Why do Blacks Commit More Crime?

Blacks make up only 12.2% of the US general population, yet constitute roughly 47% of the US prison population. Why are blacks so prone to committing crime?

About one in 33 black men was in prison in 2006, compared with one in 205 white men and one in 79 Hispanic men. Eleven percent of all black males between the ages of 20 and 34 are in prison or jail...From 1976 to 2005, blacks committed over 52 percent of all murders in America. In 2006, the black arrest rate for most crimes was two to nearly three times blacks’ representation in the population. Blacks constituted 39.3 percent of all violent-crime arrests, including 56.3 percent of all robbery and 34.5 percent of all aggravated-assault arrests, and 29.4 percent of all property-crime arrests.

...The evidence is clear: black prison rates result from crime, not racism. America’s comparatively high rates of incarceration are nothing to celebrate, of course, but the alternative is far worse. The dramatic drop in crime in the 1990s, to which stricter sentencing policies unquestionably contributed, has freed thousands of law-abiding inner-city residents from the bondage of fear. __CityJournal

So again, why do blacks commit so much crime? Clearly, poverty is not the main reason. Blacks make up 24% of the poor US population but commit 40% of violent crime.

Looking at genetics as a determinant of crime:

The case for a genetic contribution to criminality is conclusive. What remains to be figured out are exactly which genes contribute to criminality and how they exert their effects . These questions will be addressed with the tools of molecular biology, and it will be far more difficult to assail the results as "biased". __Gnxp

So it would be wrong to consider ethnicity as a cause of criminality, although a correlation exists. Rather within the broader ethnic groups, there likely exist gene clusters which influence behaviour in such a way as to make criminal activity more likely.

What about IQ? Can the 1 SD difference in IQ distribution means between US blacks and whites lead to the enormous differences in criminal behaviour between the groups? Low IQ correlates positively with rates of arrest and incarceration. But poor Executive Function probably correlates much more positively with crime than IQ, just as high executive function correlates more positively with ultimate life success than does IQ.

Better research is needed on this issue, to separate the different correlations, correcting for confounders, and utilising the best and most recent information from studies of genetics, IQ, executive function, and other related factors.

Political correctness is the enemy of the truth in this area. The dishonest tendency to blame racism for differential rates of arrest and incarceration, rather than facing the truth that crime rates do vary generally by ethnic group, prevents the type of research that could get to the heart of the matter. A long term solution is impossible without the type of honest exploration that I suggest.

Sailer: Imprisonment Rates Vary Wildly by Race

From a posting published previously on Al Fin

Blacks and Crime

Image Source
Is it actually true that blacks commit more crime than other races? Perhaps this is merely a racist stereotype meant to cast blacks in a bad light? To the world traveler, it seems as if crime is worse in areas of higher black populations, generally. South Africa, Haiti, Jamaica, Detroit, and cities across the Americas and Europe. Perhaps the crime experienced up until now is just a preview of what is coming to areas where black populations are building rapidly?

* “Blacks commit more violent crime against whites than against other blacks.” Forty-five percent of the victims of violent crime by blacks are white folks, 43 percent are black, 10 percent are Hispanic.

* Blacks are seven times as likely as people of other races to commit murder, eight times more likely to commit robbery and three times more likely to use a gun in a crime.

* “Blacks are an estimated 39 times more likely to commit violent crime against a white person than vice versa, and 136 times more likely to commit robbery.” (If decent black folks have trouble hailing a cab, and they do, these numbers may help explain it.)

* Black-on-white rape is 115 times more common than the reverse.

Even the two most famous sexual assaults by white men on black women in the last two decades � the Tawana Brawley and Duke rape cases � turned out to be hoaxes. _Buchanan_quoted from_The Color of Crime

The short list above was derived from official US government crime statistics, but published in The Color of Crime as a detailed report by a private group. Political correctness prohibits most people and organisations from publishing such simple -- but distinctly not politically correct -- statistics on race and crime.

The mainstream media will not report these documented facts to the public at large. Academics in Black Studies departments or otherwise, will not pass this information along to their students, although it would be helpful for them to know -- for their safety as well as their edification. Why can't western societies handle the truth?

Unless black leaders—real or media-created—muster the will to address the crime epidemic among black youth....the ongoing carnage will almost inevitably include an infinitesimal number of accidental police shootings of unarmed men. Criminal activity among young African-Americans is the poison of cities and of race relations; _CityJournal

Can we sort through all the carnage, intimidation, and hostility to discover the source of all this black crime?

My black crime problem, and ours, is that for most Americans, especially for average white Americans, the distance is not merely great but almost unfathomable, the fear is enormous and largely justifiable, and the black kids who inspire the fear seem not merely unrecognizable but alien. Not that we can’t understand where they come from, when we stop to consider. After all, the child is father to the man: and think how many inner-city black children are without parents, relatives, neighbors, teachers, coaches, or clergymen to teach them right from wrong, give them loving and consistent discipline, show them the moral and material value of hard work and study, and bring them to cherish the self-respect that comes only from respecting the life, liberty, and property of others. Think how many black children grow up where parents neglect and abuse them, where other adults and teenagers harass and harm them, where drug dealers exploit them. Not surprisingly, in return for the favor, some of these children kill, rape, maim, and steal without remorse. And around goes the negative feedback loop: reasonable fear feeds unreasonable white race hostility, whose reality in turn feeds unreasonable black paranoia about the justice system. _CityJournal

That is one valid point: with an illegitimacy rate of 70%, most black children lack for mature and wise guidance in their upbringing. How can they learn self control, and develop frontal lobe executive function, when the opportunity for training into responsibility and productivity is squandered? 40 years after affirmative action and the elimination of legal discrimination, is the problem caused mainly by passive neglect?

There is another reason being overlooked which makes the problem even worse. It is the active cultivation of hostility and hatred which is purposely cultivated within black communities by black-oriented newspapers, radio, community organisers, religious clerics from their pulpits, black "leaders", academics, politicians, and mainstream media. The hatred and hostility are carefully cultivated into a wild resentment which often has no other outlet besides violence.

If this picture of the mental life in too many western black communities reminds you of life in Gaza, Beirut, Baghdad, Jakarta, Manila, and tribally divided Africa, it is because purposely fueled human resentment, hostility, and violence, is associated with tribal juxtaposition and multicultural societies. It is the way that ambitious but underperforming men and women within a poorly-functioning community can achieve power and revenge against the better functioning community.

Children in these communities, from their earliest consciousness, are fed stories of outsider violence and abuse against the people of the community. Young minds are filled with tales of injustice and monstrous crimes against people like themselves -- until the young minds swell with resentment and hostility against the perpetrators. The process continues in the schools, churches, and even into colleges, universities, and public media.

The narrative which feeds into the resentment and hatred is finally the only narrative which is able to penetrate the mind and take root. At that point, bitterness is inevitable, although violence is not. But if the right combination of circumstances converge, violence eventually becomes more likely than not. If the boy falls in with the wrong crowd, if he's both quite suggestible and dull-minded, if the humanity of the victims has been systematically removed from his mind over the years -- violence becomes more likely.

Once a habit of using violence as a means to an end develops, barriers to greater violence in the future tend to shrink and fall. Any society which has allowed things to get this far in large numbers of child-men, is in for a nasty experience. Any society that allows things to continue like this, generation after generation, is a sick society that is apparently unconcerned over its own ultimate destiny.

Multiculturalism itself could be seen as a big part of the problem. Within the advanced western world, multiculturalism is almost inevitably accompanied by greater crime. Watch the crime rates soar, as Europe becomes more multicultural. Predictable, certainly, but apparently no one is willing to address the issue. Certainly Europe's low birth rates among Europeans creates a vacuum -- and a societal need -- which less affluent immigrants will wish to fill.

The "culture of resentment" which accompanies multiculturalism is going to be very difficult to arrest and subdue, since it appears to be so universal among humans. And resentment leads to violence and other crime, among the impressionable, and those who think they can get away with it.

What about this very Al Fin article? Could it not be said that this article feeds into the same type of resentment? Certainly it can be said. But ongoing and future crime is a real issue of current concern, unlike the slavery of the 1700s and early to mid 1800s, or the lynchings and KKK inspired violence of 50 to 150 years ago.

And what am I suggesting be done? More violence and hatred? Certainly not. The idea is to eradicate the hatred and violence, not to propagate more of it. But a society where acceptance of this violence-inducing resentment is endemic, and often encouraged, is a sick society which must be changed. Be aware that in changing such a sick society -- where the sickness saturates the government, the media, the academy, the unions, political activists, other special interests, the mainstream punditry -- the reaction against such change is apt to find expression in acts of violence.

But the change is coming, because the status quo cannot continue without leading to more uncontrolled violence, like the LA riots and the ongoing "simmering violence" in virtually every city with an appreciable black population.

In the US, a temporary prosperity due to the 1980s Reagan reforms of government temporarily reversed the Carter-Nixon malaise. But Mr. Obama has arrived on the scene just in time to accelerate the ongoing regress to the Carter rules of government and long lasting malaise and growing polarisation and resentments.

If the defenders of the status quo use violence against those who want a more peaceful future, an unfortunate propagation of constraints is likely to be triggered. Even peaceful reformers and ordinary people can only take so much violence against them. Chaos is unpredictable, but it often appears that a limited chaos is likely whatever path is chosen.

The first step would seem to be to stop the indoctrination into resentment, which so often leads to violence. Can that be done? Ask the purveyors of large-scale resentment if they are willing to give up their livelihoods. It is worth asking, if for no other reason than to receive an answer to your question.

Taken from an earlier posting on Al Fin

Violent Flash Mobs in North America Typically Black

Take a group of people with low impulse control, high resentment, relatively low intelligence and executive function, and a tendency to violence -- then throw in smart phones and a need to commit group mayhem -- and you may have created a new public art form and recreational activity. It might just catch on in your home town!

It is the black passage of Spring again. Social networking can be an accessory to break the law. This time a group a black youths outbreak of violent behavior causes destruction at a Dunkin’ Donuts stores in Greenwich Village, NYC, more than $2,000 in damage.

In Las Vegas, NV, the beginning of May it was a local convenient store that was the black people’s target. They steal $600 in Food in 3 Minutes.

In Center City Philadelphia, upscale Rittenhouse Square area ,a flash mob breaks out, in an H&M clothing store on Chestnut Street. There is an increased police presence in Center City amidst concerns of possible “flash mobs.”
These are reported occurrences of black flash mobs destruction in the month of May, 20111.

I have been viewing it in Philadelphia for years now. It is rough in that City. Black youths inciting vicious conduct in formation of large groups, that threaten and disregard the lives of people, property and a way of life.

I am a racist? Are they white youths? No, I am calling it the way I see it. Obama’s entitlements has come full circle. _Source

More on this phenomenon:

Mobs of black youths have taken to randomly attacking pedestrians and businesses. This problem is nightmarish in its implications: a subset of the population has no self-control, was not raised to control violent impulses, and evidently gets pleasure out of hurting other people -- particularly people of other races. This type of person usually has done nothing to create anything of value, but rather destroys for pleasure. They organize using social media, and their goal is mayhem. They have been coddled and socialized by the welfare state and public education system. With an aggressive sense of entitlement, and no regard for others, they will predictably become more violent. The mobs reflect an undesirable character type, and the vast majority of those in "flash mobs" are of the same race. _Source

Notice how the mobsters are euphemistically described as "teenagers," with no further details. This is a typical media tactic of PC obfuscation.
Followup to an earlier "Bump and Run" posting:
The Denver 'Bump and Run bandit' has been identified, but something is missing from the verbal description of the accused: his race! How can the public be on the lookout for a dangerous fugitive when critical information is withheld? Notice the difference between the descriptions of the two perpetrators below:

Denver police yesterday identified the so-called “Bump and Run” bandit who is wanted in connection with several robberies.

Police have identified the alleged thief as Ronald Davis. He is currently wanted for Investigation of Aggravated Robbery in connection with several “bump and run robberies.”

In two Denver cases, the suspect believed to be Davis approached victims on foot with a large kitchen knife, demanded valuables and fled. In one case the suspect used a vehicle to “bump” the rear of a female victim’s car.

Once the victim got out to view the damage, the suspect pushed the victim out of the way and reached in the victim’s car and took her purse and then fled in a vehicle. Anyone with information is asked to call the Denver Police Department at 720-913-2000.



‘Pirate bandit’ sought

Police are on the lookout for a so-called “Pirate Bandit” who robbed a Walgreens last month in Colorado Springs.

A suspect wearing an eye patch, wig and beard robbed a Walgreens, 920 N. Circle Drive, of prescription drugs on May 22. He had a gun and demanded a pharmacist to fill a bag with prescription drugs, according to police. The suspect is described as a white man in his 20s with brown eyes who weighs approximately 150 pounds.

Police are asking anyone with information to call them at 719-444-7000. _DenverDailyNews

Here is another example:

DENVER - Police hope they're getting closer to making an arrest in the "Bump and Run Bandit" case.

Denver Police want to talk to 43-year-old Ronald Davis about several robberies between April 23 and May 1.

Police say in one case, the victim's car was "bumped" from behind by a black or dark blue Acura coupe, or similar vehicle. Once the victim got out to view the damage, the suspect grabbed the victim's purse and drove off.

In two other cases, the suspect walked up to the victims with a large kitchen knife and demanded valuables.

If you have any information about this case, call Crime Stoppers at 720-913-STOP (7867). You could be eligible for up to a $2,000 reward if your information leads to someone being arrested and charged in this case. _9News

Political correctness gone amok. Photographs of the suspect show him to be obviously black, but that information is withheld in written and verbal descriptions.

Obama's America in Collapse from Within and Without

US President Obama's destructive influence on the American economy and on the US government's credibility around the world, appears to come from within the man and his circle of influence. From the moment of Obama's nomination as his party's candidate for presidential office, a milieu of confusion and uncertainty has grown over the direction and fate of the world's only superpower.

When Barack Obama took office, the official normal money supply of the United States was about $1.1-trillion. The $3-trillion in federal budget deficits that have been run up since then have largely, technically, escaped the money supply, though accretions have almost doubled the official total, an unheard of rate of growth (about 40% annualized) in a hard-currency country. About 70% of this debt has been paid by the issuance of bonds to the central bank of the United States, the Federal Reserve, a subsidiary of the United States government. Whatever the balance sheets say, this has produced the effect of a money-supply increase, which has brought pump-priming to a level of over-achievement not seen since Noah felt the compulsion to build an ark. And the annual trillion-dollar deluge is forecast to continue for a decade.

The world’s reserve currency, the fabled vehicle of the “faith and credit of the United States,” is now virtual money — a symbol for all the other massive problems afflicting the U.S. economy. _NP

The incompetence of the Obama government is being felt internationally on all fronts -- from economic markets to the global balance of power. There are plenty of problems originating outside the US:

The world economy is losing strength halfway through the year as high oil prices and fallout from Japan’s natural disaster and Europe’s debt woes take their toll. _

, but any response that the Obama crew is able to scrape up is invariably inadequate and couterproductive.

Obama's expensive economic stimulus programs have been revealed as corrupt payback schemes to supporters. But the wealth transfer from the productive classes to the corrupt and non-productive classes -- friends and supporters of Obama -- seem to stretch out indefinitely into the future. Boss Tweed can only be Boss Tweed. He and his gang know no other way to govern but the way of corruption and thuggishness.

Meanwhile, in the heart of many of America's largest cities, the violence among Obama's most dedicated supporters only grows. Here are America's ten most deadly cities -- strongholds of Obama supporters:

1. Flint, Mich.

Population: 109,245
Violent Crime Per 1,000: 22
2010 Murders: 53
Median Income: $27,049 (46.1% below national average)
Unemployment Rate: 11.8% (2.8% above national average)

The number of violent crimes committed in Flint increased for all categories considered for this list between 2009 and 2010. Perhaps most notably, the number of murders in the city increased from 36 to 53. This moves the city from having the seventh highest rate of homicide to the second highest. The number of aggravated assaults increased from 1,529 to 1,579, a rate of 14.6 assaults per 1,000 residents, placing the city in the No. 1 rank for rate of assaults. Flint police chief Alvern Lock stated late last year that he believed the city's violence stemmed from drugs and gangs. Flint has a relatively small median income of about $27,000 per household. The city also has a poverty rate of 36.2%.


2. Detroit

Population: 899,447
Violent Crime Per 1,000: 18.9
2010 Murders: 310
Median Income: $26,098 (48% below national average)
Unemployment Rate: 12.7% (3.7% above national average)

The city crippled the most in America's post-industrial era is almost certainly Detroit. The Motor City has suffered from high rates of unemployment, homelessness, and crime. The city has one of the ten highest rates for three of the four types of violent crime identified by the FBI. Detroit has the sixth highest murder rate, the fifth highest robbery rate, and the second highest rate of aggravated assault. In 2005, a major reorganization of the city's police department took place after a federal investigation identified inefficiencies within the system. According to an article in The United Press, opponents of Detroit Mayor David Bing called for further intervention by the Justice Department in several shootings that occurred last year.


3. St. Louis

Population: 355,151
Violent Crime Per 1,000: 17.5
2010 Murders: 144
Median Income: $34,801 (30.7% below national average)
Unemployment Rate: 9.3% (0.3% above national average)

Violent crime in St. Louis fell dramatically between 2009 and 2010, and has decreased since 2007. Despite this, crime rates remain extremely high compared with other cities. In 2010, the city's murder rate and rate of aggravated assault were each the third worst in the country. With regards to both violent and nonviolent crime, St. Louis was rated the most dangerous city based on FBI data released six months ago. As of December 2010, the murder rate in St. Louis was 6.3 times that of the state of Missouri. The city's gunshot murder rate for residents between 10 to 19 years old is also the second highest in the country, behind only New Orleans, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.


4. New Haven, Conn.

Population: 124,856
Violent Crime Per 1,000: 15.8
2010 Murders: 22
Median Income: $38,279 (23.8% below national average)
Unemployment Rate: 9.6% (0.6% above national average)

New Haven has historically had the highest rate of violent crime on the east coast. The impoverished, crime-ridden parts of the city stand in stark contrast to affluent Fairfield county to the West, and elite Yale University, which is located within the city itself. The number of murders in the city doubled last year. New Haven has the eighth highest rate of robbery and the fourth highest rate of assault in the U.S. The New Haven Police Department is considering adding cameras at every intersection in one of the neighborhoods where shootings are the most common.


5. Memphis, Tenn.

Population: 673,650
Violent Crime Per 1,000: 15.4
2010 Murders: 89
Median Income: $34,203 (31.8% below national average)
Unemployment Rate: 9.9% (0.9% above national average)

Memphis has high rates for all the violent crimes considered for 24/7 Wall St.'s rankings. It has the sixth highest rate in the country. Incidents of violent crime in the city dropped slightly less than 15% between 2009 and 2010 though. Memphis Mayor AC Wharton attributes this decrease to Operation Safe Community, a citywide plan developed in 2005. The plan consists of a number of strategies meant to increase crime prevention, through toughening punishments for criminals, and the effectiveness of the city's legal system, through changes such as expanding court programs so that they operate consistently and at full capacity.


6. Oakland, Calif.

Population: 409,723
Violent Crime Per 1,000: 15.3
2010 Murders: 90
Median Income: $51,473 (2.4% above national average)
Unemployment Rate: 11% (2% above national average)

Oakland's violent crime dropped about 5.5% between 2009 and 2010, from about 6,800 to 6,260. The city nevertheless has the tenth-highest rate of rape, the ninth-highest murder rate, and the second highest robbery rate in the country. In 2010, there were 7.12 robberies for every 1,000 Oakland residents. According to an article in the San Francisco Chronicle, Mayor Jean Quan has attempted to combat break-ins and theft by creating programs to keep potential wrongdoers off the streets by starting late-night basketball programs. It it unclear if these policies have worked.


7. Little Rock, Ark.

Population: 192,922
Violent Crime Per 1,000: 15.2
2010 Murders: 25
Median Income: $38,992 (22.3% below national average)
Unemployment Rate: 6.8% (2.2% below national average)

Little Rock has one of the highest rates of aggravated assault and forcible rape in the country. Since 2009, reported assaults has increased while reported forcible rapes have decreased. According to Lt. Terry Hastings of the Little Rock Police Department, quoted by local station FOX16, Little Rock was "down almost 12 percent across the board on crime" in 2010. This may be accurate for many crimes, and especially nonviolent crimes, however, according to FBI data, violent crime increased from 2009 to 2010.


8. Baltimore

Population: 639,929
Violent Crime Per 1,000: 14.6
2010 Murders: 223
Median Income: $38,772 (22.7% below national average)
Unemployment Rate: 7.4% (1.6% below national average)

Baltimore had the eighth-highest rate of violent crime per capita in 2010 among cities with 100,000 or more residents, and the second-highest east of the Mississippi. The number of violent crimes has dropped slightly in the past year -- from 9,600 to 9,300 -- but the Maryland city has some of the worst rates of dangerous offenses in the country. This includes the tenth-worst aggravated assault rate -- and the fourth-worst murder rate in the country.


9. Rockford, Ill.

Population: 156,180
Violent Crime Per 1,000: 14.5
2010 Murders: 20
Median Income: $36,990 (26% below national average)
Unemployment Rate: 13.3% (4.3% above national average)

Rockford has unusually high violent crime rates for a city of its size. Most notably, the city has the fourth highest rate of aggravated assault in the country, with 10.5 cases for every 1,000 citizens in 2010. During the same period, 20 murders occurred, almost double the number in 2000. Quoted by the Rockford Register Star in 2007, Winnebago County Sheriff Dick Meyers said that he believed the city's "location worked against [it,]" as Rockford receives traffic from the drug markets in Madison, Chicago, and Milwaukee, resulting in heightened rates of violence.


10. Stockton, Calif.

Population: 292,047
Violent Crime Per 1,000: 13.8
2010 Murders: 49
Median Income: $45,730 (8.9% below national average)
Unemployment Rate: 18.4% (9.4% above national average)

With a jobless rate of 18.4%, up from 18.1% a year ago, Stockton, California has one of the worst unemployment problems in the country. The huge percentage of unemployed residents may have contributed to horrible crime rates in the city, which is located 40 miles east of Oakland and San Francisco. Stockton was rated one of the most miserable cities to live in the country by Forbes in March, 2010. Violent crime was one of the chief measurements for its ranking. Of the 267 cities with populations over 100,000, Stockton has the 27th highest number of murders per 1,000 people and the 12th most aggravated assaults per 1,000. Last year, recognizing the crime problems in the city, the state temporarily diverted hundreds of California _MostDangerousUSCities

The rot begins at the very top, and spreads into most government bureaucracies, media offices, academic institutions, labour union centres, corporate personnel offices, courtrooms, law enforcement bureaus, and virtually every institution of the nation.

You may want to think about what would have to be done to bring positivity and productivity back to the productive classes of the US. Because when the US is strong, the rest of the world has some hope for improvement. With the US under Obama in danger of collapse in many areas, hope is becoming rather scarce. What do you do?

Be Aware of Your Surroundings, Even on Quiet Residential Streets

Carjacking gangs often employ the bump and run technique in which thieves in one car pull up behind an unsuspecting driver and bump the driver s car. When the driver gets out to inspect the damage, the thieves forcibly take control of the car. _Carjacking

OrlandoSunSentinel
The highway crime commonly referred to as the "bump and run" is becoming more common in metropolitan areas across the US. Known in Los Angeles since 1987, and in Miami since 1993, the crime is becoming especially common recently in Palm Beach, Florida, and in Denver, Colorado.

Just as in traditional carjacking, most perpetrators appear to be of African descent, and capable of violence. Highways have always been places of potential risk, but this particular crime involves the use of multiple tonne vehicles as both weapons and diversions.

More:

The suspects are typically driving a stolen vehicle when they bump the back of the victim's vehicle. When the victims get out to check for damage, they are robbed at gunpoint of their cell phones, purses and other valuables, investigators said.

Many times it happens at night on quiet residential streets, where there is little or no traffic and few witnesses, Olsen said.

In some cases, suspects either forced their victims to drive to an ATM to withdraw money or the victims were confronted while using ATMs, detectives said. Police are urging people to be aware of their surroundings, especially while using ATMs.

If involved in a minor rear-end bump, police say, people should drive to a well-lit and populated area and call 911 immediately. _OrlandoSunSentinel

News media in the US typically avoid mentioning the ethnic identity of perpetrators when the crime involves black on white aggression or violence. But citizens can better look out for themselves if they are apprised of the nature of the crime with as much detail as possible.

Most intelligent Americans are aware that a low-level declaration of war by a subset of black Americans against all white Americans has been in force since the middle 1960s. This black-on-white crime wave began about the same time that the last holdouts among American states finally gave equal legal rights to African Americans, and about the time that government Affirmative Action special preferences for blacks were put into law.

The timing for the simmering US race war of blacks against whites has to do with the creation of a mass culture of resentment within the black community. Both popular media and ethnic media were involved in pumping this resentment to violent levels, and much of the black community -- including many black religious organisations -- jumped on the bandwagon.

At this point in time -- with a somewhat "black" US president who helps fuel the black resentment machine with many of his public and private statements and postures -- there is no reason to expect black against white crime to diminish. Rather it is up to individuals who wish to avoid this quasi-institutionalised crime to position themselves in locations where their risk is minimised. And always, always be aware of your surroundings.

The Left is the New Inquisition: Escape is the Only Option

A person's politics and his religion are two aspects of his philosophy, which reflect his personality in many ways. If a person's philosophy borrows too heavily from the herd, or the "zeitgeist," it is likely the person is not worth knowing, since there is little original about him. The inquisition is the enforcement mechanism for a society's dominant memes -- the means for maintaining control. It is only the escapees from the inquisition who are worth knowing.

Concerning a recent escapee from the leftist asylum, playwrite David Mamet:

...[Mamet] agreed to write an essay on the play’s politics for the Village Voice. In the essay Mamet confessed that many of his previous political beliefs now struck him as reflexive and unthinking: The country that existed in his once-fevered liberal imagination—a dystopia crippled by crises that required the immediate deployment of the federal government—bore little resemblance to the country in which he actually lived, where people interacted smoothly in the marketplace to their mutual benefit. He had come to realize that corporations were good for providing the necessities of life. The “Big Bad Military” of his youthful fancy was, he discovered, an organization built on courage and honor.

For the moment, he told Voice readers, he was searching for “a human understanding of the political process .  .  . in which I believe I may be succeeding.”

Voice editors hyped Mamet’s piece with an attention getting headline, “Why I Am No Longer a ‘Brain-Dead Liberal.’ ” The essay was much milder than its title. It was the work of a man in mid-conversion. _TWS

Mamet is different from his former leftist asylum inmates only in his honesty and willingness to see the world from different points of view -- as if testing them for how well the POVs fit the outside world. Most dogmatists and true believers are unable to step outside their own deepest beliefs in this way, and so they are doomed to remain mired within their own dysfunctional cage of beliefs.

One of Mamet’s favorite books has been Instincts of the Herd in Peace and War, published during the First World War by the British social psychologist Wilfred Trotter, inventor of the term “herd instinct.”

“Trotter says the herd instinct in an animal is stronger even than the preservation of life,” Mamet said. “So I was watching the [2008] debates. My liberal friends would spit at the mention of Sarah Palin’s name. Or they would literally mime the act of vomiting. We’re watching the debates and one of my friends pretends to vomit and says, ‘I have to leave the room.’ I thought, oh my god, this is Trotter! This is the reaction of the herd instinct. When a sheep discovers a wolf in the fold, it vomits to ward off the attacker. It’s a sign that their position in the herd is threatened.”

Mamet runs into the herd instinct every day.

“I’ve given galleys of The Secret Knowledge to some friends. They say, ‘I’m scared to read it.’ I say, ‘Why should you be afraid to read something?’

“What are they afraid of? They’re afraid of losing their ability to stay in the herd. That’s what I found in myself. It can be wrenching when you start to think away from the herd.”

Mamet’s disdain for consensus, for received wisdom of any kind, has been evident in nearly every aspect of his career. _TWS

Clearly Mamet knows what he is talking about. The transition out of the herd is truly wrenching. And if one is compelled by one's profession to mix with the herd on a daily basis, the emotional threat one represents to the herd is often written on the faces of herd members.

Mamet's new book is called The Secret Knowledge.

Village Voice: Why I Am No Longer a Brain Dead Liberal by David Mamet

It is unfortunate that Andrew Ferguson entitled his piece on Mamet, Converting Mamet, and refers in the piece to "the conversion" of Mamet. Conversion is too often no better than escaping from one prison into another. Rather the story should be about "the escape of Mamet." Freedom is quite different from true believerhood. No two free men think exactly alike, whereas the inquisition -- or Political Correctness, if you will -- is installed to guarantee that on important issues (the ever changing talking points), correct-thinking persons will think the same thoughts.

Women: Go to College and Die Childless and Unloved

That seems to be one of the messages coming out of the latest US census report. Apparently women who go to college and postpone childbearing are considerably less likely to ever have children, and less likely to ever marry.

Fertility researcher Karen Guzzo, an assistant professor of sociology at Kutztown University in Pennsylvania, says many women "are probably not choosing never to have children, so much as … they're not forming relationships because they're investing in their education and careers."

...•Women with a college degree are experiencing what the bureau calls a "delayer boom" — they're having babies at later ages than other women and having fewer children overall. _USAToday

Here are other fascinating findings from the census report:

Women with less than a high school education had three times as many births as women with at least a bachelor's degree. Eighty-three percent of women 25 to 34 with less than a high school education had given birth at twice the percentage recorded by women with at least a bachelor's degree (42 percent).

...-- By age 40 to 44, white non-Hispanic women (20.6 percent) were more likely to be childless than Hispanic women (12.4 percent), black women (17.2 percent) and Asian women (15.9 percent). Black women were also more likely to be childless than Hispanic women. Asian women did not differ from black or Hispanic women. _ChicagoTribune

Women who narrow their focus to just their careers often unwittingly fritter away any chance for motherhood they may have had.

I know...that not being a mother means there is a part of me which remains unused, a love that will be forever unexpressed. I know that what any mother describes as the most profound love she has ever known is, to me, a locked door — there is so much love I will never be able to give, wisdom and understanding I cannot share, shelter and solace I cannot provide.

...My regrets will always linger. My life is a poorer place for not having children, and I am less of a woman for not being a mother. There is a vast realm of experience and growth I will never know. _DailyMail

Women who have blindly shut themselves off from motherhood in their fertile youth often try to project an attitude of indifference and lack of regret to the outside world. But inside herself, she must face the truth of the things she will never know, and the love she will never share.

On the larger scale, for the western world this means that too many her most intelligent women will never have children. Less intelligent and uneducated women will take their place in the birthing wards, and their likely less intelligent children will fill the classrooms, playgrounds, and public spaces of the future.

The US has its poor and uneducated Mexican immigrants, Europe has its poor and uneducated immigrants from MENA, SS Africa, and Asia. The demographic displacement plays out sans fanfare or announcement, to general public indifference.

But the longterm fallout will be severe, as the average population IQ sinks below the level necessary for a complex society to sustain its infrastructure.

What Black Culture?

SF Gate says blacks are leaving San Francisco faster than any other major US city, citing “substandard schools, a lack of affordable housing and the dearth of jobs and black culture”. _BelmontClub

Modern black American culture is one of resentment, entitlement, unrealistic expectations, and simmering hatred and violence toward a European infrastructure that occasionally breaks out into full-scale insurrection.

But Wretchard of Belmont Club has happened upon a very interesting US demographic phenomenon, which may have long reaching repercussions:

...will demographic trends coupled with mobility eventually mean the end of identity politics based on racial lines? When does a black “multicultural” candidate essentially become just another politician in which ethnic identity means little or nothing in comparison with his economic and policy positions? Will the Democratic “Big Tent” need re-architecturing? What will the impact of these shifts be on the Republican Party? Granted that these are long-term trends, what will these developments mean for 2012? _BelmontClub

If blacks are fleeing San Francisco for the city's lack of "black culture", why are so many blacks running away from areas of high proportionate black population toward areas with lower proportions of blacks?

Increasingly blacks are moving to places with small black populations. Just 2 percent of the black population growth in the last decade occurred in counties that have traditionally been black population centers, while 20 percent has occurred in counties where only a tiny fraction of the population had been black. _NYT

Smarter and more capable blacks are looking for opportunity -- not "black culture." To a large extent, it is "black culture" which is dragging much of the black population down and promoting underachievement on top of underachievement.

As for San Francisco, the city's fringe leftist governments have been destroying the livability of the peninsula for medium income persons for decades now. Why is it that the mainstream press only takes notice when an "officially sanctioned disadvantaged group" is affected?

San Francisco's black population has dropped faster than that of any other large U.S. city's. It went from 13.4 percent in 1970 to an estimated 6.5 percent in 2005, according to the census. Nationally, African Americans make up 12.1 percent of the population.

...In San Francisco, the number of African Americans in very-low-income households has increased, the number of black-owned businesses has declined, and African Americans have the lowest home ownership rates, according to the report.

About 24 percent of black people in the city are living in homes that need severe or moderate repairs, and African Americans make up nearly half of the residents in public housing. _SFChron

Al Fin demographers are predicting severe turmoil for SF Bay area political power structures within the next decade or two, due to a general breakdown of economic viability across leftist-administered cities, states, and counties in the US. When the economy crashes, the burghers must often sit down with persons of questionable politics but verifiable capital and job creation skills.

Give California and the Bay area another ten years or so of self-destruction before they reach the end of their manic plunge into an idological wasteland.

The Idiocracy Will Be Much Meaner Than the Movie

The Idiocracy will be much more like SubSaharan Africa, like the Sierra Leone in Kaplan's The Coming Anarchy. Not so much like the lighthearted movie, where at least they had Costcos and Starbucks. ;-)

When a society's or subculture's average IQ drops to 85 and below, complex systems simply cannot function. Insufficient people of intelligence are available to plan, administer, maintain, and operate complex systems -- unless a significant "market dominant minority" of higher IQ happens to be living within the nation or society.

In low-IQ democracies, thuggish and corrupt elected leaders tend to drive away the only hope the society has -- higher IQ minorities capable of running the complex systems which a well functioning city or country requires.

Cities such as Detroit provide a microcosm of Idiocracy within the larger US society. But parts of Las Vegas and most other US cities can provide the same dire example of willful lawlessness and inability to consider tomorrow's consequences when taking today's actions.

This is the attitude that low IQ populations which are poorly raised without adequate role models and character training (executive function) bring to the future -- your future, as likely as not.

This is why intelligent people who can see where the flood is heading will have already started making their plans.

Do not build your house in the flood plain.

Some Union Bosses are Willing to Risk Bringing Everything Down

Violence that occurs around union action is not accidental or coincidental. It is part of the union tactics and strategy. When intimidation and threat of violence is insufficient, targeted violence can often get the unions what they want.

A lot of union bosses act as if they don't care whether the system survives or not. If you watch this union instructional video, you may begin to realise that there are union bosses who actually wish the system would crash, pushing things in that direction.

video h/t breitbart

Imagine all levels of US government under the thumb of people such as this. What hope for a decent future could ordinary Americans possibly have in such a situation? The US is not that far away from such a disaster, unless ordinary Americans take action to prevent it.

No Matter How Bad You Think It Is: It Really Is Worse

The pain of the ongoing financial and economic crisis is far more widely distributed across the US than is generally known. Certainly neither the US government nor the popular media are helping to make the situation clear. No doubt they have reasons of their own for their reticence. But anyone who wants to look into the future over just a small distance, needs to have a fairly clear idea of the present and recent past.

"If unemployment was computed the way BLS [Bureau of Labor Statistics] did it prior to 1994," the true unemployment rate in the United States "would be 22.2%".

And while the prospect of more than a fifth of the workforce being idle is scary enough, inflation in consumer prices is even scarier, particularly to the aforementioned one-in-five unemployed. And unemployed or their plight as concerns dealing with inflation in prices, he says, "In current economic analysis, inflation is largely in the eye of the beholder, and depending on how you choose to look, very different stories emerge."

This is where I thought he would mention the unemployed, or the poor, and their harrowing experiences in paying higher prices without any income, but he doesn't.

He says, instead, that it is all worse than I think, thanks to the way the American government calculates inflation. "In the US," he says, "food and beverages count for just 16.4% of the CPI [Consumer Price Index] calculation. The Chinese apparently believe that the basic necessities of life should count for more, assigning a 33% weight to the nutritional components. These differences in measurement are partially responsible for the divergent inflation climate in both countries, and make most people believe that inflation is fickle and localized."

It is not, and Mr Pento agrees, saying, almost poetically, "From my perspective, inflation is a global wave that will ultimately swamp all shores." _ATimes

Most of the financial disaster of 2008 was triggered by US government policies which forced financial institutions to make bad loans. Unfortunately, the financial institutions then tried to be clever, and built an international financial empire of risk upon these bad loans -- leveraging them to the hilt. Rating agencies failed to grasp the high-risk nature of these clever financial instruments -- "worth" many $trillions.

The disaster that followed should not have been such a surprise to anyone paying attention -- both of them. But every governmental and inter-governmental agency appears bent on 2 things: Covering up their role in what happened, AND re-inflating the bubble all over again. (Among other horrendously ludicrous mis-steps which will be covered later)

In other words, the world's economic fate sits in the hands of idiots, fools, and criminals -- big surprise!

What do you do about it, in the middle of a growing Idiocracy?

Why Couldn't Sub-Saharan Africans Invent the Wheel?

IQ Map of World
Before relatively recent contact with outside cultures, Subsaharan Africans did not invent the wheel, did not invent writing, developed minimal art, or agriculture, lacked musical instruments beyond simple percussion, and came up virtually empty in terms of math, science, and technology. Why the absence of invention and development?

The map of world IQ at top provides a tentative answer to the question, but the map raises a more central question: Why do SubSaharan African populations test so low, on average, on tests of IQ, executive function, and impulse control? Is it possible that a significant part of the development of the human "superbrain" -- which makes modern advanced civilisation possible -- developed after humans left the African birthplace?

The dispersal of modern humans from Africa to Europe some 50,000 to 60,000 years ago provides a “minimum date” for the development of language, Hoffecker speculated. “Since all languages have basically the same structure, it is inconceivable to me that they could have evolved independently at different times and places.”

A 2007 study led by Hoffecker and colleagues at the Russian Academy of Sciences pinpointed the earliest evidence of modern humans in Europe dating back 45,000 years ago. Located on the Don River 250 miles south of Moscow, the multiple sites, collectively known as Kostenki, also yielded ancient bone and ivory needles complete with eyelets, showing the inhabitants tailored furs to survive the harsh winters.

The team also discovered a carved piece of mammoth ivory that appears to be the head of a small figurine dating to more than 40,000 years ago. “If that turns out to be the case, it would be the oldest piece of figurative art ever discovered,” said Hoffecker, whose research at Kostenki is funded in part by the National Science Foundation.

The finds from Kostenki illustrate the impact of the creative mind of modern humans as they spread out of Africa into places that were sometimes cold and lean in resources, Hoffecker said. “Fresh from the tropics, they adapted to ice age environments in the central plain of Russia through creative innovations in technology.”

Ancient musical instruments and figurative art discovered in caves in France and Germany date to before 30,000 years ago, he said. “Humans have the ability to imagine something in the brain that doesn’t exist and then create it,” he said. “Whether it’s a hand axe, a flute or a Chevrolet, humans are continually recombining bits of information into novel forms, and the variations are potentially infinite.” _SB

The absence of sophisticated invention or innovation prior to the human diaspora out of Africa, or in SubSaharan Africa since that diaspora, suggests a potentially deep distinction in the way that humans inside SS Africa think in comparison to how Eurasian humans learned to think.

It would be good to be able to research this puzzle, but unfortunately, the straitjacket of Political Correctness prevents the raising of such questions -- even for purposes of objective scientific research. Which means that those of us who are curious will have to conduct our investigations under the table, so to speak.

Is that not always how it is, when intelligent and curious humans are faced with oppressive and authoritarian culture-reichs, such as the modern quasi-left postmodern PC culture?

Ancient Inventions

Inventions of Ancient China

Top 10 Ancient Inventions

Murder as Initiation: A Sick, Violent, Resentful Culture w/ Poor Impulse Control

James Cooper, 25, and James Kouzaris, 24, were in Florida when they were killed at 3am in a gangland area rarely visited by tourists.

They apparently accepted a lift from someone they met in a bar, thinking they were being driven home....Officers suspect they believed they were being driven the 12 miles to the resort of Longboat Key.

Instead, they were taken to Newtown, Sarasota, where they were confronted by a gang of masked men. _Telegraph

TelegraphIn a flashback to the Zebra killings of the 1970s San Francisco Bay area (archive.org free 400 page PDF download "Zebra"), two tourists from the UK were driven to a housing project and murdered by a 16 year old black man in what looks like a gang initiation. The two young Britons, who were traveling abroad without their own ground transportation, believed they were being driven to a tourist resort, but were instead the apparent victims of a planned race murder. Just as in the Zebra killings, the killing of members of other races appears to be the condition for acceptance into some violent gangs.

The industry of racial hatred within the black community is thriving across the US. Drumming up hatred against whites often results in murders, rapes, assaults, and other trans-racial crime. Black on white murder, rape, and assault are far more common than white on black crime, yet it is typically only considered a racial hate crime when a black person is attacked.

“Blacks are an estimated 39 times more likely to commit violent crime against a white person than vice versa, and 136 times more likely to commit robbery.” (If decent black folks have trouble hailing a cab, and they do, these numbers may help explain it.)

* Black-on-white rape is 115 times more common than the reverse. _Buchanan

On black community talk radio, in black newspapers, in black churches of the Nation of Islam and Black Liberation Theology variety, the message of hatred against whites is trumpeted as if it were the path to salvation or the way to the promised land. Similar messages were delivered on a regular basis at President Obama's own Trinity church of Black Liberation Theology in Chicago, where he attended services over a period of decades.

I was interested to learn that during the deadly 1992 Los Angeles riots, black gang members from Oakland, California, traveled hundreds of miles south in order to get in on the murderous civil unrest that was occurring in LA.

We know that blacks test a full standard deviation lower on IQ tests than the population average, in the US. It is also clear that American blacks have poorer frontal lobe executive functions, and lower levels of impulse control -- both elements of behaviour which play important roles in lifetime success or failure, AND both of which are strongly under genetic control -- just like IQ.

Given those critical tidbits of information about seemingly innate behavioural tendencies, it seems most unwise to fill such heads with messages of resentment and violent retribution -- at least in my opinion.

Leftists Behaving Badly, As Usual, and the Consequent Backlash

Leftists are proud of being able to shout down the opposition. They are willing to go to extremes to keep opposing voices from being heard. This makes leftists rather unique among modern political movements -- except perhaps among Germany's "ultra-rightists" skinheads.

In fact, leftists have made such arses of themselves for so long that they are due for something of a backlash. No, not like the American "Tea Party" movement. Those folks are far too civilised to be considered a backlash movement. The tea partiers simply want their government to return to its minimalist roots, socially, and to spend within its means, economically.

No, when I say "backlash," I really mean backlash, in a very painful and effective sense. The left leaves itself open to attack from many directions. It is fortunate for leftists that the media largely covers for their misdeeds and contretemps. That is not likely to always be the case, of course.

While academia is generally full of leftists, occasionally a more rational and honest intellectual will persist through the deadly obstacle course and become well-known and popular enough that academic and media institutions cannot deny them a voice. Such a person is Niall Ferguson, historian:

The historian has been living back in the UK for almost a year, the first time since leaving for the US in 2002, where he now teaches at Harvard. From the outside, it's looked like quite a successful stay; his Channel 4 series, Civilization, was broadly well-received, and the accompanying book is another dollop of vintage Ferguson history, devoted to the superiority of western civilisation. While here he's also been advising Michael Gove on the history curriculum in secondary schools, and now that the Tories, of whom he approves, are back in charge of the country, he must have found the political climate more to his tastes. But when I ask him for the single biggest change he's observed since leaving Britain, he replies with a kind of theatrical despair,

"I think the situation in British universities has gone from being parlous to being catastrophic. When you look at where British universities are going, and where Harvard's going, you'd have to really love other things about England to take the hit."

...He is forever insisting he is not rightwing – so could he offer some examples of his thinking which would demonstrate that he isn't?

"Ask me not are you rightwing, but ask me are you a committed believer in individual freedom, the values of the enlightenment? Then, yeah, if being rightwing means believing Adam Smith was right, both in the Wealth of Nations and the Theory of Moral Sentiments, then I'm rightwing. If being rightwing is thinking that Karl Marx's doctrine was a catastrophe for humanity, then I'm rightwing. If you think that it's rightwing to say that the welfare state has trapped 10-20% of the population of western Europe in a dependency culture, an abyss of social failure, then I'm rightwing." _Guardian

The dimwitted bimbette from the Guardian who interviewed Ferguson was clearly unprepared to face a non-leftist of Ferguson's articulateness and "in-your-faceness."

Not that Ferguson is representative of the backlash I mention. No, he is just that niggling little feeling in the back of the minds of leftists, which makes them wonder if perhaps their little academic monopoly game might not go on forever.

No, they wish that Ferguson represented the backlash, just as they wish the Tea Party movement were as bad as a backlash might get.

The backlash which leftists deserve is far worse than they can imagine, but it is unlikely they will receive the maximum sentence they are due. Yet they are such whining pathetic creatures, that anything except complete capitulation to their catastrophically dysfunctional and destructive plans is seen as a hellish punishment, through their eyes.

The thing that is coming will be somewhere in between what they deserve, and the taste of internal hell they are receiving as a result of the need for governments to reduce their disastrous levels of debt. And that particular adjustment of spending priorities is likely to go on for a long, long time, and to cut many of their pet causes very, very deeply.

Not the backlash, no. But it is coming all the same. And although it will not be particularly violent, it will be devilishly clever and effective.

Moochers, Looters, and Producers

Makers are essential to life. Humans must exert effort to create the food, housing, clothing, and other things we need and want. Producers are the people who make that effort and deliver the goods.

Some think producers are limited to corporate moguls, but in fact, they include anyone on any level — from janitors to company presidents, in small or large organizations — who earn what they have and don’t steal from others.

Producers offer their goods through voluntary trade — capitalism. Whenever producers have been the freest, the result has been an explosion of wealth and prosperity and a high standard of living for everyone. Witness 19th-century America or today’s least-regulated fields, like technology.

The opposite type is the taker, who wants to forcibly live off others’ efforts. Looters are takers who jockey for positions in government in order to seize wealth and gain power over producers. Moochers vote the looters into power in order to receive government benefits like welfare, subsidies, grants, business advantages, or jobs.

Since its inception, America has been a land of producers. The world’s most can-do people cleared farms, opened shops, lived and traded with one another in harmony, and created the great middle class — the producer class. Now, many Americans take no responsibility for their lives. Instead, they line up for money that’s not theirs; it’s simply “Obama money.” _DC

From Madison, Wisconsin to Washington, DC, the battle of moochers vs. producers is being played out across the US. Interestingly, this contemporary battle was foreseen half a century ago by an author whose magnum opus is just now making it to the silver screen.

“Atlas Shrugged: Part I,” which opens April 15th, is a movie unlike any other. Based on Ayn Rand’s novel, it dramatizes the fundamental conflict gripping our world: the battle between those who create value and wealth through their own efforts (the producers) and those who seek them through force (the looters and moochers).

With eerie accuracy, Rand’s novel depicted — in 1957 — the very struggle between these diametrical opposites that we’re witnessing today. This battle couldn’t be more important because the fate of civilization rests on the outcome. Since this conflict inescapably affects everyone, it’s crucial to know which side you’re on.

In Atlas Shrugged, producers like railroad executive Dagny Taggart and self-made steel titan Hank Rearden create new products and services, offer them in free trade, and consequently become rich. They are exploited by looters and moochers like Dagny’s brother James Taggart and steel executive Orren Boyle, who seek government intervention that favors them and thwarts their competition. In the story, the producers are vilified and their property expropriated, until they disappear. Without them, the country collapses.

Sound familiar? Today, America is in decline. The Wall Street Journal reports that “the number of U.S. IPOs has plunged to an annual average of about 130 since 2001 from an average of 503 during the 1990s.” Our nation’s debt is skyrocketing. Government has seized unprecedented control over industries like healthcare and banking. Corruption, group warfare, and the sense of “entitlement” to other people’s money are rampant. As Steve Moore notes in “We’ve Become a Nation of Takers, Not Makers,” public jobs, money, and power are burgeoning while the private sector is shrinking _DC

More on how the US became a "looter state."
Producers may either generate something of value, or they may trade items of value on the open market. Moochers tend to beg, borrow, and steal with no intention of reciprocating value for value. When governments and government employees become net moochers, citizens often have nowhere to turn for redress of grievances. That is how life has been for the governed since the inception of central governments above a certain size.

As the above article states, the US was set up to benefit producers -- either creators of value or merchants of value. But the moochers have creeped into control over time, portraying themselves as protectors of the disenfranchised -- much to their own benefit, and to the gradual but accelerating ruination of the entire nation's economy and productive base.

Consider reading Atlas Shrugged, or seeing the movie, just to get your subconscious working on solutions to the problem. It will not be easy, because things have degenerated much too far. Start with planning a competent community able to pick itself up and take off from there. Then consider how such communities might work together over time to build entire regions that are more producer friendly.

The idea is too important to leave to just one nation.

Cross-posted from Al Fin

10 Oil Price Drivers, and What Happens Now?

The following list of 10 oil price drivers is taken from a John Hampson article on Seeking Alpha:

1. Developments in the Middle East and North Africa - A real supply loss in Libya and fear of supply loss elsewhere. The fear factor and uncertainty premium is likely to last all the way through to new elections, but intermittent "good news" from the region should ease the oil price.

2. Excessive liquidity and speculative momentum: Due to low interest rates in the developed world, money is encouraged to seek a return in hard assets...

3. A secular bull market in commodities: Born out of underinvestment in supply in the 1980s and 1990s and increased global demand (industrialisation of China, global population growth). This provides an ongoing anchor for oil investors and speculators, although not forever...

4. Peak oil: Where demand permanently exceeds supply...

5. Global growth: Leading indicators and global growth forecasts continue to point to 2011 being a strong year. However, higher crude oil prices crimp growth....

6. A hedge against inflation: ... inflation appears set to accelerate...

7. Technical analysis...

8. A weak U.S. dollar...

9. Crude oil price versus futures price 11 months out....

10. Solar cycles... _SeekingAlpha

Most of the items on the list relate to speculative drivers, investment strategies for big investors, and fear factors. Predictions of sustained global growth at this point in time are ludicrous. The most useful driver-predictors listed are those relating to monetary policies of central banks, and the weakening Obama dollar.

A number of analysts are starting to see a commodities selloff in the near future. More large institutions are beginning to recommend a selling of commodities assets that are heavily weighted in crude oil. It is clear that the price of oil is inflated, but it can be tricky teasing the genuine threads of long-term causation from the threads of fear, speculation, and government interference.

In the long run, crude oil becomes less ideal as fuel, feedstock, or investment.   Synthetic liquid fuels will be priced more competitively with oil over the next decade, as improved catalysts and industrial methods are perfected.  Unconventional gas will find more uses to substitute for crude oil and conventional gas.  Coal, bitumens, and kerogens are likely to find many new uses in substitution for conventional crude.  Biomass fuels and microbial fuels will likewise improve technologically, and eventually be placed at a strategic advantage vis a vis crude oil.

As improved nuclear energy technologies come on line, the need for coal and gas for electric power generation will diminish, and those feedstocks will be more cheaply available as transportation fuels and industrial feedstocks.

In the long run, the trends all point to a reduced need for crude oil in all its uses.  But over the next 30 years or so world markets will be subject to all the real and imagined drivers of oil prices.  Bad political leadership (as in President Obama's "energy starvation" policies) will tend to multiply the economic difficulties of residents, over the short to intermediate term.

But it is important that more observant and discerning individuals pay attention to the imminent divide between a growing Idiocracy, and an emerging coalition of competence.  The more competent coalition may not have the benefit of operating under a UN sanctioned nation-state government, but it should be able to take advantage of all the benefits of modern technologies all the same.

Pay attention.

A Fantasy Politics Based on Wishful Thinking

GWPF

When we embark on a course of action which is unconsciously driven by wishful thinking, all may seem to go well for a time, in what may be called the “dream stage”. But because this make-believe can never be reconciled with reality, it leads to a “frustration stage” as things start to go wrong, prompting a more determined effort to keep the fantasy in being. As reality presses in, it leads to a “nightmare stage” as everything goes wrong, culminating in an “explosion into reality”, when the fantasy finally falls apart.


Recent events show us two huge examples of this cycle moving to its final stages. One is the belief, which took hold 20 years ago, that the world was in the grip of runaway global warming, caused by our emissions of greenhouse gases. The planet could only be saved by abandoning fossil fuels and drawing our energy from wind and sun. For a while (the dream stage), all seemed to go according to the theory. As CO2 levels rose and the Earth continued to warm, our politicians started to propose every kind of drastic measure to reduce our emissions, such as building thousands of wind turbines. But in all sorts of ways, in the past few years, this dream and the theory behind it have begun colliding with reality.


Carbon dioxide levels continued to rise, but global temperatures failed to follow. Three times in the past 13 years – in 1998, 2006 and 2010 – they spiked upwards, thanks to periodic shifts in a major Pacific ocean current – the phenomenon known as “El Niño” – which brings warm water to the surface and boosts temperatures across the world. Each time it was trumpeted as “the hottest year ever”. But each time, as the ocean current reversed into “La Niña”, the spike was followed by an equally sharp cooling.


In 2007, temperatures fell by 0.75C, more than the entire net rise recorded through the whole of the 20th century. After they rose again to a new El Niño peak in 2010, we were told, only three months ago, by the compilers of the two chief surface-temperature records – the UK Met Office, in association with Phil Jones of East Anglia’s Climatic Research Unit, and James Hansen of NASA – that 2010 was the “equal warmest” or “second warmest” year ever.


Last week, however, with a new La Niña, it was reported that global temperatures, as measured by satellites, had fallen by 0.65C since March 2010, making the world cooler now than its mean over the past 30 years. Yet again the computer models, predicting that, thanks to rising CO2, the world should have warmed in the past decade by 0.3C, have proved hopelessly wrong.


... the 3,168 turbines we have built, at a cost of billions of pounds, contributed on average, if very irregularly, only 1,141 megawatts to the national grid last year – less than the output of a single large coal-fired power station. From the DECC figures it is possible to work out that, for this derisory contribution, we paid through our electricity bills a subsidy of nearly £1.2 billion, on top of the price of the electricity itself.


Thus, in return for less than 3 per cent of our electricity, nearly 7 per cent of our billls were made up of hidden subsidies to the wind developers, a percentage due to treble and quadruple in coming years as the Government strives to meet EU “renewables” target by building up to 10,000 more turbines, at a cost of £100 billion. The dream of using the wind to keep our lights on is being shown by reality to be one of the most absurd fantasies of our time. _GWPF Christopher Booker

The advanced world is immersed in fantasy politics, fantasy economics, fantasy energy planning, fantasy carbon hysteria, and fantasy education. Reality has little to do with the workings of the govenments of Europe, the Anglosphere, and the other advanced nations which are caught up in the vortex of debt, demography, and delusional ideology.

That being the case, it may be time to take a less on from "Atlas Shrugged" (Atlas Shrugged The Movie Part I coming to theatres this weekend): Going Galt.

Going Galt means to find (or create) a community of competent fellow independent-thinkers who are willing and able to create a "shadow government". A shadow government is nothing more than a group of cooperating individuals and families who can provide essential services for themselves so that the government is rendered irrelevant and unnecessary.

This concept is different from conventional survivalism where individuals and families often attempt to go it alone without necessarily cooperating and trading with outsiders. Such purist forms of survivalism are essentially unworkable. A far more workable approach is the formation of nuclei (or foci) of competence which cooperate with each other on terms of mutual advantage. One individual may form the nucleus of such a nucleus of competence -- or at least the initial motive force. But such efforts are only workable to the extent that they can enlist the cooperation of ever larger numbers of competent persons, families, and groups.

We are seeing the end-stage terminal dead-end of the nanny state approach to government. It is unsustainable and doomed to collapse. Debt, demography, and delusional ideology are growing to dimensions which were unimaginable a generation or two ago. And they are accelerating -- or "doubling down".

Time to look to alternatives to the mainstream.

Obama's Fake Economic Recovery, Where it is Leading

US President Obama's vaunted economic recovery is based upon massive monetary stimulus by the US Federal Reserve, on top of a fiscal policy of deficit spending by the US Congress. It is like a cocaine addicts high -- either stop the drug and crash, or keep increasing the dose and eventually die from the hollow over-stimulus. The QE2 is due to expire in June 2011, and the Fed will have a choice whether to keep hitting the coke, or go cold turkey. Neither option will be pleasant for US citizens, but at least one option allows for survival and a gradual rebuilding.

The trouble with this latest US recovery is that it amounts to little more than an economic “sugar-rush”. The recent growth-burst is built on monetary and fiscal policies which are wildly expansionary, wholly unsustainable and will surely soon come to an end. When the sugar-rush is over, and it won’t be long, the US will end up with a serious economic headache. Investors should keep that in mind.

...America is being blamed, rightly, for artificially depressing the dollar, so unfairly boosting US exports at the expense of those from elsewhere. At the same time, a lower greenback cuts the real value of the huge debts that America owes overseas creditors - not least the Chinese. _Telegraph

The author of the article above suggests that the Chinese and other US securities and bond holders will force the US to stop its serial QE attacks on the value of the US dollar and US treasuries. But can Obama's government afford to get off the twin railed (deficits and QE) train to perdition? Does Obama have the guts to take the bitter pill, when it is almost certain to mean defeat at the polls in 2012? Not likely.

One side of the inevitable disaster -- stopping QE. You know it will be a disaster either way, but one choice leads to an earlier painful disaster from which it will be possible to recover, eventually. The other choice leads to even more serious inflation than the US is already on the brink of.

The US is no longer a land of opportunity, but has become the land of government affiliated leeches and rent-seekers. That means that although government entitlements are rising exponentially, government revenues are becoming stuck, unable to compensate. Deficit spending at all levels of government is thus likely, until a final catastrophe brings the building train wreck to a screeching halt.

Lest you start to think that China or Europe will be safe economic havens and drivers of a global recovery -- better think again. Europe's demographic collapse on top of its welfare nanny state mentality, is a disaster building before our eyes. China's corrupt central economy is wrapping itself into hopeless knots.

The US economic debacle -- which no one in the US government or Fed is willing to face -- will compound the ongoing problems overseas.

How long before Obama's house of cards falls down? You gotta ask yourself one question: Do you feel lucky?

Intentional Homicide Rate by Region

The reasons for high crime rates among people from certain regions of the world has puzzled social analysts and observers for over a century. Blacks of African origin, in particular, seem to harbour higher crime rates wherever they may be in the world. It should be noted that the homicide rate for North America would be very close to the same as that in Western Europe, if the crimes of American blacks were omitted from the calculation.

In fact, that is somewhat how things are handled by the American media -- a studious avoidance of black violence and black on white hate crimes.

Intentional homicide rates per 100,000 population by region and subregion, 2004[6]	Rate
Southern Africa	37.3
Central America	29.3
South America	25.9
West and Central Africa	21.6
East Africa	20.8
Africa	20
Caribbean	18.1
Americas	16.2
East Europe	15.7
North Africa	7.6
World	7.6
North America	6.5
Central Asia and Transcaucasian countries	6.6
Europe	5.4
Near and Middle East/South-west Asia	4.4
Oceania	4
South Asia	3.4
Asia	3.2
South-east Europe	3.2
East and South-east Asia	2.8
West and Central Europe	1.5

Table via Wikipedia.

Unfortunately, the violence appears to be deep-seated, ie, in the genes, as it were. No matter where a person goes, there they are. And there are their genes, acting themselves out through the person's actions. Immigration policies would take such things into account, if the policies were intelligently designed, with the well-being of citizens in mind.

Clearly racism is alive and well in the American black community -- where it is fanned into flames by an outspoken culture of grievance and ginned-up outrage at historical wrongs committed against black ancestors. Combine this racism and resentment with low general intelligence, low impulse control, and other behavioural traits likely predisposing to violence, and the result is high violent crime rates among blacks worldwide.

Will Demographic Trends Drive Economic Trends?

People in Japan have too few children to replace themselves, and so the population of Japan is shrinking -- at an accelerating rate. Eventually the trend will have passed the point of no return.

The population of Japan peaked in 2004 and now is in relentless decline. Over 23% of the population is over 65 and the median age is 45 years old. For comparison, the median age in the U.S. is 37 years old, with only 13% over 65. The projection portion of the chart below paints a picture of death. The population of Japan is aging rapidly and will decline by 4.4 million, or 3.5% in the next ten years.

... Japan's central bank cannot reverse the demographics. From this point forward the population of Japan will be net sellers of government debt. Japanese insurance companies will be on the hook for $33 billion in claims. They will need to sell government bonds in order to make those payments. The World Bank has estimated the cost of rebuilding to be $235 billion. The government will need to borrow this money. At least 30% of its energy needs are off-line. It already imports 95% of its oil and coal. They will need to increase energy imports to make up for the nuclear energy shortage. Its positive trade balance was already in decline. _Marketoracle

In other words, even before the earthquake and tsunami, Japan was in demographic trouble -- and consequently in economic trouble. Now things could easily get worse.

The same demographic downtrends are occurring across Europe and Russia, with generally predictable dour economic results. Europe's newcomer populations have almost nothing in common with native Europeans, and seem to be adding very little to Europe's prosperity -- what is left of it.

A lot of analysts seem to believe that because third world and emerging nations have higher birthrates, that their economic situation will be better than that of the aging nations of the west:

Emerging markets have young and growing populations as well as labor force participation. Developed countries on the other hand have aging — and declining — populations and labor force participation. These trends suggest that GDP growth in emerging markets will remain robust, while GDP growth in developed countries will decline. For a simple reason: Population growth and labor force participation drive consumption, which in turn drives GDP. _Seekingalpha

All other things being equal, that logic would be relatively sound. But third world countries are third world for a reason. If the human capital for prosperity is not there when a country's population is 60 million, it is unlikely to improve significantly when the population reaches 100 million.

In the US, the Hispanic population is growing rapidly -- reaching 50 million in the 2010 census. If you add illegals to the count, the real census may be over 60 million. The US black population is only around 37 million, which makes Hispanics the larges minority by a significant count.

Hispanics accounted for more than half of the U.S. population increase over the last decade, exceeding estimates in most states as they crossed a new census milestone: 50 million, or 1 in 6 Americans.

Meanwhile, more than 9 million Americans checked two or more race categories on their 2010 census forms, up 32 percent from 2000, a sign of burgeoning multiracial growth in an increasingly minority nation. _MSNBC

The population of the US is indeed rising, but will the newcomers bring renewed national prosperity? Not unless they assimilate to an earlier pre-tribalist, pre-multicultural ethic that personified earlier, more properous eras of American growth.

If newcomers fall into the grievance trap of identity politics, they are more likely to hurt the US economically, than to help. Eventually the cohesiveness of the union is likely to fail, if neo-tribalism triumphs. That would certainly not be good for national finances.

The same problem of tribalism is a plague on most of the world's populations, and continues to afflict much of Africa and MENA / Central Asian countries in endless conflict and war. But America has just begun to get a big nasty taste of it on its home turf, and census results suggest such trends will only get worse.