 13, 2016 by jsh54

The current presidential candidates are selling snake oil when it comes to the economy.[1]

“The economy is rigged”—Bernie Sanders, with Hillary Clinton yapping along behind. The economy is “rigged” only in the sense that economic change has assigned a lot of value to skills and education, and virtually no value to just showing up. In a period of economic transformation, a modern economy shifts resources from low-productivity sectors to higher-productivity sectors. All those in the skilled and educated sectors profit, while those in the less-educated and less-skilled sectors lose. That isn’t the same as saying—as Sanders and Clinton imply—that a cabal of Wall Street bankers are making all the decisions for the nation at large.

“We don’t make things anymore”—Donald Trump. In fact, it depends on what the meaning of “we” is. On the one hand, the total value of goods manufactured in the United States is at its highest level, almost 50 percent higher than in the late 1990s.[2] On the other hand, employment in manufacturing has declined by 29 percent over the same period. Under the pressure of foreign competition, productivity in manufacturing has increased through new technological innovations. Indeed, in the many days ago, it was the competition from highly productive American manufacturing that forced adaptation on foreign countries.

“I do not believe in unfettered free trade”—Bernie Sanders. The North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and the proposed Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) have been condemned for exporting jobs to developing countries. In fact, most academic economists—highly astute people on the left—believe that the evidence shows that free trade has been good for the United States. It has destroyed some jobs, but it has created many others. Job loss at big, old-fashioned firms is easier for the media to document than is job-creation at many small firms.

“I want to make sure the wealthy pay their fair share, which they have not been doing”—Hillary Clinton.[3] While exceptions exist, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) reports that the fabled top “one percent” of earners pays at a rate of 33 percent, while the middle three-fifths of earners pay at an average rate of 13 percent.[4]

“The Laffer curve. HA!”—me. Republicans promise that big tax cuts will lead to robust economic growth. The Mellon Plan of the 1920s and JFK’s tax cut of 1963 seem to bear out this claim. However, the Reagan and Bush II tax cuts did not stimulate much economic growth.[5] Still, tax cuts leading to growth has become a Republican mantra. Actually, the amount of growth from tax cuts is very uncertain. What is certain is the impact of further tax cuts on the deficit. Tax cuts will produce bigger deficits. According to one estimate, Donald Trump’s tax plan would reduce federal income by 29 percent.

What Bernie Sanders, Donald Trump, and Hillary Clinton are trying to say is that Americans have become uncomfortable with adapting to change and competition. That is easy to understand. From 1945 to the 1970s, the American economy led the world. Americans got used to high incomes from less work. Then, the rest of the world caught up. Sometimes this came in the form of better quality goods; sometimes in the form of lower prices. Now it’s up to us to learn how to compete again.

[1] Gregory Mankiw, “The Economy Is Rigged, And Other Campaign Myths,” NYT, 8 May 2016.

[2] That is, during the now longed-for “golden years” of the Clinton administration.

[3] Asked to define “fair” taxes on the upper 40 percent of earners, my beloved sister-in-law says, “well, more.”

[4] http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2016/04/13/high-income-americans-pay-most-income-taxes-but-enough-to-be-fair/

[5] To be fair, the Reagan administration also had to wring-out a lot of inflation by slamming the brakes on money creation. This led to high interest rates, slow growth, and high unemployment.

It ain’t necessarily so 1.

Posted on May 12, 2016 by jsh54

In 2002, a campaign finance law outlawed political spending by either unions or corporations during the last sixty days before an election.[1] In 2010, the Supreme Court overturned this law in its “Citizens United” decision. This led to widespread outrage among Democrats, who portrayed the decision as allowing millionaires and billionaires to buy all the political power they wanted. Certainly, it looked like the Koch Brothers wanted to buy the 2016 election if it was for sale: they announced plans to spend almost $900 million in support of favored candidates. That is as much as either of the two major parties.

Recent presidential elections haven’t done much to support this theory. In the 2012 election Mitt Romney got beat by Barack Obama. So far in the 2016 presidential primaries, Jeb Bush piled up a war-chest of $100 million, then got run off the road. Meanwhile, Bernie Sanders and Hillary Rodham Clinton have raised $362 million; the last six Republican candidates raised $286 million. Sanders, with $182 million, and Clinton, with $180 million, far out stripped Ted Cruz, with $78.2 million. As for Donald Trump, he has raised about $50 million.[2] Current guestimations are that Clinton will win the Democratic nomination and the White House.

Democrats fume that the rich still control everything because of their influence behind the scenes and because their ads resonate with idiots. Even if the Democrats do win the White House on occasion, they can’t get anything done because of the obstruction by the Congressional toadies of the rich. Journalist Jane Mayer has done much to highlight the influence—real or imagined–of the Koch brothers.[3] It’s difficult to know exactly how much influence the Kochs have had. Much of their money has gone to shaping the intellectual debate on the role of government. Thus, they have donated to libertarian-leaning think-tanks and universities.[4] A lot of it has gone to support right-wing challengers to mainstream Republicans in primaries. This, it is said, compels mainstream Republicans to veer right to fend off challengers.

This argument works on the unspoken assumption that Republican voters themselves have moved farther right even as mainstream Republican politicians remained more centrist until challenged in a primary election. Why might Republican voters have come to believe in a smaller government? At the risk of forcing square pegs into round holes, consider a couple of statistics. First, 22.4 percent of workers now need a government license to get and keep their jobs. Nearly 20 percent of those in non-medical fields needed such a license.[5] Second, on average, people spend 35 hours a year filling out government forms of one kind or another.[6] However, adults fill out forms for their children and often for their own elderly parents. For these people—who are of voting age—the real amount of time spent filling out forms might be double or triple the average. So, a work-week or two out of their lives each year. Perhaps this is part of what has shifted some voters to the right?

[1] “Citizens United: Has big money lost its power?” The Week, 29 January 2016, p. 17.

[2] http://elections.uscommonsense.org/

[3] Jane Mayer, Dark Money: The Hidden History of the Billionaires Behind the Rise of the Radical Right (New York: Doubleday, 2016).

[4] Recently, the editorial pages of the New York Times have witnessed much hand-wringing over the absence of conservative voices in academia. This is attributed to an apparent liberal bias in hiring. The effect, however, is to provide the Democratic Party with an army of spokesmen for the pro-government argument. On the other hand, much of the funding for these spokesmen is traceable. Much of it comes from taxes and tuition paid by people who are not on the left.

[5] “The bottom line,” The Week, 6 May 2016, p. 36.

[6] “Noted,” The Week, 6 May 2016, p. 16.

Arab Spring Board.

Posted on May 3, 2016 by jsh54

For decades since gaining their independence from foreign rule (either Turkish or European), the Arab states have suffered under brutally oppressive, monumentally corrupt, and astonishingly incompetent governments. For decades it seemed that the “Arab street” would do nothing but seethe. In Spring 2011, popular uprisings took place in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, and Syria. Optimists began to talk of an “Arab Spring.” Realists began to recall the Revolutions of 1848 in Europe. Then large, but disparate coalitions of enemies of the old regime toppled their rulers in France, Germany, the Austrian Empire, and in Italy. Equally quickly, the revolutionary tide ebbed when the victors could not agree what they wanted to put in place of the old regime. Five years on, it seems to be widely accepted that the realists were right all along.[1]

That said, a great deal of diversity can be found within this universal model. Tunisia has been struggling on manfully in an attempt to create some kind of non-autocracy and to revive its feeble economy.[2] Egypt’s “deep state” tossed overboard Hosni Mubarrak, let the Muslim Brotherhood take office (if not power), and then staged a well-prepared coup. Libya might have restored the old regime, but American intervention put an end to that chance and the country has virtually disintegrated. Syria, worst of all, collapsed into a civil war that grinds on.

Kenneth Pollack offers a profound-sounding analysis of Worth’s book: “The Middle East [Worth] sketches…is a Hobbesian state of nature, a war of all against all.” In these conditions, the absence of order, “Chaos bred fear, fear bred violence and violence bred revenge and more anger and more violence.” That explanation seems to work well for Syria, but it hardly explains anywhere else in the Middle East.

Unrest did not occur everywhere to the degree that it occurred in Libya, Egypt, and Syria. Much more limited unrest took place in some of the Gulf Arab states, in Jordan, in Morocco, and in Algeria. Virtually nothing troubled the calm in Saudi Arabia. The troubles in Iraq were both graver than in Egypt and arose from different traumas. Yet all Arab governments are more or less oppressive and incompetent. Why did the “Arab Spring” not take place all throughout the Arab world? Why did the unrest have different outcomes in different places?

Part of the answer may be that the price of oil in 2011 stood at $100 a barrel, while the price of oil today is about $45 a barrel. In 2011, Saudi Arabia was rolling in dough. This wealth allowed the Saudi state to buy off any dissent among its subjects. Having staved-off unrest at home, Saudi Arabia could also deploy its wealth in support of friends in other Arab countries. On the one hand, when the United States reduced aid to Egypt after the coup against the democratically-elected government of the Muslim Brotherhood, Saudi Arabia whipped out its check-book to more than make good the loss of American aid. Links between the two Arab countries seem to continue to tighten. On the other hand, when opponents of Bashar al-Assad in Syria called for aid, Saudi Arabia and other Gulf States sent money and weapons.

The simple “they agreed on what they were against, but disagreed on what they were for” analysis of the Arab Spring misses yet another parallel to 1848. The multi-national Austrian Empire lashed out against all enemies foreign and domestic. The Czechs, the Italians, and the Hungarians all felt the force of Austrian arms. The threat of Austrian intervention also contributed to the defeat of German nationalism. Will the Saudi victories turn to ashes in ten years’ time, just as did those of Austria between 1859 and 1867?

[1] See Kenneth Pollack’s review of Robert F. Worth, A Rage for Order: The Middle East in Turmoil, From Tahrir Square to ISIS (New York: Farrar, Strauss, and Giroux, 2016), NYT Book Review, 1 May 2016.

[2] Now if Islamists would just stop shooting up the tourist resorts.

CrISIS 7.

Posted on April 30, 2016 by jsh54

The war against ISIS has been small-scale, rather than a grand effort.[1] The total American force in Iraq has slowly risen from 275 troops sent as trainers and advisers after the Iraqi Army collapsed in Summer 2014 to about 4,000 today. American Special Forces spotters are directing American air-strikes in support of both Iraqi forces and Kurdish fighters (in both Iraq and Syria). Others have been raiding ISIS targets and a number of ISIS leaders have been killed: notably the war minister and the finance minister. An earlier effort at intelligence gathering (either human intelligence or signals intelligence) has led to targeted air attacks on the oil fields that provide much of the funds for ISIS and other sites. Now, more Special Forces troops are being sent to Syria to bolster the efforts of those Sunnis who are willing to fight ISIS. The Iraqi government forces don’t look too effective, but they are in the field and moving forward in fits and starts.

The results of this patched together strategy have been more impressive than one might think from the daily news: 26,000 ISIS fighters killed; 40 percent of the territory it once held recaptured; 3 million of the 9 million people inside the caliphate liberated; 30 percent of its revenue lost.[2] Next on the agenda is a strike at Mosul.

That’s the good news. What’s the bad news? First, a large part of the explanation for the sudden expansion of ISIS in Summer 2014 lay in the political divisions, incompetence, and corruption of Iraq’s government at that time. The US engineered the eviction of the then prime minister Maliki and his replacement by Haider al-Abadi. However, things have not improved very much. Corruption and division continue to plague the government. Recently, Muqtada al-Sadr, a powerful Shiite cleric (and an old opponent of the Americans) forced al-Abadi to fire many of the government officials most deeply implicated in corruption. In addition, the Sunni minority—whose “Awakening” greatly contributed to the defeat of the original insurgency—continue to be persecuted by the Shiite government. All of this can impede the drive on Mosul.

Along the same lines, the Kurds have played a valuable role in the fight against ISIS, but now that success has become a problem. The 250 additional Special Forces troops bound for Syria are intended to recruit, train, and coordinate Sunni Arabs because it is feared that the intrusion of Kurds into the area will set off ethnic conflicts that could derail the war effort.

Second, radical Islamism of the al-Qaeda-ISIS type has a widespread following in the Muslim world. At the moment, the most troubling bastion of ISIS adherents outside the caliphate itself is in Libya. Adherents of ISIS have been bolstered by ISIS fighters sent from Syria. They have seized the oil port of Sirte. They appear to be attempting the conquest of the Sirte oil region.

Third, the recent terrorist bombings in Brussels have led to reports that ISIS has sent a sizable group of terrorists to conduct operations in Western Europe.

It is natural to ask if, in the waning days of the Obama administration, victory or something like it will be in sight by the time his successor is inaugurated. That would surely add to his legacy. However, the continuing governmental disaster in Baghdad and the refusal of the Shiites to make a just peace with the Sunnis is a problem that is not going to go away. The same is true of violent radical Islam. Frustrating, infuriating, and humiliating as has been the Obama administrations course in the fight against ISIS, it is only a campaign in a larger, longer-running war. Many of the dilemmas of engagement in this fight will plague the next administration.

[1] “The war against ISIS,” The Week, 6 May 2016, p. 11.

[2] Apparently, there is a military solution to the problem of ISIS. The same may be true of the Syrian civil war.

Amidst the Gloom and Doom.

Posted on April 25, 2016 by jsh54

Not that you would know it from the media, but lots of things have gotten better.

Between 1964 and 2004, the number of Americans who smoked fell every year. In 2004, the decline bottomed out at 20.8 percent. It stayed there through the end of 2007.[1] I think that it is about the same today. Why did the decline stop? Who are the smokers? Partly a bunch of self-destructive dopes; partly a bunch of libertarians fed up with an intrusive nanny-state?[2]

Like crime rates, the number of homeless people has been declining.[3] The number fell by about 11 percent from 2010 to 2015. At the same time, and again like crime, homelessness has become increasingly concentrated in a few big cities. Increases in homelessness in New York City (42 percent), Los Angeles (24 percent), and San Francisco (16 percent) indicate that these places have become the “destination shelters” for the homeless.

Between 1990 and 2010, the abortion rate in the United States fell by 35 percent, thanks in large part to wider user of more effective contraceptives like IUDs. It is now at the lowest level since 1976.[4] Restrictions on access to abortions appear to have played a smaller role—if any. One doesn’t have to be opposed to a woman’s right to choose to think that fewer abortions is a good thing.

The use of capital punishment has declined in the United States. It fell from 98 in 1999 to 35 in 2014 to 20 in the first two-thirds of 2015. Extrapolating from that latter figure, there would be 30 in all of 2015. Even in Texas, the state most prone to impose the death sentence, no one had been sentenced to death by September 2015.[5] (In contrast, the total number of executions carried out world-wide doubled from about 8000 in 2014 to 1,634 in 2015.[6] Iran, Pakistan, and Saudi Arabia visited the Wrath of Allah on a lot more people last year.)

The war on drugs is being lost say 84 percent of Americans; being won say 3 percent of Americans; and “don’t know” say 13 percent of Americans (the latter two groups apparently don’t have teen-age children).[7]

In early 2015, 60 percent of Arabs aged 18 to 24 had an unfavorable view of ISIS. By early 2016, 78 percent of that group had an unfavorable view.[8] Are we winning “hearts and minds” in Muslim countries? Or is ISIS just losing them? (Or is the 18 percent difference just a reflection of how many from that demographic have gone to fight for ISIS and are unavailable to be polled?)

A Yale University study reported that people who use the internet feel much smarter than they actually are.[9]

Men who had lots of friends in high-school went on to be much more successful in life than did shy nerdy kids. One additional friend could off-set half of the income gain resulting from an extra year of education.[10] So, perhaps the solution to our current problem with stagnant incomes is to be found in Dale Carnegie and Arthur Murray? Just trying to help.

[1] “Noted,” The Week, 23 November 2007, p. 16.

[2] Disclaimer: I’ve been chewing tobacco for 30 years. I wish I could quit, but how would I gross out people?

[3] “Noted,” The Week, 19 February 2016, p. 18.

[4] “Noted,” The Week, 25 December 2015, p. 20.

[5] “Noted,” The Week, 25 September 2015, p. 16.

[6] “Noted,” The Week, 22 April 2016, p. 18.

[7] “Poll Watch,” The Week, 22 August 2014, p. 17.

[8] “Poll Watch,” The Week, 22 April 2016, p. 19.

[9] The Week, 10 April 2015, p. 4.

[10] “Popularity,” Institute for Social and Economic Research. Atlantic, May 2009, p. 15.

Shooting Dogs.

Posted on April 16, 2016 by jsh54

David Belton went to Rwanda in 1994 as a reporter for the BBC. After the killings began, he and the other whites were evacuated by Western military forces. These Westerners left behind many Rwandans they had known, but carried with them terrible memories of things they had witnessed. Belton went back to making documentaries for the BBC. Rwanda stayed on his mind.

One of the stories from Rwanda which Belton heard concerned Father Vjekoslav “Vjeko” Ćurić (1957-1998). Ćurić had been born in the Artist Formerly Known as Yugoslavia. He became a Catholic priest and, in 1983, went to Rwanda as a missionary. He got posted to a small town in the provinces. Ćurić turned out to be a missionary priest out of some 1940s Hollywood movie: moral without being moralistic, and devoted to his flock and beloved by them. When the genocide began, he refused to be evacuated. He worked hard and courageously to help victims from among both Hutus and Tutsis. He survived the genocide, but someone shot him dead a few years later under murky circumstances.[1]

David Wolstonecraft (1969- ) was born in Hawaii, but ended up living in Scotland at a young age. He went to Cambridge (where he got a BA in History, so there). He got a job writing for British television shows. Television is a small world. Belton and Wolstonecraft ran into each other. Together, they wrote the script for “Shooting Dogs,” inspired by what Belton had seen in Rwanda and centered on a version of the story of Father “Vjeko” Ćurić.

They pitched the story to BBC Films. Approaching the ten-year anniversary of the genocide, lots of people were thinking back to it and what it had meant.[2] BBC Films agreed to produce it. They put Michael Caton-Jones (1957- ) in as director, hired some not-quite stars to act, and decided to film the movie in Kigali, Rwanda. So, lots of what you see in the movie is what Kigali actually looks like, and most of the extras are Rwandans.

None of the Rwanda movies does a good job of explaining the context. In brief compass, a recent insurgency by Tutsis against the Hutu government had resulted in a truce. The UN has sent in a bunch of Belgian soldiers to “monitor” the truce.[3] Then the Hutus began to repent their moderation. Meanwhile, the US didn’t want to get involved in another Somalia.[4] The French didn’t want the potentially pro-Anglophone Tutsis to defeat the actually Francophone Hutus. So, the two countries resisted calling what happened “genocide” or intervening to stop it.

The story centers on the “Ecole Technique Officielle” (The Official/Public Technical School), a sort of technical middle school. A priest, Father Christopher (played by John Hurt), runs the school. He is assisted by a young Englishman, Joe Connor (played by Hugh Dancey, who has come to Africa for a while to do some good in the world. The school also provides a base for a bunch of the Belgian soldiers. Then, there is Marie (played by Clare-Hope Ashitey), the Tutsi student who may have a crush on Joe. Around this human core of the story circle a BBC reporter and her cameraman, who symbolizes the media and what the world knows; a Belgian army officer, who symbolizes the ineffectiveness of the UN; and a bunch of killers with machetes and clubs. What are any of these people—or us–supposed to do?

[1] It could have been an armed robbery or it could have been some kind of retribution for his actions in 1994. Or it could have been something else entirely.

[2] Curiously, at the same time another Anglo-American team of writers was working on a different story about Rwanda. Keir Pearson and Terry George wrote the script for “Hotel Rwanda.” It came out the same year as “Shooting Dogs” and just buried it. Too bad: it isn’t a better movie, just a more up-beat one.

[3] That is, they are not there to “enforce” or even “keep” peace. They’re just watchers. Voyeurs really.

[4] See “Black Hawk Down” (dir. Ridley Scott, 2001).

A lovely day in the neighborhood.

Posted on April 16, 2016 by jsh54

Social scientists contend that the location in which a child grows up correlates with their adult fate.[1] On the one hand, there is adult income.[2] One experiment that ran from 1994 to 1998 offered people living in public housing the opportunity to enter a lottery.[3] Winners in the lottery received vouchers to help pay the rent if they moved to other areas. The children of lottery winners (if they moved early enough) far outpaced the children of losers in subsequent earnings.[4]

The sequential demolition of the vast Robert Taylor Homes in Chicago between 1995 and 1998 displaced both those who did want to move and those who did not want to move. All had to go and all received housing vouchers. Comparing those who moved—willingly or unwillingly—with those who remained behind, economists have found that a) those who moved were 9 percent more likely to be employed than those who remained behind; and b) they earned 16 percent more than those who remained behind.

Then there is life-span.[5] Rich people have lived longer than poor people for quite a while. At the start of this century the average billionaire lived 12 years longer than the average street-person. Today the gap has widened to 15 years. Social scientists (and, for all I know, anti-social scientists or just the John Frink, Jr.s of this world) have documented that there is a very uneven distribution of extra years among poor people. The poor in some places live almost as long as the rich, but they die young in other places. On average, poor men in New York City live for 79.5 years; poor men in Gary, Indiana live for only 74. 2 years.

The studies suggest that altering the habits and attitudes of poor people in the blighted areas could extend lives. First of all, in the housing-voucher lottery, only one-fourth of the people who were offered the chance to join the lottery did so. Those who did apply have been characterized as “particularly motivated to protect their children from the negative effects of a bad neighborhood.” This means that three-quarters of the people offered the chance to join the lottery were not “particularly motivated to protect their children.”

Then, moving to a better neighborhood increased likelihood of being employed by only 9 percent. That’s better than nothing, but it isn’t much of a bump. Moving to a better neighborhood increased lifetime earnings by 16 percent. How much is that in dollar figures? It’s $45,000. Spread over a possible 40 year working life, that’s $1,125 a year and about $0.55 per hour. Is it worthwhile for a family to leave behind everyone they know, a “system” that they know how to navigate, for this kind of money?

Second, the rich live in healthier ways than do some poor people. They eat better, they exercise more, they are less likely to be obese, they usually don’t smoke, and they are unlikely to use opiods. Even demanding, stressful jobs don’t make them feel more stressed than do poor people. Poor people often eat a poor diet, smoke, and don’t exercise (it’s hard running 5 miles if you’re a smoker). Diet propaganda, parenting education, anti-smoking campaigns, and adult exercise programs could make a big difference.

To an uncertain extent then, poverty is volitional, a choice. See: Juan Williams.

[1] That raises a question: does the neighborhood itself cause this effect or do people with other characteristics and experiences just end up in certain kinds of neighborhoods?

[2] Given social class segregation, it isn’t readily apparent why this isn’t the same as saying that the social class in which a child grows up has a large effect on their adult income. Maybe it’s just NewSpeak.

[3] Justin Wolfers, “Bad Neighborhoods Do More Harm Than We Thought,” NYT, 27 March 2016.

[4] However, another experiment found virtually no difference in outcomes between winners and losers.

[5] Neil Irwin and Quoctrung Bui, “Where the Poor Live in America May Help Determine Life Span,” NYT, 11 April 2016.

World Have Your Say 1.

Posted on April 12, 2016 by jsh54

Recently, President Obama stated that the failure to plan for the “day after” in Libya constituted his “worst mistake.”[1] He does not regret overthrowing Gaddafi, but he does regret not having given any thought to what would happen afterward.

How have commentators responded? According to the BBC’s “World Have Your Say” comment page on the story, informed opinion shapes up like the following.

The three most approved comments were:

HugoFrost remarked that “This is what happens when you “take out” leaders like this in the middle east. It leaves a huge power vacuum for terrorists to exploit. Gaddafi, Hussein, and to an extent Assad. These were the front liners holding back a much worse fate, which is what we’re seeing in Europe at the moment. 307 Positive versus 10 Negative = Plus 297.

The Big Fish argued that “the only way you can run such countries is with a dictator. It’s always tribe first, religion second. And any interference is always perceived as being against the religion and simply fuels the propaganda against the so-called West. Stay out, even if they do have oil.” 229 Positive versus 9 Negative = Plus 220.

Fishermans_Enemy observed that “Yet he is a Nobel Prize winner… Libya’s troubles are far from over, frankly, some say they are just beginning. Still, Obama is following on from this Libya mistake by trying to topple another leader in Syria but this time arming Al Qaeda aligned ‘rebels’ to fight Assad whereas a few years ago prior they were terrorists. The problem isn’t so much Obama but US supremacy in general.” 165 Positive versus 16 Negative = Plus 149.

Conversely, the three least approved comments were:

U16440316 believes that [Obama’s] “worst mistake was running for president in the first place. He had the chutzpah to say that 10 Trillion Dollars of debt was UNPATRIOTIC.THEN HE DOUBLED IT. The man is a disaster. Yet the left wing media treat him like some god. That’s leftism for you.” 108 Positive versus 192 Negative = minus 84.

Gary H argued that “The Middle East need[s] dragging up to Western standards, out of the dark ages. Even their own people don’t want to live there. Do we care when they stone their own people to death? We prefer to leave it that way? Shame on us every time we turn our backs. It’s our duty.” 10 Positive versus 37 Negative = Minus 27.

Mike from Brum said that “I’ve said it before. Go to Israel, tell them they have a month when no one is looking and to sort them out. By the time the Israelites are finished, the whole region with be devoid of anything but tumbleweed. Good riddance.” 12 Positive versus 36 Negative = Minus 24.

The top three Positive comments equal + 666. The bottom three Negative comments equal – 135.

Thus, there is a lot more consensus on the Positive comments than on the Negative comments. Among the Positive comments, there is a belief that the Middle East [and other places outside the West] needs dictators to keep dangerous forces in line. This is a repudiation of President Obama’s embrace of the “Arab Spring.”

In contrast, the Negative comments are more varied, from attacks on President Obama as a leader to a plea for intervention in benighted places to a belief in violence as a solution.

If leaders are listening to thinking citizens, then they will be very cautious in the future about toppling authoritarian regimes. That doesn’t mean that they will not do it. Perhaps they will prepare better for the consequences. Or time will pass and they will forget.

[1] See: http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-36013703

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