December 31, 2020

Happy New Year, Reality Denial Edition

December 31, 2020/ Francis Menton

On the last post a few days ago, several commenters raised the subject of the popular and long-running TV series Law & Order, particularly as to the race of the perpetrators of the crimes. The show purports to be based on actual incidents, and tries to give an impression of basis in reality.
On the episodes of that show that I have watched — admittedly not a large sample — the perpetrator of the violent crime has seemed almost always to turn out to be white and, for that matter, rich.
But are the show’s producers intentionally skewing the reality of the race of perpetrators of violent crimes? And if so, by a little, or by a lot?
I decided to look around to see if I could find some relevant statistics.

December 28, 2020

Do Black Lives Really Matter? Latest New York City Crime Statistics

December 28, 2020/ Francis Menton

This has been the year of mass protests over the killings of unarmed black people by the police. Most of the protests were in explicit reaction to a small number of famous incidents.
In March it was the death of Breonna Taylor in Louisville; then in May, George Floyd in Minneapolis; and in June, Rayshard Brooks in Atlanta. The protests, often accompanied by violence and looting, continued through the summer and into the fall. The ubiquitous slogan was: Black Lives Matter.
Here in New York, both the state legislature and City government have reacted to the Black Lives Matter protests with a series of measures that have included exempting many crimes from bail requirements, and a reduction of about $1 billion (16%) in the budget of the City Police Department. These are the principal steps that supposedly will demonstrate that yes, black lives do, in fact, matter.
In recent days and weeks the NYPD has released some data as to violent crime in the City as we near the end of 2020. How’s it going?

December 26, 2020

December 26, 2020/ Francis Menton

How do you establish that a hypothesis is true? According to numerous explainers of the scientific method, starting with philosopher Karl Popper, the best you can do is to try to prove the hypothesis false, and fail. By this method — the scientific method — you can never definitively establish “truth” of a hypothesis, but over time you can get close.

Of course, we now live in the era of official narratives permanently immunized from attempts at falsification, nevertheless incorrectly claiming the mantle of “science.” . . .

For today, let’s consider applying this logical method to testing one of this year’s big three narratives, namely the narrative that “systemic racism” is the principal explanation for disparities of income and wealth in our society.

December 22, 2020

December 22, 2020/ Francis Menton

Of all the states, the one most comparable to New York by demographics is Florida. These two states are close not only in overall population, but also in relative numbers of immigrants and of minority groups.
Despite being, at least for now, relatively close in population and other demographics, New York and Florida could not be more different in their approaches to public policy.
In Florida, Republicans have controlled the legislature (both houses) since 1997, and the governorship since 1999. Florida exemplifies the low tax, low spend, low regulation approach to state government. New York is firmly in control of the progressive left, and exemplifies high taxes, high spending, and high regulation.
Different policies lead to different results. For today I’ll focus mainly on the policy response to the Covid-19 virus.

December 21, 2020

December 21, 2020/ Francis Menton

It’s the week before Christmas, traditionally the best week of the year to be in New York City.
This is the week when tourists by the thousands flock to town, hundreds of restaurants are full and festive, the theater does peak business, the symphony and opera and ballet put on their most popular shows, concert venues are fully booked, hotel rooms are impossible to find, stores are packed, and beautiful Christmas lights are everywhere.
Not this year. Don’t even think about coming here right now. Almost all of the best things are closed, by order of our political masters. . . .

December 18, 2020

December 18, 2020/ Francis Menton

As discussed here in a recent post, being a climate “believer” requires basic refusal to deal with the real world as it exists. And no matter how crazy it has been up to now, with the incoming Biden administration, get ready for the make believe to move up to a whole new level.
Can we actually change the weather by throwing trillions of taxpayer dollars into windmills and solar panels? That’s what we are all now going to pretend. Kim Strassel sees where it’s going in today’s Wall Street Journal:
[I]t’s all about green. Climate will be the driving priority of this White House—Mr. Biden’s make-nice to progressives. He’ll have a climate envoy ( John Kerry ), a climate czar ( Gina McCarthy ), and climate obsessives leading every department ( Janet Yellen, Pete Buttigieg, Jennifer Granholm ).
So suppose you run a big oil company. . . .