Santa Monica, here we come, right back where we started from

A large fraction of homeless people -- especially the poor bastards you find sleeping under a bridge in Chicago in January -- are lunatics to be pitied. But, then there are the kind of homeless people you find hanging out at the blufftop park along Ocean Boulevard in Santa Monica or under the amazing Moreton Bay Figtree in downtown Santa Barbara who are highly rational about their lifestyle choices. The creme de la creme of the Lifestyler homeless are the ones who have made it to Hawaii.

From The Daily Mail:

Hawaii sets aside $100,000 to offer its 17,000 homeless people one-way airfare back to their home states 

... A similar program was implemented in New York City in 2007 by Mayor Michael Bloomberg and other cities have used the tactic over the years. 

'These kinds of  programs have been used historically to ship homeless people out of town,' Michael Stoops, from the National Coalition for the Homeless told MSN. 'In the homelessness field it was once called greyhound therapy. Hawaii now goes a step higher with airplane therapy. Oftentimes local police departments run such programs offering the stark choices of going to a shelter, jail or hopping on a bus or plane home.'

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Wired article on "Genetics of IQ"

John Bohannon in Wired profiles 21-year-old Chinese DNA prodigy Zhao Bowen in "Why Are Some People So Smart? The Answer Could Spawn a Generation of Superbabies."

In my experience, few things in modern medicine happen very fast.

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What's the g factor of coolness?

Let me toss out an undeveloped idea: that the closest thing to a general factor in coolness is having a good sense of rhythm.  

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Yellen v. Summers: What is and what should never be respectable identity politics

From the NYT:

In Tug of War Over New Fed Leader, Some Gender Undertones

By BINYAMIN APPELBAUM and ANNIE LOWREY

WASHINGTON — President Obama’s choice of a replacement for the Federal Reserve chairman, Ben S. Bernanke, is coming down to a battle between the California girls and the Rubin boys.

Janet L. Yellen, the Fed’s vice chairwoman, is one of three female friends, all former or current professors at the University of California, Berkeley, who have broken into the male-dominated business of advising presidents on economic policy. Her career has been intertwined with those of Christina D. Romer, who led Mr. Obama’s Council of Economic Advisers at the beginning of his first term, and Laura D’Andrea Tyson, who held the same job under President Clinton and later served as the director of the White House economic policy committee. But no woman has climbed to the very top of the hierarchy to serve as Fed chairwoman or Treasury secretary. 

Ms. Yellen’s chief rival for Mr. Bernanke’s job, Lawrence H. Summers, is a member of a close-knit group of men, protégés of the former Treasury Secretary Robert E. Rubin, who have dominated economic policy-making in both the Clinton and the Obama administrations. Those men, including the former Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner and Gene B. Sperling, the president’s chief economic policy adviser, are said to be quietly pressing Mr. Obama to nominate Mr. Summers. 

The choice of a Fed chair is perhaps the single most important economic policy decision that Mr. Obama will make in his second term. Mr. Bernanke’s successor must lead the Fed’s fractious policy-making committee in deciding how much longer and how much harder it should push to stimulate growth and seek to drive down the unemployment rate. 

Ms. Yellen’s selection would be a vote for continuity: she is an architect of the Fed’s stimulus campaign and shares with Mr. Bernanke a low-key, collaborative style. Mr. Summers, by contrast, has said that he doubts the effectiveness of some of the Fed’s efforts, and his self-assured leadership style has more in common with past chairmen like Alan Greenspan and Paul A. Volcker. 

But the choice also is roiling Washington because it is reviving longstanding and sensitive questions about the insularity of the Obama White House and the dearth of women in its top economic policy positions. Even as three different women have served as secretary of state under various presidents and growing numbers have taken other high-ranking government jobs, there has been little diversity among Mr. Obama’s top economic advisers. 

“Are we moving forward? It’s hard to see it,” said Ms. Romer, herself a late addition to Mr. Obama’s original economic team, chosen partly because the president wanted a woman. 

She said she viewed the choice of the next leader of the Fed as a test of the administration’s commitment to inclusiveness. “Within the administration there have been many successful women,” she said. “There are lots of areas where women are front and center, where women are succeeding and doing very well. Economic policy is one where they’re not.”

This controversy is an illuminating example of 

- What is encouraged to be treated as legitimate identity politics: e.g., gender. There's never been a female Fed chairman, so Janet Yellen's supporters are praised in our culture for trumpeting her candidacy as promoting women.

- What is uncomfortable as an identity politics issue: age. Summers is 58 and Yellen is 66. The latter seems troublesome for an extremely demanding four-year term in a job where two terms (or more is common) to avoid "roiling the markets." As Baby Boomers (currently ages 49 to 67) age, they become less tolerant of anybody attempting to, in effect, foreclose their career prospects due to advancing age.

- What should never be tolerable identity politics: anybody mentioning that if either Summers or Yellen gets the post, then the 98% gentile majority of America won't have held the Fed Chairman's post from 1987 through 2018. Noticing that is simply beyond the pale, even though the Fed Chairman post is not simply a technocratic macroeconomic position, but is also a major regulator of financiers. 

I don't know much about Yellen, but Larry has been a big personality for a long time. I've written four articles defending him in the 2005 evolutionary psychology brouhaha. But, as a regulator, Larry is representative of the dominant tendency of the last generation in both parties (such as Larry's mentor Robert E. Rubin for the Democrats and Greenspan/Bernanke for the Republicans): pro-Wall Street economists or operators who tend to see attempts to regulate billionaires as at least subliminally anti-Semitic. 

There's a lot to be said for this dominant standpoint, but let's also be clear that it has been dominant, and that it might well be time to try somebody, at least for a change, who doesn't suspect effective regulation of financiers is the first step to Nazism.

But of course we can't even mention this, so forget I ever said it.

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Cuban hidalgo rallies rich Republicans to back Rubio bill

From the NYT:

Big-Name G.O.P. Donors Urge Members of Congress to Back Immigration Overhaul

WASHINGTON — More than 100 Republican donors — many of them prominent names in their party’s establishment — sent a letter to Republican members of Congress on Tuesday urging them to support an overhaul of the nation’s immigration laws. 

The letter, which calls for “legal status” for the 11 million immigrants here illegally, begins with a simple appeal: “We write to urge you to take action to fix our broken immigration system.” 

The effort was organized by Carlos Gutierrez, who was secretary of commerce under President George W. Bush and was a founder of a “super PAC,” Republicans for Immigration Reform. The letter is the beginning of a campaign to lobby Republican lawmakers in favor of a broad immigration bill as they return to their districts for the August break.

A cross-section of Republican donors and fund-raisers signed the letter. They include Karl Rove, a deputy chief of staff in Mr. Bush’s White House; former Vice President Dan Quayle; Tom Stemberg, a founder of Staples; and Frank VanderSloot, the founder of Melaleuca Inc.

Frank VanderSloot, CEO of Melanoma Inc., sounds like the name of the rich Republican villain in a movie. But, he's in favor of more immigration, so he's cool.

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Zuckerberg: My net worth only went up $3.8 billion today, so America needs cheaper programmers

After the conference call,
Zuck headed to the Oingo-Boingo
reunion concert

From Business Insider:

Zuckerberg: America's Failure To Produce Engineers Is 'Systemic' (FB)
Jim Edwards 

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg got political on his Q2 2013 earnings call yesterday, criticizing America for not producing enough talented engineers for him to recruit. 

Zuckerberg's views on this issue are no secret. He's given $100 million to the Newark, N.J., school system to improve education there. And he's backed a controversial lobbying group, FWD.us, which wants to reform immigration law so that companies can recruit foreign engineers and tech workers more easily. 

But yesterday, Zuckerberg again hinted that he thinks America is broken when it comes to educating people to take the science, technical, engineering and math (STEM) jobs that he's creating.

In other news today, from Bloomberg.com:

Zuckerberg’s Wealth Soars $3.8 Billion as Facebook Surges 

It's worth noting that, all else being equal, Zuckerberg's net worth increasing by almost $4 billion today makes Americans more likely to give him the immigration bill he wants. It's not just practical considerations like, wow, he now has even more money to spend on lobbying so we should be nice to him so that maybe he'll be nice to us. No, the psychology is even more primitive than that: it's just the sheer strong juju of any man who makes $3.8 billion in one day that makes us want more good things to happen to him.

Heck, I feel that way most of the time. (Indeed, much of what I write is the opposite of my natural emotional predilections -- that's why I write it: because it took me a long time to figure things out.)

In contrast, if Zuckerberg's net worth had declined $3.8 billion today because Facebook profits were down because he was paying his employees so much higher salaries, there would be much scoffing at Zuckerberg's lobbying for more H-1B visas: What a loser!

And that's the way of the world.

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Cubans are bad drivers

Brian Palmer in Slate tries to rate the cities with the worst drivers, using four measures. Here's his synthetic bottom 5:

And now, America, on to the cities with your worst drivers. 

No. 5: Baltimore. Baltimoreans just can’t keep from running into each other. They were outside the top 10 in fatalities, DWI deaths, and pedestrian strikes, but their rate of collision couldn’t keep them out of the top five overall. 

No. 4: Tampa, Fla. Tampa doesn’t do any single thing terribly, but it is consistently poor: 18th worst in years between accidents, fifth in traffic fatalities, tied for 11th in DWI fatalities, and 10th in pedestrian strikes. If the city had managed to get outside the bottom half in any individual category, Tampa residents might have avoided this distinction. 

No. 3: Hialeah. The drivers of Hialeah get into a middling number of accidents, ranking 11th among the 39 candidates. But when they hit someone, they really mean it. The city finished third for fatalities. They also have a terrifying tendency to hit pedestrians. 

Hialeah is the hometown of Nestor Camacho in Tom Wolfe's Back to Blood, a book that begins with Yale man Edward T. Topping IV creeping around a Miami parking lot in his wife's environmentally friendly electric car looking for a parking place, only to have a Cubana in a Ferrari steal the one open space by backing up into it at 35 mph.

No. 2: Philadelphia. Drivers in the city of brotherly love enjoy a good love tap behind the wheel. Second-places finishes in collisions and pedestrian strikes overwhelm their semi-respectable 16th-place ranking in DWI deaths. 

No. 1: Miami. And it’s not even close. First in automotive fatalities, first in pedestrian strikes, first in the obscenity-laced tirades of their fellow drivers.

Just like Dave Barry always said about Miami drivers.

So, three of the most Cuban towns in the country -- Miami, Hialeah, and Tampa -- are in the top 5.

Interesting that the GOP leadership is set on turning the steering of the ship of state over to Cubans to win the votes of Mexicans.

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How effective is border security? Shhhhh ... It's a federal secret.

Mickey Kaus points out this Arizona Republic article on how the Obama Administration refuses to release vast piles of statistics on border security:

As Congress weighs whether to pin immigration reform on reaching a threshold of border security, the measure most often cited would call on the Department of Homeland Security to stop 90 percent of illegal border crossings. Doing that means figuring out how to persuade people like Flores not to try again and stopping others headed for el norte from slipping over the border. 

That, in turn, hinges on solid answers to such questions as: How many people actually get through? Where do they get across? When they’re caught, do they give up or keep trying until they make it? 

Homeland Security officials don’t fully know the answers to those questions. And the reason, say leading migration researchers, is that DHS officials don’t want to know, and don’t want the public to know, either. 

“There is zero interest in that kind of analysis among DHS’ leadership,” said economist Bryan Roberts, who served as the agency’s assistant director of the Office of Program Analysis and Evaluation until 2010. “There was no interest when I was there, and there still isn’t any.” ...

Roberts and several other researchers said that the DHS doesn’t have the answers because it doesn’t jointly analyze data from the Border Patrol, which works between ports of entry; Customs and Border Protection, which works at ports of entry; and Immigrations and Customs Enforcement, which works across the interior of the country. 

Not looking at the big picture makes it harder for the DHS to figure out whether, say, to build more fences or focus on interior enforcement, the researchers said. And there’s little pressure on the DHS to work with outside experts or better analyze its data to figure out what has worked and what hasn’t. 

... The immigration bill passed last month by the Senate, now languishing as the House weighs its own measures, would evaluate border security using an “effectiveness rate” based on data that the DHS and its agencies won’t release to the public. The bill would provide more than $46 billion and nearly double the size of the Border Patrol by adding 19,200 agents along the Mexico border over the next eight years, to help the agency reach a 90 percent effectiveness rate. 

That rate is meant to show how effectively the Border Patrol prevents illegal crossings. To estimate the number of illegal crossings, the Border Patrol adds up three figures: apprehensions; “turn-backs” (people spotted starting to cross who turned back to avoid getting caught); and “got-aways” (people detected by agents or surveillance equipment but not caught). A 90 percent effectiveness rate means nine apprehensions and turn-backs for each got-away. 

The Border Patrol doesn’t release information on turn-backs or got-aways to the public, just apprehensions; and it admits that the effectiveness rate is a flawed yardstick. Among other gaps, it can’t account for crossers whom agents don’t see. And because the Border Patrol works between ports of entry, its rate doesn’t include those who cross illegally at ports of entry, either hidden in vehicles or using false documents. 

The Government Accountability Office, in a report last December, published previously unreleased data showing that the Border Patrol’s effectiveness rate for fiscal 2011 was 84 percent. By that yardstick, getting to 90 percent isn’t a huge stretch, noted former DHS official Roberts. 

The Border Patrol hasn’t released turn-back or got-away data for fiscal 2012, and hadn’t responded by deadline to The Republic’s request for that information.
Outside researchers say efforts to come up with a better approach to accounting for undocumented migration run smack into Homeland Security’s unwillingness to let academics analyze its data. 

Last year, for example, a panel of leading statisticians, economists and demographers at the National Academy of Sciences conducted a study on illegal immigration at the request of Homeland Security. But the DHS refused to provide the panel key apprehension data, such as coded fingerprint figures that would identify precise numbers of repeat crossers. The DHS had demanded that researchers promise not to disclose that data to the public. Panel members said keeping the information classified would impair the quality of their work; they declined, and didn’t get the data. 

That study, which included data from Mexican governmental sources and previous U.S. academic studies, suggested that about three-quarters of those who decide to cross keep trying until they make it. Other outside studies have found 85 or even 90 percent make it. 

“Almost everybody who really tries eventually gets in,” said Jeffrey Passel, a member of the panel and a senior demographer at the Pew Hispanic Center, a nonpartisan research organization in Washington, D.C., that studies the U.S. Hispanic population. 

The National Academy of Sciences study essentially was ignored in presentations that the DHS gave to the Senate earlier this year during the immigration-reform debate, said the study’s panel members. 

They said the DHS was not eager to draw attention to the study’s findings even though it paid for the report. “In a sense, it throws a monkey wrench into the discussions on immigration. I’m totally for immigration reform, but this report would make Republicans giddy and Democrats go, ‘Oh, crap,’ ” said Alicia Carriquiry, a professor of statistics at Iowa State University and a co-author of the study.

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The spread of "sprawl" as latest explanation of black poverty

In the New York Times, David Leonhardt ponders critics (like me) pointing out that Raj Chetty's map of upward mobility (defined as chance child in bottom 20% of income in 1996 makes it to top 20% in income as a younger adult) in the United States looks like a map of the Where the Blacks Aren't. He answers by saying Chetty proved that wasn't true.

The simplest way to explain their conclusion may be to point out that upward mobility tends to be rare for both blacks and whites, as well as for Latinos, in low-mobility areas. In Charlotte, Atlanta and Indianapolis, low-income white children have also tended to grow up to be low-income adults. 

To help demonstrate this pattern, the four researchers – Raj Chetty and Nathaniel Hendren of Harvard and Patrick Kline and Emmanuel Saez of the University of California, Berkeley – have produced another map, showing mobility only for ZIP codes that are at least 80 percent white. (ZIP codes that are less than 80 percent simply appear as blank on the map.)

But the message is clear: the mobility patterns look overwhelmingly similar in this map and in the map above showing all metropolitan areas. 

It’s worth pointing out that race may still play a role in creating these patterns. “Racial shares in an area do matter,” Mr. Chetty says. “But it’s not race at the individual level. It’s race at the level of the ‘commuting zone,’” he added, using the researchers’ term for a region. Whatever the differences are between high-mobility and low-mobility regions, they seem to apply to residents of every race. 

No, race at the individual level still very much matters when you are looking at the chances of the bottom 20%. In the last map, these Southeastern and Rustbelt districts might be ones where blacks make up less than 20% of the population, but they still make up a much larger fraction of the bottom 20% than in the Great Plains.

No, a big part of this is simply Galtonian regression toward the mean. It shouldn't be controversial that whites have higher mean incomes than blacks. So, white children who find themselves growing up in the bottom 20% regress part way toward a higher mean than black children growing up in the bottom 20%.  

Then Leonhardt trots out the liberal explanation du jour for the poor economic performance of heavily black metropolitan areas: sprawl.

Writing about the new study for The Atlantic, Matthew O’Brien laid out a specific case for how race might have created economic segregation in sprawl-filled regions: 

Atlanta, of course, is the prototypical case here: going back to the 1970s, it’s under-invested in public transit,

Okay, but on net African-Americans have been moving from public transit rich NYC to the sprawling Atlanta metropolitan area in pursuit of a better standard of living. Are blacks irrational about this? Or is it simply that Chetty's study inadequately controls for the very different costs of housing across the country?

Sprawl might be one factor, but how long does it take to come up with a list of old fashioned cities like Baltimore, Cleveland, St. Louis, Newark, Hartford, and Milwaukee with intense black poverty? (Of course, if, say, whites in Hartford flee to the suburbs, leaving a black core, then that's "job sprawl." That's so unfalsifiable that if Sir Karl Popper were alive today, he'd be spinning in his grave.)

Also consider the changing impact of local climate, which has only disparate impact effect on race: Think of the wage premium needed to attract workers due to the climate, with Honolulu at zero extra dollars and Point Barrow, Alaska at a bundle. There has been a big shift over the generations. They've had central heating in the Dakotas for a long time now, but air conditioning has spread in Georgia only in the second half of the 20th Century. The spread of AC means Georgia is filling up with workers newly happy about the climate, keeping wages down as it lowers the wage premium in Georgia relative to the Dakotas. In other words, the standard of living has gone up in Georgia due to summers becoming more tolerable. All else being equal, an endogenous change in technology that makes the climate seem better will lower the wage premium.

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IQ and Iodine in WWII

The World's Awesomest Newspaper reports on a study from a few years ago:

In a report published in the National Bureau of Economic Research, James Freyer, David Weil and Dimitra Politi examined data from about two million enlistees for World War II born between 1921 and 1927, comparing the intelligence levels of those born just before 1924 and those born just after. 

To do this, they looked to standardized IQ tests that each recruit took as a part of the enlistment process.

While the researchers didn't have access to the test scores themselves, they had another way of gauging intelligence levels: smarter recruits were sent to the Air Forces, while the less intelligent ones were assigned to the Ground Forces. 

Next, the economists worked out likely iodine levels in different cities and towns around America using statistics gathered after World War I on the occurrence of goiter. 

Matching the recruits with their hometowns showed researchers that the men from low-iodine areas made a huge leap in IQ after the introduction of iodine. 

The men born in low-iodine areas after 1924 were much more likely to get into the Air Force and had an average IQ that was 15 points above that of their slightly older comrades. 

This averages out to a 3.5 point rise in IQ levels across the nation.

You can see something of a Flynn Effect in the historical record of conscription in the two world wars. American elites were shocked by what a sizable fraction of draftees in WWI were illiterate and/or kind of slow. WWII draftees were somewhat more satisfactory to the big shots. 

In particular, mechanical skills were very good. Thanks to Henry Ford, et al, young American men entered the military in WWII knowing more about repairing internal combustion engines than any other country's soldiers. In contrast, the Japanese started the war in the Pacific with elite technicians capable of bombing Pearl Harbor, but they couldn't ramp up the numbers anywhere near as fast 

But, I hadn't been aware of this 1924 bump.

Kiwanis International is the main charitable supporter of iodizing salt in poor countries.

I'm going to take some days to do some work around the place, so comment moderation gatekeeping  will lag. You might consider not posting comments until I resume regular posting
.

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Shakespeare's Complaint

I'm (slowly) rereading Hamlet for the first time in decades. Something that's obvious this time through is that -- despite the popularity of theories that the Man from Stratford, the well-known theatrical impresario, couldn't have written Shakespeare's plays -- Hamlet was written by a man in the theater business.

A giveaway is not just Hamlet's lengthy warnings to the Player-King about how to avoid bad acting, but also Shakespeare's curious loathing for the then-current (c. 1599) audience fad in London for troupes of child actors. Even top playwrights like Ben Jonson were suddenly writing for companies of child actors. This sensation was taking business away from grown-up troupes like Shakespeare's, forcing them out on the road like the poor wandering Players in Hamlet.

This excerpt from Hamlet is a little like a Simpsons episode in 2000 complaining about the new reality TV fad:

Hamlet -- Do they [i.e., Globe players] hold the same estimation they did when I was in the city? are they so followed?  

Rosencrantz -- No indeed they are not.  

Hamlet -- How comes it? do they grow rusty?  

Rosencrantz -- Nay, their endeavour keeps in the wonted pace: but there is sir, an aery [nest] of children, little eyases [eaglets], that cry out on the top of question, and are most tyrannically clapped for't: these are now the fashion, and so berattle [i.e., abuse] the common stages - so they call them - that many wearing rapiers [i.e., gallants] are afraid of goose-quills [i.e., the satire of the boys' playwrights] and dare scarce come thither [i.e., to the public playhouses].  

Hamlet -- What, are they children? who maintains 'em? how are they escoted [i. e., paid]? Will they pursue the quality [i. e., the profession of acting] no longer than they can sing [i. e., before their voices change]? will they not say afterwards, if they should grow to common players - as it is most like, if their means are no better - their writers do them wrong to make them exclaim against their own succession [i.e., the profession of public actor, to which they must shortly succeed].

Hamlet is an extremely long play, and one of the pleasures of putting on a production is slashing big chunks of Shakespeare's dialogue. It has more great lines than anything else in the English language, but it's also kind of bloated, begging to be trimmed. For example, this eminently losable topical section above is in the same scene (II, ii) following Hamlet's declaration to Rosencrantz and Guildenstern:

I have of late--but wherefore I know not--lost all my mirth, forgone all custom of exercises; and indeed it goes so heavily with my disposition that this goodly frame, the earth, seems to me a sterile promontory, this most excellent canopy, the air, look you, this brave o'erhanging firmament, this majestical roof fretted with golden fire, why, it appears no other thing to me than a foul and pestilent congregation of vapours.  

What a piece of work is a man! how noble in reason! how infinite in faculty! in form and moving how express and admirable! in action how like an angel! in apprehension how like a god! the beauty of the world! the paragon of animals! 

And yet, to me, what is this quintessence of dust? man delights not me: no, nor woman neither, though by your smiling you seem to say so.

It's kind of hard to top that, especially not with some facetiousness about a forgotten fad, so the child actors part is fun to cut. Shortening Hamlet helps theater people feel as if Shakespeare were less a dusty marble statue than their inspired but imperfect collaborator.

In general, the extraordinary cultural emphasis upon Shakespeare even now in the 21st Century is because actors find his work so actorly. There's something magical about how a player can take something so baffling on the page and make it at least vaguely comprehensible when spoken. Hamlet, with its play within a play and lengthy commentary about various matters pertaining to the stage, is the most meta-theatrical of Shakespeare's tragedies, and thus the most beloved by actors.

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Breakthrough study: Poor blacks tend to stay poor, black

Much attention has been given to this new map of income mobility by economist Raj Chetty showing average change in national income percentile from low income parents to their children over the last 15 years. 

Red areas -- such as the Southeast, the Rust Belt, and large Indian reservations -- are where few poor children have become prosperous younger adults. And white areas are where more children whose parents were well below average in income in 1996 have become well above average income younger adults. In other words, white areas, such as North Dakota, have had more income mobility.

No doubt, that has something to do with the energy boom in North Dakota, but also with the earlier tendency of young people with something on the ball in North Dakota to move to higher paying cities like Minneapolis and Denver. Until recently, North Dakota had one of the oldest populations in the country due to outflow of young career-seekers. (In Chetty's study, the younger generation are assigned to where they lived in 1996, not where they live now).

Chetty downplays the role of race for vague reasons, but in general his data suggests that income mobility is higher among white populations, as we see in Europe. Regression toward the mean can explain much of the above map of income mobility, with mostly white areas regressing toward a higher mean than heavily black areas.

There are some curious results in this analysis, such as that Charlotte, NC, a major destination for economic migrants over this period due to strong job growth and reasonable housing costs, is shown as having below average economic mobility. One reason is that, all else being equal, an increase in the labor supply keeps down wages of natives, although that's typically hard to see on maps of the U.S. because labor flows to prosperous areas.

A sizable methodological problem has to do with Chetty using national income percentiles, which are massively influenced by the cost of living, especially the cost of buying a home. If you grew up in New York City and stayed there, for example, you'd better be upwardly mobile relative to national average income if you want to continue to live indoors. Thus, more than a few people have left higher paying jobs in NYC for lower paying jobs (but a better standard of living) in Charlotte.

Conversely, the Eastern state with the strongest chance of a poor child getting well-to-do is West Virginia. Let me guess that most of them didn't do it by continuing to live in West Virginia, but by moving to somewhere like suburban Washington DC. Or Charlotte.

Interestingly, a graph of downward mobility shows that Los Angeles children who were at the 80th percentile nationally in 1996 are shown as being among the most downwardly mobile in income percentile in the country's big cities, but this probably has a lot to do with the huge outflow over the last 15 years from Los Angeles to lower cost of living (and lower income) areas.

Still, bearing all that in mind, here is Chetty's table of correlations by urban area ("commuting zone"), with the five worst correlations associated with the poor staying poor in red and the five biggest correlations associated with upward income mobility in blue:

Tax and other Correlations with Intergenerational Mobility 

Local Expenditure 0.215 (0.076)
State Tax 0.199 (0.141)
State EITC Rate 0.231 (0.109)
Student Expenditure 0.251 (0.094)
High-school Dropout Rate -0.639 (0.064)
Score 0.557 (0.086)
College Return -0.276 (0.137)
College Tuition -0.003 (0.060)
Colleges per capita 0.102 (0.042)
Inc. at p75 - Inc. at p25 -0.475 (0.089)
Share of Income of Top 1% 0.178 (0.068)
Share Black -0.605 (0.065)
Black Isolation -0.513 (0.065)
Segregation of Poverty -0.405 (0.063)
Migration Inflow -0.184 (0.075)
Share Foreign Born -0.016 (0.060)
Migration Outflow -0.098 (0.069)
Mean Household Income 0.109 (0.075)
Income Growth Rate 0.561 (0.066)
Share Manufacturing -0.260 (0.081)
Trade Shock -0.274 (0.124)
Social Capital Index 0.617 (0.091)
Religiosity 0.510 (0.087)
Crime Rate -0.326 (0.101)
Share Single Moms -0.763 (0.078)
Share Single Moms (kids of married) -0.652 (0.094)
Divorce Rate -0.688 (0.108)
Teen birth Rate -0.550 (0.091)

The correlations fit in well with Charles Murray's recent book Coming Apart (not to mention The Bell Curve): social capital first, then the nearly tautological income growth rate, then test scores, then religiosity, then a big drop down to school expenditures in fifth place. The highest correlation with a region's poor staying poor is share of single moms.

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Detroit v. Pittsburgh

From my new column in Taki's Magazine:

With Barack Obama solemnly recounting for us last Friday how being black in America has personally burdened him, race is back in the news. 

Actually, race is always in the news. Still, it’s worth using this particular intersection of inanity—during which the President and the Attorney General have made themselves look more foolish than Geraldo Rivera—to think through the most important question about race in the 21st century: How horrible would it really be if it became respectable to discuss racial realities seriously and intelligently?

Read the whole thing there.

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La Raza v. Los Anglos

From the New York Times: 

More than 5,000 Latinos from community groups came to the conference of NCLR, the nation’s largest Hispanic organization, which is also known as the National Council of La Raza. Facing fading momentum in Washington on immigration, the leaders said they were heading to the fight this fall with their rank and file intensely motivated and more united than ever. 

“Fear, denigration, abuse: those are words that resonate with our community, particularly when it comes to immigration,” Janet Murguía, the president of NCLR, said in a speech on Monday. 

She said the travails of millions of immigrants without legal status were widely affecting Latino neighborhoods, making them feel besieged the way African-Americans did during the civil rights era of the 1960s.

It's interesting that the National Council of La Raza appears to be hoping in the future to just go by their acronym NCLR, although that might not please the the National Center for Lesbian Rights.

With La Raza in the news again, it's worth looking at the thought of Mexican philosopher José Vasconcelos Calderon, whose 1925 book La Raza Cosmica is the well-spring of the Mexican ethnoracial ideology reflected in NCLR's last two initials.

Vasconcelos was, as you'd imagine, more of a white Hispanic than George Zimmerman is.

Here's a long essay denouncing Vasconcelos as a racist, even as a Nazi for taking German money to write anti-English essays during WWII.

Wikipedia offers a few quotes from Vasconcelos, including this regrettable effusion immediately following the English defeat at Dunkirk:

"Hitler, although he disposes of absolute power, finds himself a thousand leagues from Caesarism. Power does not come to Hitler from the military base, but from the book that inspires the troops from the top. Hitler's power is not owed to the troops, nor the battalions, but to his own discussions... Hitler represents, ultimately, an idea, the German idea, so often humiliated previously by French militarism and English perfidy. Truthfully, we find civilian governed 'democracies' fighting against Hitler. But they are democracies in name only". ("La Inteligencia se impone", Timon 16, June 8, 1940)

I think it's fairer to say that Vasconcelos just really disliked Anglo-Saxons, and saw himself, in fortifying the post-Revolutionary Mexican government's anti-Americanism and in attacking Britain in June 1940, as continuing the long struggle between Spanish and English civilizations that goes back to Henry VIII's mistreatment of his first wife Katharine of Aragon. 

Growing up, Vasconcelos lived on the Mexican bank of the Rio Grande, but attended school across the river in Eagle Pass, Texas. Americans widely assume that to know us is to love us, but that's not necessarily true, especially for young male intellectuals.

Vasconcelos wrote:

How different the sounds of the Ibero-American development [from that of the Anglo-Saxons]! They resemble the profound scherzo of a deep and infinite symphony: Voices that bring accents from Atlantis; depths contained in the pupil of the red man, who knew so much, so many thousand years ago, and now seems to have forgotten everything. His soul resembles the old Mayan cenote [natural well] of green waters, laying deep and still, in the middle of the forest, for so many centuries since, that not even its legend remains any more. This infinite quietude is stirred with the drop put in our blood by the Black, eager for sensual joy, intoxicated with dances and unbridled lust. There also appears the Mongol, with the mystery of his slanted eyes that see everything according to a strange angle, and discover I know not what folds and newer dimensions. 

The clear mind of the White, that resembles his skin and his dreams, also intervenes. Judaic striae hidden within the Castilian blood since the days of the cruel expulsion now reveal themselves, along with Arabian melancholy, as a remainder of the sickly Muslim sensuality. Who has not a little of all this, or does not wish to have all? There is the Hindu, who also will come, who has already arrived by way ofthe spirit, and although he is the last one to arrive, he seems the closest relative ...

A Brazilian intellectual, Gilberto Freyre, came up with a similar but mulatto rather than mestizo oriented theory, Lusotropicalism, that was adopted by the rightist Salazar dictatorship of Portugal to justify holding on to Angola and Mozambique. (In contrast to the Spanish, the Portuguese traditionally got along with the English, to keep from being overwhelmed by their Iberian neighbor.)

Vasconcelos observed, with some acuity:

"Each of the great nations of History has believed itself to be the final and chosen one. [...] The English found theirs on observations relative to domestic animals. From the observation of cross-breeding and hereditary varieties in such animals, Darwinism emerged. First, as a modest zoological theory, then as social biology that confers definitive preponderance to the English above all races. Every imperialism needs a justifying philosophy". (La raza cósmica, 1948)

I've harped on the same point, that Darwinism-Galtonism is an outgrowth of smart, rich country boys breeding animals, a field in which the British led the world from the 18th Century onward. 

The triumph of British ideas like Darwinism was not unconnected with the triumph of British horse racing. It's not a coincidence that the various Jockey Clubs founded in 19th Century continental Europe and Argentina were centers of Anglophile sentiment. Jules Verne's Around the World in Eighty Days, and its hero Phineas Fogg (played by David Niven in the movie), is the purest expression of modernizing 19th Century Continental admiration for the sporting English gentleman, a sentiment which Vasconcelos did not much share.

Ironically, this nearly 500 year old Hispanic annoyance at Anglo presumption has taken on new life with the current Cuban putsch within the Republican Party over immigration.

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Giant study proves Zuckerberg wrong

From the NYT: 

Although certain kinds of engineers are in short supply in the United States, plenty of potential candidates exist for thousands of positions for which companies want to import guest workers, according to an analysis of three million résumés of job seekers in the United States. 

The numbers, prepared by a company called Bright, which collects résumés and uses big data tools to connect job seekers with openings, enter a contentious debate over whether tech companies should be allowed to expand their rolls of guest workers. In lobbying Congress for more of these temporary visas, called H-1B visas, the technology industry argues there are not enough qualified Americans. Its critics, including labor groups, say bringing in guest workers is a way to depress wages in the industry. 

Many economists take issue with the industry’s argument, too.

To be precise, economics takes issue with the industry's argument. In contrast, economists, on average, have been shamefully reticent about pointing out that the Silicon Valley billionaires are denying the basic findings of economics (e.g., supply and demand) to add to their billions. Why? Maybe they figure if they are nice to the billionaires, the billionaires might be nice to them.

... “I didn’t expect this result,” said Steve Goodman, Bright’s chief executive.
Bright is based in San Francisco, and it makes money in part by placing qualified candidates with recruiters and, according to Mr. Goodman, employs workers using H-1B visas. “We’re Silicon Valley people, we just assumed the shortage was true,” Mr. Goodman said. “It turns out there is a little Silicon Valley groupthink going on about this, though it’s not comfortable to say that.” 

For a few job categories, like computer systems analysts, there are relatively few “good fits” among American applicants, Bright found. Computer systems analyst jobs, considered relatively low-skilled in the tech world, had four openings for every American candidate. For others, like high-skilled computer programmers, there were more than enough potential candidates in the United States, the company found. 

Bright’s study is unlikely to end the debate, partly because it rests on the company’s proprietary algorithm to determine who is a “good fit” for a particular job opening. Its algorithm uses a range of criteria, including work experience and education, but also work descriptions that indicated a high likelihood of other skills.  

For the study, Bright looked at the job categories for which firms applied for H-1B visas, and then, looked at résumés of job seekers in the United States whose résumés matched those same categories. 

Giovanni Peri, an economist at University of California, Davis, said that the Bright study was insufficient to determine whether there was a need for foreign engineers.

Hey, Giovanni, didn't you prove that in 2007, immigration was wonderful for California workers? Has anything happened economically in California since 2007? Seems like I read about something in the papers.

“It is the difference between job vacancies (demand) and unemployed with right qualifications (supply) that provides a measure of the excess (or not) of demand,” he said. “Knowing only the number of unemployed with right qualifications does not do it.” 

The Senate immigration bill, passed last month, nearly doubles the number of H-1B visas that companies can seek every year.

... Bright’s analysis suggests a hierarchy in the industry that mirrors what has long been said about jobs like low-skilled agricultural or restaurant work: Americans could do these jobs, but are unlikely to accept the pay or conditions. As a result, the jobs are taken by immigrants. 

The age of workers, which the study did not look at, may also play a role. Experienced American workers tend to be older in an industry that prizes youth. 

A study conducted by a Seattle-based company called Payscale found that among 32 technology companies surveyed, only six had a work force with a median age over 35. At Monster, the job search portal, the median age was 30; at Google, 29; and at Facebook, 28. The median age of American workers over all is 42.3 years old, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. 

Another reason for a youth bias is the cost of health insurance, which is immense these days. Peter Schaeffer's rough estimate is that health care (private and public) costs a staggering $12 per hour worked in the United States.

Yet, what do you think health insurance costs per worker at Facebook compared to, say, at General Electric? Not much, right? It's one reason you can get so Zuckerberg Rich in tech -- you don't have to pay much for your employees' health insurance. Obviously, that's not the only reason, but it's pretty weird that ultra-rich companies like Facebook bear so little of the burden of health care.

But, in my experience, people tend to get old. So, shoving the costs of health care onto somebody else, while good for Mark Zuckerberg's net worth, is just a zero sum game, one that the tech billionaires are winning, which means that somebody else (i.e., you) are losing.

... Later that day, Bright was having a party, partly to attract new talent, he said, including foreign programmers here on H-1B visas.

Bright's report is here.

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George Zimmerman runs amok again

Once again, the Most Hated Man in America gets out of his vehicle. From ABC News today:

By MATT GUTMAN (@mattgutmanABC) and ALEXIS SHAW (@ashaw109) 

July 22, 2013 

George Zimmerman, who has been in hiding since he was acquitted of murder in the death of Trayvon Martin, emerged to help rescue a family who was trapped in an overturned vehicle, police said today. 

Zimmerman was one of two men who came to the aid of a family of four -- two parents and two children -- trapped inside a blue Ford Explorer SUV that had rolled over after traveling off the highway in Sanford, Fla. at approximately 5:45 p.m. Thursday, the Seminole County Sheriff's Office said in a statement. 

The crash occurred at the intersection of I-4 and route Route 46, police said. The crash site is less than a mile from where Zimmerman shot Martin. 

By the time police arrived, two people - including Zimmerman - had already helped the family get out of the overturned car, the sheriff's office said. No one was reported to be injured. 

Zimmerman was not a witness to the crash and left after speaking with the deputy, police said. 

It's the first known sighting of Zimmerman since he left the courtroom following his acquittal last week on murder charges for the death of Martin. Zimmerman, 29, shot and killed Martin, 17, in Sanford, Fla., on Feb. 26, 2012. The jury determined that Zimmerman shot Martin in self-defense.

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Is violent crime actually falling?

You've probably noticed that Chicago's weekend shooting wrap-up articles tend to have headlines with ratios of dead to wounded like this from the long Fourth of July weekend:

Chicago Shootings: 12 Killed, At Least 62 Wounded In Gun Violence Over Long Holiday Weekend

These days in Chicago, a city with fine trauma care centers, it's not uncommon for only 15 or 20 percent of gunshot victims to die, at least according to my scan of weekend wrap-up headlines.

From the WSJ in 2012:

At the same time, medical data and other surveys in the U.S. show a rising number of serious injuries from assaults with guns and knives. The estimated number of people wounded seriously enough by gunshots to require a hospital stay, rather than treatment and release, rose 47% to 30,759 in 2011 from 20,844 in 2001, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's National Electronic Injury Surveillance System-All Injury Program.

Now, this statistic might not be the gold standard of serious violent crime, either. Perhaps guns improved enough to to do more serious damage requiring more than treatment and release. What about better ambulances keeping victims alive long enough to get to the hospital rather than the morgue? Still, this stat raises questions about the assumption that violent crime is steadily falling.

The CDC estimates showed the number of people injured in serious stabbings rose to 23,550 from 22,047 over the same period. 

Mortality rates of gunshot victims, meanwhile, have fallen, according to research performed for The Wall Street Journal by the Howard-Hopkins Surgical Outcomes Research Center, a joint venture between Howard University and Johns Hopkins University. In 2010, 13.96% of U.S. shooting victims died, almost two percentage points lower than in 2007. 

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New Unz article on race and crime

From Ron Unz's new article on race and crime:

Thus, replacing a city’s blacks with immigrants would tend to lower local crime rates by as much as 90%, and during the 1990s American elites may have become increasingly aware of this important fact, together with the obvious implications for their quality of urban life and housing values. 

According to Census data, between 1990 and 2010 the number of Hispanics and Asians increased by one-third in Los Angeles, by nearly 50% in New York City, and by over 70% in Washington, D.C.  The inevitable result was to squeeze out much of the local black population, which declined, often substantially, in each location.  And all three cities experienced enormous drops in local crime, with homicide rates falling by 73%, 79%, and 72% respectively, perhaps partly as a result of these underlying demographic changes.  Meanwhile, the white population increasingly shifted toward the affluent, who were best able to afford the sharp rise in housing prices.  It is an undeniable fact that American elites, conservative and liberal alike, are today almost universally in favor of very high levels of immigration, and their possible recognition of the direct demographic impact upon their own urban circumstances may be an important but unspoken factor in shaping their views.

Read the whole thing there.

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NYT: Law of supply and demand applies to immigration

From the New York Times, an article about Los Angeles and immigration:

Being Legal Doesn’t End Poverty 

By JENNIFER MEDINA 

LOS ANGELES — THOSE pressing for change in the country’s immigration system like to say that creating a path to citizenship will bring the estimated 11 million undocumented immigrants “out of the shadows.” It is taken as a given that legal status will help them climb the economic ladder. 

But in this city, and in urban areas across the country, it seems clear that even with full citizenship, many could remain in the shadow economy, earning cash for low-wage jobs. 

Millions of workers in the United States — those who sew clothes, mow lawns, care for children, construct homes, clean offices and serve food — function almost entirely in a cash economy. For undocumented immigrants, working for cash tends to be the most reliable way to earn an income while avoiding any attention from the government. 

Advocates of the immigration bill have used economic mobility as an argument for legalizing the millions already living here. They enthusiastically embraced a Congressional Budget Office report last month that said the Senate’s immigration bill would increase the size of the labor force and lead to greater productivity, which would raise average wages in the long term and have broad economic impact. Last week, business groups continued to pressure House Republicans to consider similar legislation. 

But it is hardly a given that citizenship is a route to better jobs. 

“Having legal status takes away one threat that people held over their workers, but it doesn’t do much more than that,” in the workplace, said Victor Narro, the project director for the Labor Center at the University of California, Los Angeles. 

When the Labor Center studied wage violations in 2009, it found that foreigners in general were more likely than native-born workers to be paid less than the minimum wage and that undocumented immigrants, particularly women, were even worse off. But the study also found that foreign-born workers who were legal residents were almost twice as likely to be paid less than the minimum wage as American-born employees.

By the way, the minimum wage is a bit of a red herring. You probably need two parents each making, say, three times the minimum wage to have a chance of affording to buy a home in immigrant-heavy California. The husband probably needs to get up to about five times the minimum wage to afford kids.

But, the minimum wage is still part of the picture.

 The cash economy is particularly important in California, which has more undocumented immigrants than any other state and the eighth largest economy in the world. The sheer size of the immigrant work force and economy allows business owners to create a norm of paying off the books that would be unthinkable in another time or place, said Ruth Milkman, a labor expert and professor of sociology at the City University of New York Graduate Center. 

“Employers have really gotten into the habit that this is the normal way of doing business,” Professor Milkman said. “They don’t particularly want to change, and nobody is making them do it. The immigration bill certainly doesn’t change much for employers who take the low road.” 

Day laborers, those men standing in front of Home Depots and on street corners looking for whatever work comes their way, are perhaps the most widely recognizable stream of cash workers. Often, these men were mechanics, engineers or even architects and doctors in their home countries.

No, not the last three categories.

The vast majority are undocumented immigrants. But in recent years, with the economy struggling, more of these immigrants have been standing in lots next to citizens, who are equally eager to find work, said Chris Newman, the legal director for the National Day Laborer Organizing Network. 

“We see people who rotate in and out, they come find work for the day and go to another job at night,” Mr. Newman said. “You lose a foothold in the formal economy and it’s a natural place to go.” 

Last month, the Labor Department reported that there are 2.7 million temp workers, more than ever before. As more large companies rely on temp agencies to fill their ranks, it is possible that more American workers, legally or not, could be treated like day laborers — who can be employed one day and out of a job the next. Mr. Newman repeated something that he has said to himself over and over again amid the debate in Washington: “Immigration laws are malleable, but the law of supply and demand is immutable.”

Right.

The way he sees it, as long as there is growing demand for an informal labor market, there will be people to supply that work force.

Or as long as there is a growing number of people to supply that work force, there will be employers offering only low wages. It really does work in both directions. To help our fellow American citizens, it makes sense to push on both the immigration restriction lever and minimum wage lever simultaneously. They work together to make the other more effective.

Jennifer Medina is a national correspondent for The New York Times.

And here's a sushi restaurant on Rodeo Drive that charges about a $500 per diner, but doesn't let kitchen workers take bathroom breaks or get paid overtime:

But by all appearances, there has been no backlash against the restaurant. Jonathan Gold, the influential food critic for The Los Angeles Times, named it the No. 2 restaurant in the city earlier this year, with no mention of the recent controversy.

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A white-black coalition on immigration?

In the first half of the 20th Century, one of the deepest fault lines in American politics divided labor unions from manufacturers. They constantly fought over who got the bigger piece of the pie. 

Yet, these political enemies also united to back one major policy: tariffs. They understood that they had a good thing going together here in America, so why let outsiders horn in on the deal? It was in their interest to agree 5% of the time so that when they fought the other 95% of time they'd both come out better off.

This same old-fashioned logic suggests that American whites and American blacks would be wise to unite politically to restrict immigration. Whatever else you can say, on the whole, we've all got a good thing going together here in America, so why let outsiders horn in on the deal? We can get back to fighting over how to divvy up the pie afterwards.

But, this kind of common-sensical single-purpose political alliance seems much harder to pull off these days, when globalist interests control most of the vocabulary on all sides of the fence. Now, it's far more morally respectable for globalists of varying hues to put together an enormously cynical coalition to increase immigration.

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Chris Matthews apologizes on behalf of all white people

Not from The Onion:

Chris Matthews apologizes to black co-workers on behalf of 'all white people'

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NPR: "'Wringing' Out Personal Bias Is A Daily Exercise"

From NPR:

'Wringing' Out Personal Bias Is A Daily Exercise 

by LINDA WERTHEIMER 

July 20, 2013 7:39 AM

President Obama, in his speech on Friday, said that all of us should do some soul searching. Not a conversation on race organized by politicians, he said. He suggested smaller and more personal places for those conversations — families, churches and workplaces — and he suggested a conversation that each person could have with him or herself: "Am I wringing as much bias out of myself as I can?" 

I think that's an important question, or perhaps more of a process, and not an easy one. Like most people who grew to adulthood in the civil rights years, I thought a lot about racism and believed it to be hateful. I admired the heroes of the civil rights movement — it has always been a point of pride with me to remember that I was on the Mall for the March on Washington. It did not occur to me to think of myself as a racist — I believed and still believe that I was not. 

But when I married and moved to Washington, to live in a city that was mostly black, I surprised myself. Every once in a while a random thought would drift into my mind — what is he doing here? Where did she get that dog? Small, mingey * terrible little thoughts, which when I turned them over and looked at them, horrified me. I thought that I'd been giving myself too much credit. 

Obviously I needed some wringing out. 

One of the blessings of our fair city, which can be completely exasperating, filled as it is with argument and ego, is that it also offers its citizens the blessing of living together, in a relatively tolerant atmosphere. Here, wringing bias out of your mind and heart is not theoretical. And that has made it easier. Of course I am not perfect even after all these years. But to paraphrase the president, perhaps a little more perfect.

No comment.

* Okay, I do have a comment on Linda's apparently canine-related use of the obscure term "mingey," which follows the also opaque "Where did she get that dog?"

mingey
Web definitions
nip, pinch, bite (of bird); nipping, biting, pinching.

So, maybe Linda had a nipping, biting, perhaps mangy dog? And then it got stolen and now every time she sees a black woman with the same expensive breed, she wonders if the black lady bought it from a stolen dog fence?

Or, did she mean:

min·gy  
/ˈminjē/
Adjective
Mean and stingy: "you've been mingy with the sunscreen".
Unexpectedly or undesirably small.
Synonyms
stingy - niggardly - miserly - mean - skimpy

Maybe Linda started out saying N-Synonym, but then got worried about getting David Howarded, and just improvised a new word, free association style.

Commenter AMac writes:

Linda Wertheimer lives in Northwest DC -- the nice part. Her Zip Code is XXXXX, which comes in as SuperZip #67 in Charles Murray's ranking of Zip Codes (data here). Median family income is $175,000; people there rank above 99.6% of their fellow Americans by Murray's centile score. George Zimmerman's gated community (or crime-ridden condo complex, if you prefer) is in Zip YYYYY, which Murray ranks in position 12,435 (of 23,948 total). Median family income is $53,400, and 32.8% of Americans live in Zips with worse centile scores. Trayvon Martin's mother lives in Miami Gardens, whose ZZZZZ Zip sits at #15,776. Family income $52,600, centile score 22.1%. 

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Obama, Trayvon, and Hispapathy

From the NYT:

Obama Takes On Florida Killing and Race in U.S. 

... On Friday, reading an unusually personal, handwritten statement, Mr. Obama summed up his views with a single line: “Trayvon Martin could have been me 35 years ago.” ...

The White House’s original plan — for Mr. Obama to address the verdict in brief interviews on Tuesday with four Spanish-language television networks — was foiled when none of them asked about it.

Hispanic apathy strikes again!

The most underrated force in American life is Latino lethargy.

By the way, Hail dug up a poll reporting Hispanic views on the verdict: closer to white than black views.

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Obama: "African-American boys are more violent"

Some interesting bullet points excerpted from President Obama's speech today:

- "African-American young men are disproportionately involved in the criminal justice system, that they are disproportionately both victims and perpetrators of violence."

- "African-American boys are more violent" 

- "Trayvon Martin was probably statistically more likely to be shot by a peer than he was by somebody else."

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A suggestion for President Obama

After the President's depressed Trayvon Martin speech today, I'm reminded that next month, August 28, 2013, is the 50th anniversary of Martin Luther King's "I Have a Dream" speech. 

Why not use that propitious occasion to declare victory in the long war on Jim Crow and white racism and announce you are bringing the federal troops home?

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Obama's statement on Zimmerman-Martin

A downbeat Obama appeared before the press today:

You know, when Trayvon Martin was first shot, I said that this could have been my son.

Yeah, I know it was kind of cheesy, but Michelle loved that line.

Of course, if I'd married my old girlfriend, Genevieve, our son would have looked more like George Zimmerman, but, then, Genevieve and I never would have allowed our son to live in some crime-ridden exurban sticksville, so that's irrelevant.

Still, I wonder what Genny's up to? I saw in the Times where she married that Egyptian guy, but that couldn't have lasted, could it?

Another way of saying that is Trayvon Martin could have been me 35 years ago.

When I was a preppy at Punahou and a liberal arts major at Oxy, I was quite the badass.

And when you think about why, in the African- American community at least, there’s a lot of pain around what happened here, I think it’s important to recognize that the African- American community is looking at this issue through a set of experiences and a history that -- that doesn’t go away. 

It used to be Civil War-obsessed white Southerners who said things like, "The past is never dead. It's not even past." Should I cite Faulkner for the literary cred, or is it too uncomfortable?

There are very few African-American men in this country who haven’t had the experience of being followed when they were shopping in a department store. That includes me. 

Note to self: include a searing chapter in my post-presidential memoir on that security guard at the State Street Marshall Field's who eyeballed me in a suspicious manner while I was in the scarf section. Leave out the part about her being black. (My agent says an 8-figure advance is possible. Note to self: Find a new agent who will take on the ex-President for the prestige plus a 2.5% commission.)

And there are very few African-American men who haven’t had the experience of walking across the street and hearing the locks click on the doors of cars.

As you'll recall, Zimmerman got out of the car even though the police ordered him not to. But locking yourself in your car is also racist ...

That happens to me, at least before I was a senator.

Have I ever mentioned how fascinating the young me found the ice machine in motels? I did? Hmmhhmm, my next book about me is going to be a struggle. I should have tried to lead a more interesting pre-Presidential life.

There are very few African-Americans who haven’t had the experience of getting on an elevator and a woman clutching her purse nervously and holding her breath until she had a chance to get off.

That happens often. 

What the hell is wrong with women anyway? Look at my harpy grandmother, demanding my poor grandfather get up off the couch and drive her to her bank veep job to keep her from being mugged by some black drifter at her bus stop. Did I mention she was an alcoholic? I shouldn't have mentioned that to Maraniss, but nobody read his book anyway, so I can easily get a chapter out of her losing her struggle with the bottle.

And you know, I don’t want to exaggerate this, but those sets of experiences inform how the African-American community interprets what happened one night in Florida. And it’s inescapable for people to bring those experiences to bear. ...

The African-American community is also knowledgeable that there is a history of racial disparities in the application of our criminal laws, everything from the death penalty to enforcement of our drug laws. And that ends up having an impact in terms of how people interpret the case. 

Now, this isn’t to say that the African-American community is naive about the fact that African-American young men are disproportionately involved in the criminal justice system, that they are disproportionately both victims and perpetrators of violence. It’s not to make excuses for that fact, although black folks do interpret the reasons for that in a historical context. 

Remember that David Remnick bestseller that was supposed to be about me but was mostly about a bunch of historical context stuff that happened in Selma while I was making sand castles on Waikiki Beach? Maybe I should write my next autobiography like that?

We understand that some of the violence that takes place in poor black neighborhoods around the country is born out of a very violent past in this country, and that the poverty and dysfunction that we see in those communities can be traced to a very difficult history. 

I could do a series of PBS specials where I visit landmark sites in the history of the civil rights struggle and then talk about my feelings when I first heard about them during class discussions at Punahou. We could do dramatic re-enactments of key scenes in American history like the murder of those four little girls and that classmate wanting to touch my hair. Who should play me at Punahou? Does Will Smith have any more sons?

And so the fact that sometimes that’s unacknowledged adds to the frustration.

The media doesn't talk about the KKK enough. We need more movies like Django Unchained. (How about Obama Unchained, where I'm finally free of the stifling White House living quarters. Do you realize I have to live with my mother-in-law? On January 21, 2017, I will -- free, free at last -- walk to the bookstore and spend the afternoon browsing in the lit fic section. But will there even be bookstores in 2017? Or will I be condemned to spend the rest of my life like Bill Clinton, checking my iPhone and talking to people?)

And the fact that a lot of African-American boys are painted with a broad brush and the excuse is given, well, there are these statistics out there

What organization puts these statistics out there anyway?

that show that African-American boys are more violent -- using that as an excuse to then see sons treated differently causes pain. 

You see, harping on white racism several generations ago is providing "context" for black criminality today, while pointing out the high rate of black criminality today is making "an excuse" for racial profiling. It's really quite simple when you stop and think about it: just ask, "Whose side am I on?" and you are 90% of the way there.

Can you imagine where I'd be if I had never figured that out?

I think the African-American community is also not naive in understanding that statistically somebody like Trayvon Martin was probably statistically more likely to be shot by a peer than he was by somebody else. 

Okay, a pre-emptive concession to Limbaugh and Coulter, and the MSNBC crowd won't comprehend that sentence -- their brains turn off when they hear "statistically," and I used it twice -- so it's win-win. You know, if you are a good enough lawyer, you don't have to, exactly, lie.

So -- so folks understand the challenges that exist for African- American boys, but they get frustrated, I think, if they feel that there’s no context for it or -- and that context is being denied.

In other words, there is much frustration that George Zimmerman wasn't railroaded in 2013 for what white people did in 1913, that The Narrative wasn't allowed to overwhelm minor matters such as the rule of law and individual questions of guilt or innocence in the name of context. I can live with that.

And -- and that all contributes, I think, to a sense that if a white male teen was involved in the same kind of scenario, that, from top to bottom, both the outcome and the aftermath might have been different.

Yeah, like if Travis Martin had gotten shot by Paul Blarto, condo cop, I never would have heard about this whole fiasco. Of course, as Axelrod kept insisting, we needed massive black turnout in Cleveland, Philadelphia, Detroit, and Miami to win re-election, so it's all for the best, but still, can't we just move on? Can't we get back to talking about Emmett Till, or me, instead of about the present?

... But beyond protests or vigils, the question is, are there some concrete things that we might be able to do? I know that Eric Holder is reviewing what happened down there ...

Like Holder's really going to find out anything new and useful. Every damn thing that's come out in the last 15 months has been unhelpful. Why did I ever get myself into this tarball, anyway? I mean, besides re-election ...

... but I think it’s important for people to have some clear expectations here. Traditionally, these are issues of state and local government -- the criminal code. And law enforcement has traditionally done it at the state and local levels, not at the federal levels. 

That doesn’t mean, though, that as a nation, we can’t do some things that I think would be productive. So let me just give a couple of specifics that I’m still bouncing around with my staff so we’re not rolling out some five-point plan, but some areas where I think all of us could potentially focus.

1. Spend more on diversity sensitivity training

Number one, precisely because law enforcement is often determined at the state and local level, I think it’d be productive for the Justice Department -- governors, mayors to work with law enforcement about training at the state and local levels in order to reduce the kind of mistrust in the system that sometimes currently exists. ...

So that’s one area where I think there are a lot of resources and best practices that could be brought bear if state and local governments are receptive. And I think a lot of them would be. And -- and let’s figure out other ways for us to push out that kind of training.

Hey, look, all the reporters are writing down what I just said, as if diversity sensitivity training is some groundbreaking new Nobel-worthy idea I just came up with. If I weren't so bored and depressed, I could have some fun seeing seeing what I could get reporters to write down like I'm Moses come down from the mountain.

2. Stand Your Ground Laws

Along the same lines, I think it would be useful for us to examine some state and local laws to see if it -- if they are designed in such a way that they may encourage the kinds of altercations and confrontations and tragedies that we saw in the Florida case, rather than diffuse potential altercations. 

I know that there’s been commentary about the fact that the stand your ground laws in Florida were not used as a defense in the case. 

But that's not the point, is it? The point is that we need to be talking about what I want to talk about, not some technicalities about what actually happened.

On the other hand, if we’re sending a message as a society in our communities that someone who is armed potentially has the right to use those firearms even if there’s a way for them to exit from a situation, is that really going to be contributing to the kind of peace and security and order that we’d like to see? 

And for those who resist that idea that we should think about something like these “stand your ground” laws, I just ask people to consider if Trayvon Martin was of age and armed, could he have stood his ground on that sidewalk? And do we actually think that he would have been justified in shooting Mr. Zimmerman, who had followed him in a car, because he felt threatened?

Zimmerman should have unlocked his doors and driven in the opposite direction.

And if the answer to that question is at least ambiguous, it seems to me that we might want to examine those kinds of laws.

Because what else do we have on our plates at the moment? Do you have some higher priority than Florida laws?

3. Bolster young black male self-esteem

Number three -- and this is a long-term project: We need to spend some time in thinking about how do we bolster and reinforce our African-American boys? And this is something that Michelle and I talk a lot about. There are a lot of kids out there who need help who are getting a lot of negative reinforcement. And is there more that we can do to give them the sense that their country cares about them and values them and is willing to invest in them?

Maybe we should try to help young black males get fast food starter jobs instead of just employing illegals at McDonalds? Oh, wait, don't go there ...

You know, I’m not naive about the prospects of some brand-new federal program. 

I’m not sure that that’s what we’re talking about here. But I do recognize that as president, I’ve got some convening power. 

And there are a lot of good programs that are being done across the country on this front. And for us to be able to gather together business leaders and local elected officials and clergy and celebrities and athletes

I should have LeBron over. Sweet. You know, I always felt that he got a bad rap over going to Miami. I mean, if Nowitzki didn't have that epic shooting streak in the 2011 playoffs, LBJ would have three straight rings. Oh ... where was I?

and figure out how are we doing a better job helping young African-American men feel that they’re a full part of this society and that -- and that they’ve got pathways and avenues to succeed -- you know, I think that would be a pretty good outcome from what was obviously a tragic situation. And we’re going to spend some time working on that and thinking about that.

Okay, what I'm deep down talking about here is that horrible rap music (why doesn't today's youth like Stevie Wonder, anyway?) teaching black teens stupid lessons about never letting a diss go un-answered, but my NPR audience will never notice this. Hell, Sharpton craps on rap better than I ever could, but nobody pays attention to him when he's telling black people something that would be good for them, so I can't blame him for whipping up this fiasco. (But, I won't forgive him, either.)

4. Don't have a conversation about race, just silently stop noticing patterns.

And then finally, I think it’s going to be important for all of us to do some soul-searching. You know, there have been talk about should we convene a conversation on race. I haven’t seen that be particularly productive when politicians try to organize conversations.

Diss on Bill and Hill, and Holder, too. Have you noticed that Holder's getting on my nerves?

They end up being stilted and politicized, and folks are locked into the positions they already have. 

In other words, how did this whole Martin-Zimmerman conversation work out for my side (I mean, other than the re-election thing)? It turned out to be just every stereotype imaginable come to life. So, let's not discuss any lessons learned from this.

On the other hand, in families and churches and workplaces, there’s a possibility that people are a little bit more honest, and at least you ask yourself your own questions about, am I wringing as much bias out of myself as I can; am I judging people, as much as I can, based on not the color of their skin but the content of their character? That would, I think, be an appropriate exercise in the wake of this tragedy. 

"Am I wringing as much bias out of myself as I can?" If I say so myself, that one isn't bad! More Congregationalist than Maoist. That will give the post-Puritans something to do with their time.

#5. At least most people these days aren't as racist as my grandmother

And let me just leave you with -- with a final thought, that as difficult and challenging as this whole episode has been for a lot of people, I don’t want us to lose sight that things are getting better. Each successive generation seems to be making progress in changing attitudes when it comes to race. I doesn’t mean that we’re in a postracial society. It doesn’t mean that racism is eliminated. But you know, when I talk to Malia and Sasha and I listen to their friends and I see them interact, they’re better than we are.

You'd be surprised how few KKK members there are these days at a $35,000 per year Quaker school.

They’re better than we were on these issues. And that’s true in every community that I’ve visited all across the country. 

And so, you know, we have to be vigilant and we have to work on these issues, and those of us in authority should be doing everything we can to encourage the better angels of our nature as opposed to using these episodes to heighten divisions.

I'm the Divider. I get to use this fiasco, not you. I used it, so let's move on.

But we should also have confidence that kids these days I think have more sense than we did back then, and certainly more than our parents did or our grandparents did, and that along this long, difficult journey, you know, we’re becoming a more perfect union -- not a perfect union, but a more perfect union.

Remember how much everybody liked my "Toward a More Perfect Union" speech back in 2008 right after those awkward Rev. Wright tapes got aired? Let's try to recapture that feeling, people!

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Zimmerman and the cracks in the Obama Coalition

My new VDARE.com article considers the implications of the Zimmerman rhubarb for the politics of immigration policy:

You might think that the violent, mindless rage directed by Democrats at George Zimmerman as the face of white racism (despite his being Hispanic) might get Republicans pondering how to exploit the inherent cracks in the Obama Coalition.

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Summer fundraiser

By the way, I've got a VDARE.com article coming out later tonight on what the Zimmerman case illuminates about the politics of immigration. I may not stay up to post it, so, if you do, check over there.

As I've been suggesting for a long time, and as the events of the last week have confirmed, the dominant media mindset consists of large dollops of ignorance, rage, and deviousness. We need a new way of thinking about how the world works based on knowledge, a sense of humor, and honesty. I think that over the years I've got left, I can help forge one.

But I'll need your assistance, intellectual, psychological, and monetary.

So, first, you can make a tax deductible contribution via VDARE by clicking here.

Second, you can make a non-tax deductible contribution by credit card via WePay by clicking here. 

Third: You can mail a non-tax deductible donation to:

Steve Sailer

P.O Box 4142

Valley Village, CA 91607-4142

Thanks.

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GOP must agree to massively more immigration to avoid racially polarizing country

Ryan Lizza of The New Yorker is one of the better political reporters. He's even dared to write some subliminally ironic prose about Obama's road to the White House. But, when it comes to amnesty, he reflects the conventional wisdom in usefully condensed form.

KILLING THE IMMIGRATION BILL, POLARIZING AMERICA 

POSTED BY RYAN LIZZA

For House Republicans to reject Schumer-Rubio ...

... would intensify one of the less welcome political trends of the past few decades: the racial polarization of the electorate. In a recent paper, the political scientist Alan Abramowitz documented this “growing racial divide” in our system. “The growing dependence of the Democratic Party on nonwhite voters has contributed to the flight of racially and economically conservative white voters to the G.O.P. thereby further increasing the size of the racial divide between the party coalitions,” he noted. He predicted that this racial polarization would continue and deepen. 

The outcome of the immigration debate will decide how much this trend accelerates. Under one rather ominous scenario, House Republicans will kill immigration reform, and Democrats, led by President Obama, will mount a withering attack on the G.O.P. in the Hispanic community, blaming the Party for the bill’s demise. (In an interview with me earlier this year, a senior White House official was explicit that this is what would happen if Republicans scuttled the bill.) ... 

The net result of all this is the opposite of what the R.N.C. had in mind: a Republican strategy to defeat immigration reform, increase its support among whites, and make it harder for some nonwhites to vote. It’s a recipe for a future in which America’s two parties are largely defined by race. The unpleasant conclusion of this debate—and of the Obama years—could be the opposite of where we thought we were headed as a country. Rather than a multiracial future in which both parties compete aggressively for the votes of fast-growing nonwhite populations, Democrats and Republicans could become more cleaved than ever by race. The decision that Republicans make on immigration reform in the coming months will help determine that future.

Okay, but, you know, maybe importing tens of millions of nonwhite foreigners in the first place and then repeatedly boasting about how you'll use them to turn America into a permanent one party state might have something to do with the growing racial divide? I mean, I'm just sayin' ...

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