30
Nov 11
A pair of fascinating articles on cocaine economics. First up: did cocaine’s declining price cause the drop in violent crime?
Once the margin of profit for dealing small amounts of crack cocaine disappeared, being part of the drug trade was no longer worth the persistent threat of violence or the stiff criminal penalties. A 70 percent drop in cocaine prices like the one that occurred in the mid 1990s combined with competition from decentralized sources for methamphetamines and prescription narcotics would completely eliminate the minimum wage drug dealer as a viable profession.
The same goes for turf wars, which Venkatesh saw as the source of the majority of inner-city violence. He saw the life of a drug dealer as relatively violence-free up until territory conflicts with other gangs ensued. Without the high value of cocaine as a commodity, the incentive for protracted gang wars would dwindle as well as eliminate the economy for the illegal weapons, drive-by shootings, and mercenary “warriors” needed to help defend prime dealing locations. Without profit to fight over, Vankatesh thought that “gang violence would likely return to pre-crack levels.”
On the Mexican side, a forensic economist believes the cartels are behaving rationally:
According to Dell, the cartels have behaved like textbook economic actors, shifting their trafficking routes in predictable ways to circumvent towns where the government has cracked down and raiding towns where competing cartels have been weakened by government efforts.
…
What happens when a law-and-order mayor gets elected? All hell breaks loose: Dell estimates that the drug-related homicide rate almost doubles relative to “control” towns where the PAN wasn’t elected. And it’s not the result of traffickers warring with police, but rather traffickers fighting with each other. Dell conjectures—based on anecdotal evidence about the drug war—that police efforts tend to weaken a cartel’s grip on a town just enough that competing traffickers see an opening to come in and fight for control of the town. Indeed, when a rival cartel controls a neighboring town, the effect of a PAN win on the drug-related homicide rate is several times higher.
04
Oct 11
Another scary/depressing edition, unfortunately:
22
Sep 11
Jelani Cobb’s piece on Troy Davis’ murder is amazing:
[W]e were witness to a great evil — not solely the taking of what may well have been an innocent life, but also in the false certainty that sought to sell this killing as justice. When word came at 11:08 p.m. that Troy Davis was no more, women began wailing; several of them fell to the ground heaving inconsolably. A few men offered stumbling, meandering prayers that some good might come of this, that it would inspire some greater reckoning with the arbitrary, corrupted realities of capital punishment in this country.
And I, at that point, thought about my father, a native of Hazlehurst, Georgia who had abandoned his home state for New York in 1941. He lived the remainder of his life there, firm in his belief that a black man’s life was seen as worthless in Georgia. I grew up hearing the stories of the sadistic violence that was commonplace there, about a black women he’d known growing up who was raped and tortured by white men who went unpunished. I moved to Georgia in 2001, secure in my belief that the place had changed, that our efforts had yielded success and the stories my father told me were now consigned to the horror closets of history.
But last night, progress, hopes and a black presidency be damned, the state of Georgia had the last word. And they were determined to prove the old man right.
I would love to believe that this might somehow reverse public opinion on the death penalty, given Jeffrey Toobin’s belief that “no death penalty case has engendered this much public doubt and outrage since the execution of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg.” But the outrage was miniscule compared to the Two Minutes’ Hate for Casey Anthony, and the death penalty has outlasted the Rosenbergs, DNA exonerations, and Cameron Todd Willingham. I have little doubt it will outlast Davis.
13
Sep 11
Via Yglesias, no one in Congress mentions this part when talking about “belt-tightening“:
The 46.2 million people in poverty in 2010 was the most for the 52 years that estimates have been published, and the number of people in poverty rose for the fourth consecutive year as the poverty rate climbed to 15.1% — the highest since 1993 — up from 14.3% in 2009.
Meanwhile, real median household income in 2010 was $49,445, down 2.3% from the prior year and below pre-recession levels.
…
While the data released Tuesday paint a grim picture, the results could have been even worse without government benefits such as extended unemployment insurance that were “pretty good at plugging some holes in the safety net and preventing even more people from falling into poverty,” said Harry Holzer, a public-policy professor at Georgetown University.
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“Looking ahead, poverty seems unlikely to improve because of the way the economy is going,” [Edwin Park, vice president for health policy at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities] said. “State and local governments are retrenching, cutting spending, which will slow economic growth.”
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Among children under 18, the poverty rate reached 22% in 2010, compared with 13.7% among those 18 to 64. In 2009, the poverty rate among kids was 20.7%, compared with 12.9% among those 18 to 64.
More than one of every five children lives in poverty in the US, and Republicans say more spending cuts are the answer. Right.