NYC found that recidivists were mostly the cause of what we call street crime. Of the 122,000-ish people arrested in NYC in 2024, 8% had more than 3 arrests. 92% had at least two.
And yes, had we bought into the GW Bush SS fix, we’d be in a far better situation. In the exact same way, the parties have demonized the immigration issue; they do the same thing to SS and Medicare fixes. Now it seems both parties have bought into “do nothing” which I must say they have fully accomplished.
I agree that it’s nice to see someone say something positive about Bush’s proposed SS reforms. The plan needed some adjustments, but it was a good idea. My main concern about it was that it would be corrupted by pressure to allow too much freedom (risk of piling into crypto eg) and to farm it out to rent-seeking financial companies in the name of efficiency. Like most privatization schemes, it would make a few people rich while meeting none of the efficiency goals.
Anyhow, never going to happen, so no point gaming it out.
Decoupling US and China and migrating some of the worlds's manufacturing baseaway frm China woul be much more if the US did not have tariffs and other import restrictions on _other countries._
Fare gates are interesting - they work to keep fare dodgers out - however in London we have some lines without any fare gates (DLR) that seem to be just as safe and raise just as much money as the rest.
The key perhaps is lower criminality in general, cameras and ease of payment - you just tap your phone or credit card on a card reader when entering or exiting. Makes paying very easy and quick, and means that you have many stations without any permanent attendants (reducing costs significantly.
They do have occasional spot checks - where they confirm that everyone on the train has a ticket - but these are not very often. (Twice a month or so.)
The question is what happens when the spot check finds someone who is a repeat offender? Also what does (or would?) the police (and the operator) do if the same intensity of disorderly conduct crops up around stations and on the trains?
It seems in the US this is a really neglected *and* hard issue. (Well, not like the mental healthcare chasm, homelessness, overdependence on cars, and lack of criminal-justice reforms would be much easier to fix anywhere.)
For example in Budapest the public transit operator had to put security guards for a few years on the excellent (frequent and with a ridiculously large coverage area) night bus service to keep too problematic people from getting on the buses.
Night connections are a special nightmare everywhere, mostly because of the increased inebriation of the patrons (well maybe not in Afghanistan, but everywhere where booze is legal), and indeed the usual way to make them safer is to deploy guards, especially in known "hubs" with lots of night bars.
Like Noah I used to enjoy Stewart, but I became disenchanted long ago---even though he can still make me laugh---because what he's doing to economics is the same as what he's doing to everything else. Any time you have a complicated issue, it's easy to create suspicion of the "experts" by pointing at apparent flaws in their approach that can only be explained away with long boring details, or at the times the experts were wrong. And equally easy to present seductively simple solutions that can only be refuted by long boring explanations.
It's a great way to tear everything down but not very useful for building anything up.
The progressive movement would do a lot better in polls and elections if it dropped the romantic concept of asocially-behaving individuals as "heroic rebels driven into despair by the evil racist system" and recognized them for who they are: people who don't mind victimizing others to get their way, both collectively (non-payment of fare, littering - "someone else will take care of that for someone elses' money!"), and individually.
It is exactly the poorest quintile of the society which suffers the most when this sort of behavior is silently tolerated, because they just cannot afford moving to a richer quieter neighbourhood or take their Tesla to work instead of taking public transport.
Tariffs are not _supposed_, ceteris paribus, to reduce trade balances. Tariffs casue changes in _relative_ prices import substitutes up, exports down. Trade balaces are a macro phenomenon involving the differences in saving and investment, about how the Fed deals with the huge fiscal deficits and the possible need for more inflation to facilitate relative price changes caused by the tariffs. [Yes triffs produce some revenue and that has some effect on the balance, but this effect is pretty small compared to total deficit.]
Economists have a branding problem in the US and that is downstream of the structure of where the public sees them.
In Germany, for example, economists work for the central bank, but also for the health ministry and various other government ministries. Economists work on health technology assessment that decides how much the health system should pay for drugs.
In the US, the impression is that professional economists just work for big business or in parts of government that serve big business.
And the impression while not strictly true, has a basis.
We used to have an office of technology assessment that was there to brief Congress on new technologies. It served as an independent research body. The Republicans killed it in 1995 to make sure that the only information about new technology that Congress would get would be from the hardworking lobbyists of God fearing American corporations.
That is to say, when Americans hear about "economists", they are very unlikely to hear about anyone working for the public interest. Instead, they are going to hear about some person working for bank or hedge fund.
This leads to the kind of mistake that Jon Stewart made.
Economists have to make the case for economics, dummy. No one else is gonna do it for them.
NYC found that recidivists were mostly the cause of what we call street crime. Of the 122,000-ish people arrested in NYC in 2024, 8% had more than 3 arrests. 92% had at least two.
And yes, had we bought into the GW Bush SS fix, we’d be in a far better situation. In the exact same way, the parties have demonized the immigration issue; they do the same thing to SS and Medicare fixes. Now it seems both parties have bought into “do nothing” which I must say they have fully accomplished.
I agree that it’s nice to see someone say something positive about Bush’s proposed SS reforms. The plan needed some adjustments, but it was a good idea. My main concern about it was that it would be corrupted by pressure to allow too much freedom (risk of piling into crypto eg) and to farm it out to rent-seeking financial companies in the name of efficiency. Like most privatization schemes, it would make a few people rich while meeting none of the efficiency goals.
Anyhow, never going to happen, so no point gaming it out.
The Dow was at 12,000 in 2007, it closed yesterday above 50,000. Yeah, our politicians are too f’ing stupid
Decoupling US and China and migrating some of the worlds's manufacturing baseaway frm China woul be much more if the US did not have tariffs and other import restrictions on _other countries._
"we trust the science" needs to include economics
(re Stewart item)
Fare gates are interesting - they work to keep fare dodgers out - however in London we have some lines without any fare gates (DLR) that seem to be just as safe and raise just as much money as the rest.
The key perhaps is lower criminality in general, cameras and ease of payment - you just tap your phone or credit card on a card reader when entering or exiting. Makes paying very easy and quick, and means that you have many stations without any permanent attendants (reducing costs significantly.
They do have occasional spot checks - where they confirm that everyone on the train has a ticket - but these are not very often. (Twice a month or so.)
The question is what happens when the spot check finds someone who is a repeat offender? Also what does (or would?) the police (and the operator) do if the same intensity of disorderly conduct crops up around stations and on the trains?
It seems in the US this is a really neglected *and* hard issue. (Well, not like the mental healthcare chasm, homelessness, overdependence on cars, and lack of criminal-justice reforms would be much easier to fix anywhere.)
For example in Budapest the public transit operator had to put security guards for a few years on the excellent (frequent and with a ridiculously large coverage area) night bus service to keep too problematic people from getting on the buses.
Night connections are a special nightmare everywhere, mostly because of the increased inebriation of the patrons (well maybe not in Afghanistan, but everywhere where booze is legal), and indeed the usual way to make them safer is to deploy guards, especially in known "hubs" with lots of night bars.
Well DLR has no late night service - so that probably helps. (Ends around 11pm).
I've not seen the consequences of a spot check failure - but we have a robust transport police so it might be pretty tough... but not sure at all.
Like Noah I used to enjoy Stewart, but I became disenchanted long ago---even though he can still make me laugh---because what he's doing to economics is the same as what he's doing to everything else. Any time you have a complicated issue, it's easy to create suspicion of the "experts" by pointing at apparent flaws in their approach that can only be explained away with long boring details, or at the times the experts were wrong. And equally easy to present seductively simple solutions that can only be refuted by long boring explanations.
It's a great way to tear everything down but not very useful for building anything up.
The progressive movement would do a lot better in polls and elections if it dropped the romantic concept of asocially-behaving individuals as "heroic rebels driven into despair by the evil racist system" and recognized them for who they are: people who don't mind victimizing others to get their way, both collectively (non-payment of fare, littering - "someone else will take care of that for someone elses' money!"), and individually.
It is exactly the poorest quintile of the society which suffers the most when this sort of behavior is silently tolerated, because they just cannot afford moving to a richer quieter neighbourhood or take their Tesla to work instead of taking public transport.
Tariffs are not _supposed_, ceteris paribus, to reduce trade balances. Tariffs casue changes in _relative_ prices import substitutes up, exports down. Trade balaces are a macro phenomenon involving the differences in saving and investment, about how the Fed deals with the huge fiscal deficits and the possible need for more inflation to facilitate relative price changes caused by the tariffs. [Yes triffs produce some revenue and that has some effect on the balance, but this effect is pretty small compared to total deficit.]
Economists have a branding problem in the US and that is downstream of the structure of where the public sees them.
In Germany, for example, economists work for the central bank, but also for the health ministry and various other government ministries. Economists work on health technology assessment that decides how much the health system should pay for drugs.
In the US, the impression is that professional economists just work for big business or in parts of government that serve big business.
And the impression while not strictly true, has a basis.
We used to have an office of technology assessment that was there to brief Congress on new technologies. It served as an independent research body. The Republicans killed it in 1995 to make sure that the only information about new technology that Congress would get would be from the hardworking lobbyists of God fearing American corporations.
That is to say, when Americans hear about "economists", they are very unlikely to hear about anyone working for the public interest. Instead, they are going to hear about some person working for bank or hedge fund.
This leads to the kind of mistake that Jon Stewart made.