When Good Kids Go Mau-Mau

On June 20 of this year in South Carolina, a young man named Carter Strange was jogging home from visiting his girlfriend, when he was surrounded by eight adolescent males, robbed, and beaten to within a millimeter of his life.

The assailants / muggers were apprehended and face trial. Court transcripts indicate that defense attorneys are referring to the assault gang as "good kids" who used poor judgment in this case. Good kids who act like mau-maus from time to time -- every blue moon, or just when they see a lone white kid jogging down the street? Yes, of course the assailants were young black males.

White and Asian Americans are becoming accustomed to hearing stories of black gang violence, black flash mob violence, and the spontaneous violent expression of black resentment on an almost daily basis.

Respected writer Walter Russell Mead believes that pressure is building inside black communities to the point that America may experience another explosion of black riots and bloody mayhem such as occurred in the middle and late 1960s, and in 1992 Los Angeles....

Leaders in the black community appear to draw power and clout from such outbursts of violent blood-letting, and continue to pump up the resentment at every opportunity. US President Obama's recent attempt to create mass hysteria among American senior citizens over the reliability of their social security payments is just a mild foretaste of Obama's apparent ability and willingness to use the rampant resentment and instability in American black communities to threaten -- and even foment -- outbreaks of violence, in order to get his way on political issues.

70% of the black children born in America are born out of wedlock. Over the generations, this leads to a chain reaction of illegitimacy and a population explosion of unguided minds inhabiting the bodies of most of the US black population. Resentment builds inside individuals with low impulse control, below average intelligence, high rates of poverty, and a community that tells you that you can never get anywhere because outsiders are holding you down. Your music tells you to fight back, and cap some asses. Kill the cops, kill the man -- whoever you think the man may be at any point in time.

This situation is getting worse under Obama, who appears to encourage this ongoing hellish descent of the black community as a means of leverage and political power -- and a fund-raising tool.

The implosion-explosion threat is far worse than can be described in writing. A picture of everyday black violence could easily paint a thousand words. A visit to a maximum security prison would paint more volumes than could be contained in the largest library.

Mainstream journalism in the US refuses to face this explosive issue. Politicians will not admit the problem of pandemic black violence exists, much less the larger threat of wide-scale riots and destruction spreading out from black communities, should the call go out. Popular culture and celebrity culture will not touch the deadly tripwire with a 100 foot pole.

All that is left is for the informal media to spread the information as it becomes available, to anyone whose eyes remain open to see the world around them. It is up to individuals and informal associations to make whatever preparations they feel advisable.

In the meantime, US borders remain porous to outsiders -- both friendly (but untrainable and unassimilable) and malignant -- under the Obama regime. The US economy remains frozen in a state of uncertainty under the Obama regime of debt, debt, debt. Obama's war against the private sector continues unabated. Everyone suffers in this climate of opportunity destruction.

More and more "good kids" will go mau-mau the longer the Obama regime and its bitter aftertaste remains in place. Expect it. Plan for it.

Equality at All Costs: Obama's Long March Downward

Politicians, pundits, academics, and journalists speak about "equality" as if it were something to be proud of, something good! Well, it is possible to achieve equality. Writer Kurt Vonnegut showed the way back in 1961:

In that brave, new world, the government forced each individual to wear “handicaps” to offset any advantage they had, so that everyone could be truly and fully equal. Beautiful people had to wear ugly masks to hide their good looks. The strong had to wear compensating weights to slow them down. Graceful dancers were burdened with bags of birdshot. Those with above average intelligence had to wear government transmitters in their ears that would emit sharp noises every 20 seconds, shattering their thoughts “to keep them… from taking unfair advantage of their brains.” _Forbes

This is not so very different from the approach that Obama's regime has been taking toward achieving an American equality.

...in all those societies that have tried to enforce the more extreme vision of mandatory equality, totalitarian governments have emerged, trying to enforce that vision on all. A thoroughgoing government structure must develop to impose and enforce social control on the most productive, or on any potential outbreak of “excess” productivity.

We can see as well that this vision of equality is not actually fair. It is not fair to the beautiful to force them to wear ugly masks. It is not fair to the productive to deprive them of what they have produced, merely to make them equal to others who have produced less. As Vonnegut’s story shows, putting social limits on the success that people are allowed to achieve with their own talents and abilities makes for an ugly society, harshly restrictive on its best lights who have the most actually to give to the benefit of all.

Finally, this vision of equality as a social goal, with equal incomes and wealth for all, is severely counterproductive economically, and so makes for a poor society as well. Pursuing such a vision would require very high marginal tax rates on anyone with above average production, income and wealth, which experience as well as theory shows us leads to less production.

If income and wealth is going to be equalized, why would anyone save or invest? Savings and investment just adds to wealth, and wealth is anti-social under a social justice regime of equal wealth for all. Indeed, the only rational strategy for everyone under such a regime is to consume all income and not save or invest anything. For anyone who saves and invests more than others will see that savings and investment expropriated, and anyone who saves and invests less than others will be rewarded with a grant from the government to make their savings equal to all others.

The only difference between the prosperity of modern industrial society and the subsistence living of cavemen is savings and investment. All the tools and equipment that enable us to produce more than what was enjoyed during caveman days come from investment, made possible by savings.

Under a social justice regime of equal income and wealth for all, there would be no reason for anyone even to work. If you work more than others, and earn more income as a result, the above average results of all that work would be expropriated. If you don’t work at all, then you would receive a grant from whatever government might possibly be functioning so that you still consumed the same average amount of goods and services as everyone else. _Forbes

Many modern-day US government policies are almost identical to Kurt Vonnegut's depictions of forced equality in "Harrison Bergeron." Under a regime such as Obama's, such policies only tend to grow more draconian and vampirish -- sucking a society's underlying strengths dry, until it is incapable of propelling itself without the dictates of its government overlords.

Mr. Obama has been most friendly toward the governments of China, Venezuela, Cuba, Iran, Russia, Saudi Arabia, and Syria. He has been most unfriendly toward the UK, Israel, Europe in general, Australia, Canada, and the private sector of the US.

You can tell a lot about where a leader wants to take his country from those he admires (and wishes to imitate) and those he openly despises.

US Inner Cities: Dark Zones of Impulse and Violence

One of the lasting legacies of the US 1960s era of big-government expansion of social programs, is the hellish environment of US inner cities. De facto "no-go zones" for many police forces, these hopeless neighborhoods create themselves, with the proper mix of ingredients -- including over ample government funding of dependency-inducing community programs. Another destructive legacy of the 60s is massive entitlement programs.

...entitlement programs are the biggest single financial problem we face. They dwarf all the Bush-Obama wars; they make TARP look like small change. They...cost money we don’t have — and are scheduled to cost inexorably more until they literally ruin the nation...

...Since the Great Society era of Lyndon Johnson, the country has poured hundreds of billions of dollars into poor urban neighborhoods. The violence and crime generated in these neighborhoods costs hundreds of billions more. And after all this time, all this money and all this energy, the inner city populations are worse off than before. There is more drug addiction and more social and family breakdown among this population than when the Great Society was launched. Incarceration rates have risen to levels that shock the world (though they make for safer streets);

...The state of the American inner city is an unacceptable human tragedy, and the costs in money spent and prosperity forfeited create an unsustainable drag on the national economy at a time when we need all the help we can get.

There is more. Those neighborhoods — and the prisons in which so many young urban men spend large chunks of their lives — threaten the peace and security of the country as a whole. Extremist cults, some domestically based and others relying on foreign money and enthusiasm, fish in these troubled waters for souls, and sometimes they catch a few. This could turn ugly. _WRMead_theAmericanInterest

What Walter Russel Mead dances around -- and eventually denies entirely -- is the elephant in the room: differences in underlying drive, impulse control, intelligence, and executive function.

Until analysts and decision makers can bring themselves to break with a counter-productive political correctness, and to accept the well established and easily demonstrated facts of hbd (human biodiversity), governments-academics-journalists-pundits etc will continue banging their heads against the wall. And the nation as a whole sinks into a deeper quagmire and a more critical state of risk.

From a Distance, the Hockey Stick Looks Unimpressive

Prolific and innovative thinker and scientist J Storrs Hall takes a look at where the climate has been, compares current climate with similar climate curves in the past, and slyly invites readers to guess where the climate is likely to be heading.

First -- Where the climate has been over the past 10,000 years or so... :

Images from WUWT
Next -- Comparing our current climate curve with similar climate curves from the past, to get an idea of a possible trajectory... :

Here I’ve plotted the 400 years following each minimum in the record that leads to a sustained sharp rise. There were 10 of them; the first five are plotted in cyan and the more recent 5 in blue. You can see that in the latter part of the Holocene the traces settle down from the wilder swings of the earlier period. Even so, every curve, even the early ones, seems to have an inflection — at least a change in slope — somewhere between 200 and 250 years after the minimum.

The hatched black line is the average of the 5 recent (blue) spikes. The red dots are the uptick at the end of GISP2 and HadSST, spliced at 1850. Note that ALL the minima dates are from GISP2. _WUWT

Then Josh invites readers to guess what will happen next, if history is any guide.

For some parts of the northern hemisphere, it may be time to get out the summer parkas.

Climate simpletons who believe that the global climate is controlled by one trace gas which constitutes less than 0.04% of the planetary atmosphere, have controlled the microphones, printing presses, funding agencies, and public stage for far too long. It is time for science to displace the politically convenient (and economically lucrative) climate hysteria, so that ordinary people can make rational plans.

Previously published at Al Fin Potpourri

China: Links and Threads

As the world's second largest economic system and an expanding regional military power, China plays an important role as an East Asian would-be hegemon and as an international power broker. It is not easy to keep up with where China is attempting to go, but it is worth an attempt.

China's Hidden Debt

Could China be the next Greece?

How China's regional banks hide loans and transactions

China's Demographic Transition to Senescence

Economics of an aging population

China's Internal Discord

How much longer can the Chinese Communist Party last?


Frustrated Chinese migrant workers rise up

Many Chinese workers unhappy with conditions

Autocratic CCP Rule Kills Creativity and Innovation

How China Kills Creativity

China needs more former British colonies like Hong Kong

More Foreign Companies Abandon China

Surging China Costs Driving Companies Away

China Bumps Up Against Resistance from Neighbors

Beijing's Territorial Claims Being Challenged

China's government has published very impressive economic growth numbers for many years running -- even in the midst of a global financial collapse. It is well to give the Chinese government the benefit of the doubt, given its massive cash reserves and impressive and shiny new buildings in Shanghai etc.

On the other hand, it is easy for outside observers to be fooled by superficial appearances. If westerners learned anything from the great collapse and fall of the USSR and Eastern European Communism, it should have been to never blindly trust facades.

Cycle of Civilisations

First of all, everybody can see that the economist class that owns banks and governments....feel that by virtue of their privileged birth and education they can steal from the public at will. The second is that this whole sovereign debt charade is just a continuation of that mentality in the pockets of every last citizen for the remaining drachmas pesos dollars and pounds that are slowly but surely accruing at the top of that putrid food chain. And the third emerging reality is that the game will continue until governments are toppled by the people from whom they are stealing. _Source

James West, author of the paragraph re-posted above, provides an intriguing snapshot of the world's economic state in the 28 June 2011 edition of his MidasLetter, titled "United States of Denial." He looks at Europe, Asia, the US, and Canada, at this moment in time -- a cross-sectional view that is worth a look.

One cannot see an entire cycle of civilisational rise and fall from one mere cross-section, but if you place enough cross-sectional views together, one can see the essentials.

Financial writers and analysts focus on economic and financial happenings to the exclusion of everything else, but most of the societal repercussions of the rise and fall of a global economy can be inferred with just a little knowledge of human nature.

Wars, famines, pestilences, poverty, and massive hardship all hinge on mundane matters such as interest rates and fiduciary responsibility. When most advanced nations are in a state of massive debt, where fractions of a point in lending rates can mean the difference between a fall in governments or continued good times, western civilisation has come to a precarious point.

When civilisations rise and fall, people's lives are affected by the turbulence in many ways. How well they weather the storminess is largely up to them and their immediate support structures. If government infrastructure is collapsing, one can not count government as one of his immediate support structures.

Getting to the Bottom of IQ Differences

The old IQ comparison studies that looked merely at skull size or head circumference as proxies for brain size, have been superceded by more advanced brain imaging capable of precise measurements of whole brain, total grey matter, total white matter, specific brain centers, and specific brain pathways and networks. These volumes are, to a large extent, under genetic control. A new era in comparing group IQs is dawning, thanks to advanced brain imaging and matching analysis of brain genetics. And a new era in improving gene expression relating to cognition is near to dawning -- as long as the key research is carried out and not obstructed out of a misguided sense of "political correctness."

Brain size as measured by MRI correlates highly with IQ. Specific brain networks and brain centers are even more highly correlated to IQ than gross brain size. In fact, a particular type of MRI analysis -- diffusion tensor imaging -- may supersede traditional IQ tests as the most objective means of testing IQ.

Anyone who truly wants to get to the bottom of the question of IQ differences between population groupings, will want to see the best designed, executed, and analysed research possible done on the subject. Anyone who is afraid of having such research done, does not truly want the question answered, and is lying to himself and everyone else when he claims that "there are no IQ differences, and even if there were it wouldn't matter!" Such persons' voices should be ignored as mere noise by all of those committed to finding the best answers to important questions.

A recent UK study at UCL Institute of Child Health, finds that teens who were delivered premature at birth have significantly lower brain white matter and IQ. (Abstract Annals of Neurology) For this study, it would be helpful to match by ethnicity, sex, and SES.

Between species, a longer gestation and breast feeding, correlate with larger brains, higher cognition, and longer lifespan.

And on and on. As brain genetic expression is correlated with advanced brain imaging with greater precision, and further correlated with IQ (and executive function), the larger global picture of human brain development should become clearer. At that point it will be impossible to deny the glaringly obvious group differences in brain function, and how these differences manifest themselves on a societal and economic level.

Being an HBD (human biodiversity) denier is growing more untenable every day.

Previously posted at Al Fin blog.

The New Colour of Racism in America is Black

Black Racism
Walter Williams laments the descent of young American blacks into hatred and racist violence against whites and Asians. This descent into racism is a natural result of the culture of resentment that has been force-fed young blacks for several decades, and is yet another sign of the desperate sickness of American black communities. In Walter Williams words:

Born in 1936, I've lived through some of our openly racist history, which has included racist insults, beatings and lynchings. Tuskegee Institute records show that between the years 1880 and 1951, 3,437 blacks and 1,293 whites were lynched. I recall my cousins and me being chased out of Fishtown and Grays Ferry, two predominantly Irish Philadelphia neighborhoods, in the 1940s, not stopping until we reached a predominantly black North or South Philly neighborhood.

Today all that has changed. Most racist assaults are committed by blacks. What's worse is there are blacks, still alive, who lived through the times of lynching, Jim Crow laws, and open racism who remain silent in the face of it.

Last year, four black Skidmore College students yelled racial slurs while they beat up a white man because he was dining with a black man. Skidmore College's first response was to offer counseling to one of the black students charged with the crime. In 2009, a black Columbia University professor assaulted a white woman during a heated argument about race relations. According to interviews and court records obtained and reported by Denver's ABC affiliate (12/4/2009), black gangs roamed downtown Denver verbally venting their hatred for white victims before assaulting and robbing them during a four-month crime wave. Earlier this year, four black girls beat a white girl at a McDonald's, and the victim suffered a seizure. Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel ordered an emergency shutdown of the beaches in Chicago because mobs of blacks were terrorizing families. According to the NBC affiliate there (6/8/2011), a gang of black teens stormed a city bus, attacked white victims and ran off with their belongings.

Racist black attacks are not only against whites but also against Asians. In San Francisco, five blacks beat an 83-year-old Chinese man to death. They threw a 57-year-old woman off a train platform. Two black Oakland teenagers assaulted a 59-year-old Chinese man; the punching knocked him to the ground, killing him. At Philly's South Philadelphia High School, Asian students report that black students routinely pelt them with food and beat, punch and kick them in school hallways and bathrooms as they hurl racial epithets such as "Hey, Chinese!" and "Yo, Dragon Ball!" The Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund charged the School District of Philadelphia with "deliberate indifference" toward black victimization of Asian students.

In many of these brutal attacks, the news media make no mention of the race of the perpetrators. If it were white racist gangs randomly attacking blacks, the mainstream media would have no hesitation reporting the race of the perps. Editors for the Los Angeles Times, The New York Times, and the Chicago Tribune admitted to deliberately censoring information about black crime for political reasons. Chicago Tribune Editor Gerould Kern recently said that the paper's reason for censorship was to "guard against subjecting an entire group of people to suspicion."

These racist attacks can, at least in part, be attributed to the black elite, who have a vested interest in racial paranoia. And that includes a President who has spent years aligned with people who have promoted racial grievance and polarization and appointed an Attorney General who has accused us of being "a nation of cowards" on matters of race and has refused to prosecute black thugs who gathered at a Philadelphia voting site in blatant violation of federal voter intimidation laws. _NewAmerican

Racial Violence Has Not Made It Into the Conversation About Race

More on America's sick culture of black racism:

The whole question of race is a dicey one. Pity the poor fool who wades into those troubled waters. Well, here goes. If a black person tells the truth -- namely, that in 2007, 99% of black problems are self-inflicted -- he is, like Bill Cosby and Thomas Sowell, dismissed as an Uncle Tom. If a white person tells the truth -- namely, that with a 70% illegitimacy rate, no amount of government hand-outs will do anything but provide the cancer victim with a very expensive band-aid -- he’s condemned as a racist.

When blacks say they wish to have a dialogue with whites, it only means that they want a forum at which to bash whites, while their victims provide a Greek chorus of mea culpas, provide the coffee and Danish, and drop a little something in the collection plate on their way out.

...if a person such as Bill Cosby says he’s ashamed of the promiscuity, drug use and illiteracy, that plague the black underclass, he’s called names. The real shame should be that millions of black kids are fatherless; that their taste in music is for anything that’s crude, lewd and loud; that their role models are too often basketball players who make more babies than baskets; whose language skills are embarrassingly abysmal; and that, although most of the street punks are peddling drugs for roughly the minimum wage, they regard it as a worthier, more manly pursuit than working at a 7/11 or, God forbid, going to church, school or a library.

Most whites in this country are not racist. In their heart, they agree with black comedian Chris Rock when he says, “I love black people, but I hate niggers,” even if they themselves are not allowed to make such an honest declaration. _Townhall

The black flash mob phenomenon is just a modest preview of the black racist violence which has been building up inside black communities. Pretending that violent black racists do not exist is becoming much more difficult, the signs are so widespread.

If a civilisation turns a blind eye to the rapid growth of barbarism inside its walls, perhaps it deserves its fate. But on the other hand, if particular facets of that civilisation are intentionally blinding the majority of citizens to this exploding barbarism, it is those facets of obfuscation which deserve the direst fate which their would-be victims can envision.

Why No One Really Knows What is Going On With China's Economy

China watchers may be a bit disturbed by ghost shopping centers, apartment buildings, and entire ghost cities. They may even be slightly bothered by the large volume of bad loans made by banks to non-viable state owned enterprises. But what should really be bothering China watchers is everything else that is going on in the economy, that not even China's government can keep up with.

A two-week tour this month through Fuzhou, Shanghai, Beijing and Chengdu highlights the extent to which local banks and governments are devising new and clever ways to supply money to capital-starved businesses without going through official channels. These new sources of capital raise doubts about Beijing's control over the financial system, as well as its ability to reduce inflation and forestall a crash in the property market.

...This problem is twofold: It is very difficult to capture information about nonbank sources of lending, which comprise everything from corporate balance sheets to unrecognized promises for future profits. Second, the bank regulators control only the banks, but not the whole economy. They are in a tug of war both with China's planning board—the National Development and Reform Commission—and local governments, all of whom have a vested interest in spending as much money as possible.

Arguably, this shadow banking system has a positive side. It is teaching wealthy Chinese how to evaluate the costs and benefits of recycling their savings into profitable projects, instead of leaving them in low-yielding bank deposits that could be funneled into useless investments. One of my former interns said her father, a metals trader in Shanghai, constantly receives investment proposals for private projects and probably has a good sense of what is a good and bad investment.

But the downside is more frightening. There is a rampant growth of credit, uncontrolled or even incalculable by the country's top leadership. This means the financial system is generating liabilities that could easily turn sour and, come some kind of crisis, prove difficult to clean up. Does this remind anyone of America's subprime crisis? _WSJ

This means that the numbers that you are shown may have very little to do with the actual state of affairs in China. The underlying reality may be better, or it may be worse, than what you are being told.

There is plenty or room for surprises, so beware.

US Local Governments Caught in Pension Death-Squeeze

Wages and benefits account for 30% of state general fund expenditures, according to data from the National Governors Association. But U.S. Census surveys show that in the typical town or school district, employee pay and benefits can consume from 70% to 80% of the budget.

Pensions are an enormous part of the problem. While pension payments now consume about 4% of state budgets, many municipalities are already spending 15% to 20% of their finances on pension costs.

...[in] Anaheim, pensions already account for 22% of its $252 million budget. San Jose's pension costs for police and firefighters have quadrupled in a past decade. Without reform, the city estimates that its yearly pension costs, $63 million in 2000, will swell to $650 million in 2015. _WSJ

These problems are exploding from California to Illinois to New York, and everywhere else where government employee unions hold a death's grip on state and local budget processes.

These skyrocketing rates of pension and benefit growth cannot be sustained for many more years. Angry -- and violent -- confrontations between taxpayers and government union thugs are likely to spread well beyond Madison, Wisconsin, and New Haven, Connecticut. In fact, virtually all of Mr. Obama's strongest support derives from special interests such as public employee unions and radical community and faux environmental groups. The combined agendas for each of these pillars of support for Mr. Obama toll a death knell for economic prospects for growth for US taxpayers individually and for the US as a whole.

If the voters of the world's sole superpower do not wake up soon to what is being done to them by their own government, they will eventually wake to find the sharp-wire strung around them in an ever tightening circle.

Obama Administration Wants to Meddle With US Power Grid Safety Features To Accomodate Unreliable Wind and Solar Projects

Big wind and big solar power projects are inherently unreliable and exorbitantly expensive to incorporate into a fine-tuned power grid. Consequently, the US Obama administration plans to de-tune the power grid -- with unpredictable results -- so as to make it easier to "fit in" the sloppy, unpredictable power produced by wind and solar.

The group that oversees the U.S. power grid is proposing a change that has the potential to disrupt electric clocks in schools, hospitals and other institutions, according to a company presentation obtained by The Associated Press. It may also mess with the timing of traffic lights, security systems, sprinklers and some personal computer software and hardware.

...Joe McClelland, head of electric reliability for the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission...said..."Let's see if anyone complains if we eliminate it." [the fine frequency control over the grid]

...In the future, more use of renewable energy from the sun and wind will mean more variations in frequency on the grid, McClelland said. Solar and wind power can drop off the grid with momentary changes in weather. Correcting those deviations is expensive and requires instant back-up power to be always at the ready, he said.

...Tim O'Brian, who heads the time and frequency division at the National Institute of Standards and Technology, expects widespread effects. _AP

It is a lot of trouble and risk just to incorporate highly unreliable and expensive power technology such as wind and solar into a power grid which has served the nation very well until now. But it is the sort of quasi-malicious "playing around to see what works and what fails" which we are coming to expect from the Obama administration.

More information from Anthony Watts

New US Births Coming Mainly from Minorities: Higher Crime Rates Coming?

Update 25June11: This blog posting by Financial Armageddon reveals some of the crimes likely to grow more common as th US undergoes its rapid demographic transformation.

According to the latest US Census numbers, US minorities now produce most new babies in the country. This trend is expected to accelerate over time, and lead to ever greater ethnic diversity across most of the US, as the US white population ages and dies without replacing itself. What will this trend do to crime rates across the US?

The map above looks at imprisonment rates per 100,000 among non-hispanic whites (via Steve Sailer). When compared to imprisonment rates among US blacks in the map below, it is clear that black imprisonment rates are far higher.

Comparing black imprisonment rates shown in the map above with US hispanic imprisonment rates in the map below, clearly hispanic rates are lower than black rates, but still higher than white imprisonment rates.

Below, you see a comparison of offending rates for US homicide by race (black vs. white) over a 30 year time period (from US DOJ).

When looking at violent crime rates in various cities and communities by ethnic makeup, it is clear that the higher the proportion of blacks within a given city or community, the higher the violent crime rates, in general. This suggests that as the proportion of white citizens in US cities declines, to the extent that they are replaced by younger black citizens, crime rates are likely to rise.

Most hispanic newcomers to the US are from Mexico and Central America, from countries with rather high rates of violent crime in comparison to most parts of the US. As more US communities achieve ethnic makeups similar to those of Mexican and Central American communities, it is not unreasonable to expect to see similar levels of crime in the transformed American communities, over time, as these communities adjust to populations with higher poverty, less education, and higher levels of corruption in local government.

As more of wealth in the US becomes concentrated in the hands of fewer and fewer whites (disregarding Asians for now), expect to see more secure gated communities, and a booming market in private security services of all kinds -- including anti-kidnap bodyguards and chauffeurs.

The combination of affirmative action, lax border security, and generous welfare benefits (in comparison to impoverished home countries etc), provide incentives for growth of a permanent underclass -- more prone to crime and other dysfunctional behaviours such as high rates of illegitimate births.

The same dysfunctional and dysgenic (average US black IQ = 85, average US hispanic IQ approx. 90) processes are occurring across the developed world, from Europe to Oceania to North America. In Japan and South Korea -- where immigration is minimal -- populations are simply shrinking and fading away over time. Presumably nations of fading populations such as Japan and South Korea will not suffer the higher crime rates which more diverse and aging populations will suffer.

More: See Color of Crime for an analysis of black vs. white crime taken from official US DOJ data

From "Handbook of Crime Correlates, by Ellis, Beaver, Wright:"

Numerous studies have been conducted in the United States in which the proportions of black populations are correlated with the region’s crime rate....most of these studies have concluded that violent crime rates are significantly higher in neighborhoods and/or cities with the highest proportions of black residents, especially regarding violent offenses. _Ch3 p42

Blacks and Crime Rates, a lesson from Australia

See Wikipedia Race and Crime in the US

Steve Sailer: Mapping race and crime

US DOJ: Uniform Crime Reporting

One important note of caution: Police departments have been caught falsifying crime rate statistics in order to make it appear that crime-fighting efforts were more effective than they actually were. Observers should be aware that corruption in US governments at all levels is another parameter that could very well change to more closely approximate the levels seen in source countries.

Obama's Coming Double Dip Recession and How to Avoid Its Worst and Most Lasting Complications

Obama appears determined to drive the US economy into the trash dump. The policies of the Obama administration -- from designed energy starvation to crony fake stimulus payoffs to unions and radical organising groups etc etc -- are custom made to destroy the productive classes and to empower the parasitic classes. Economies cannot thrive under such conditions and policies. But if the Obama gang would only take the trouble to learn some lessons from earlier debacles -- such as the Carter recession -- perhaps it could blunt the worst effects of the coming Obama double dip recession-cum-depression.

A look at a past double-dip, the recessions of 1980 and of 1981-1982, suggests we are due...the 1980s experience points to something horrible: We need a recession to get a true recovery.

The trouble that time actually started in the 1960s. Back then, policy makers feared inflation less than a recession. Scholars alleged they knew how to manage "creeping inflation" before it morphed into "galloping inflation," the unstoppable animal. A famous economic textbook at the time, written by Paul Samuelson, claimed that inflation was all right as long as it stayed below 2 percent. John Kenneth Galbraith deemed inflation "a normal prospect." The view was that oil shocks, loose monetary policy, taxes, deficits and labor strikes were also mere obstacles to grow past.

In the mid-1970s, the inflation rate -- measured using the Consumer-Price-Index value for urban consumers -- crept above 5 percent, and it seemed to want to stay there.

Federal Reserve Chairmen Arthur F. Burns and G. William Miller tightened interest rates repeatedly over the decade's course, so that the prime rate, the interest rate charged by banks to creditworthy customers, climbed from 8.5 percent in February 1970, when Burns began in the job, to an astounding 11.75 percent in early August 1979, when Miller left office.

...The inflation rate moved above 10 percent regardless of the Fed's rate increases. This was partly because of energy prices, but only partly. The deeper problem was a shift in attitude.

Prices don't merely reflect what people think things ought to cost today; they also reflect what people expect items to cost tomorrow. Markets suspected that the future contained less growth and more inflation than advertised. They also suspected that the Fed would always hesitate to raise rates out of fear of hurting growth.

That suspicion was reinforced in 1978, when President Jimmy Carter signed the Humphrey-Hawkins Act, which mandated that the Federal Reserve strive for both full employment and stable prices.

Then, in the summer of 1979, with the inflation rate exceeding 10 percent, Carter appointed the inflation hawk Paul Volcker as Fed chairman...For weeks, Volcker worked hard to build consensus within the Fed for raising rates. He also summoned the Wall Street Journal's opinion editors, Robert Bartley and George Melloan, to lunch in the dining room of the New York Federal Reserve Bank to try to win their support. Then he held an unusual Saturday meeting of the Fed’s board of governors on Oct. 6. Afterward, the Fed announced it would raise the discount rate, which it charges banks that borrow at its window, to 12 percent.

When this news was announced that night, not everyone understood its importance. Pope John Paul II was visiting the U.S. at the time, and CBS asked the Fed spokesman, Joe Coyne, if their announcement mattered. “You'll remember this long after the pope has left town,” Coyne told the network.

Coyne was right. For what Volcker was really saying was: "We are not afraid to force recession, whatever the statute says. Our only job is to stop inflation."

...Volcker used his monetarist cover to tighten violently. Between summer 1979 and December 1980, the prime rate rose to 21.5 percent from 12 percent.

Why so high? To wring extra money out of the economy, certainly, but also to prove the Fed meant what it said. Volcker incurred the wrath of many. Homebuilders sent the Fed two-by-fours to symbolize the houses they were not building; car dealers sent in keys to unsold vehicles. "We were negotiating for a house when Mr. Volcker came along and knocked the struts from under us," a husband told the New York Times in 1980.

In the second dip, which officially began in summer 1981 and ended late in 1982, unemployment rose past 10 percent. "That recession resulted from the absolute necessity to kill inflation," George Melloan told me.

The Fed didn't move the discount rate below 5 percent until the 1990s.

Eventually, people became convinced that the U.S. was serious about inflation. And the lower interest rates that followed enabled millions of Americans to build, invest and buy homes. Volcker's work made the work of future presidents, Republican and Democrat, easier. _Bloomberg

In fact, much of the prosperity -- both true wealth-building and bubble-building -- of the US 1980s and 1990s was due to the renewed confidence in the US monetary system which Vocker's tough love approach earned. Unfortunately, under the "weak dollar policies" of Greenspan and Bernanke there has been far too much bubble-building and far too little genuine wealth-building in the US the last two decades.

There will be a price to be paid. The sooner the underlying lessons of sound money policy are learned, the better position the US society will be in to pay that price and to go on to prosper.

Life in California: Not for the Easily Discouraged

I am including a long excerpt from Professor Victor Davis Hanson's latest PJ Media column. It details some of his struggles to survive in the face of a rampant parasitism settling over the "Golden State."

Last week was another somewhat depressing chapter in a now long saga of living where I was born. I returned to the farm from leading a European military history tour, and experienced the following — mind you, after a number of thefts the month prior (barn, shop, etc.):

1) I left my chainsaw in the driveway to use the restroom inside the house. Someone driving buy saw it. He slammed on the brakes, stole it, and drove off. Neat, quick, easy. Mind you there was only a 5-minute hiatus in between my cutting. And the driver was a random passer-by. That suggests to me that a high number of rural Fresno County motorists can prove to be opportunistic thieves at any given moment. The saw was new; I liked it — an off-the-shelf $400 Echo that ran well. I assume it will be sold off at a rural intersection in these parts, or the nearby swap meet for about $60. I doubt the thief was a professional woodsman who needed a tool of the trade to survive.

2) On the next night, three 15-hp agriculture pumps on our farm were vandalized — all the copper wire was torn out of the electrical conduits. The repairs to each one might run $500; yet, the value of the wire could not be over $50. I was told by neighbors that reports and descriptions of the law-breakers focused on youthful thieves casing the countryside — in official parlance a “gang,” and in the neighborhood politically-incorrect patois “cholos” — like the fellow who recently drove in, in his new lowered shiny red pickup (hydraulic lifters are not cheap), inquiring about buying “scrap” and “just looking” before I ran him out.

3) A neighbor has a house for sale. It is unoccupied and rather isolated. I saw someone approach it on Friday, and drove over to ensure he was lawful. It was the owner’s assistant, who lamented that someone had just stolen all the new appliances out of the house — carting off the refrigerator, dishwasher, stove, and microwave. But why? Do these miscreants wish a civilization of the sort that all houses must seem occupied all the time, or are otherwise considered “communal property” for the taking? Don’t the appliance thieves have homes, and if so, do they have locks on the doors to protect their investments from the likes of themselves?

...Highly paid and pensioned California teachers and professors are resembling bishops, knights, or rooks surrounded by a host of part-time, temporary, one-year-contract pawns, lacking the salary, security, and benefits of the kingpins. Yet the liberal establishment in education cannot continue in such an apartheid world of unionized winners and exploited subordinate losers, or public fiefdoms propped up by private toilers. It is a contradiction in terms, and there is no money to pay for it, despite the fiscal logic of its exploitation.

...I went to the warehouse local food store the other day, soaked it all in, and wondered: if everyone is on food stamps (actually computerized government plastic credit cards designed to avoid the old stigma of pulling out a coupon), are there still food stamps? We are nearing 50 million recipients. So what will come next? Food stamp A; food stamp category B? Super food stamps? Can 100 million receive them? 150?... _VDH

California is a preview of coming attractions for much of "blue state America." Greece is already there, and much of the rest of "entitlement minded" western Europe is well on the way.

As for the readers of this blog, it should not require stating that your decisions over the next few years are crucial. And I am not referring to your decisions while in the poll booth, although one should be aware of the ramifications of his actions in all circumstances. No, your response to the general demographic decline of your society will determine at what level the re-building can commence.

San Francisco is Doomed

The average city pension to SF retirees is $46,272, while the average per capita income of San Franciscans is $44,373. But as the private sector continues to flounder -- as more businesses choose to leave California entirely -- average private sector incomes are not likely to rise quickly. Government retirement income, on the other hand, is likely to sky-rocket as union negotiated payouts expand on a generously pre-programmed schedule. More from SFGate:

The average retiree from San Francisco city government earns an annual pension of $46,272, according to the San Francisco Employees' Retirement System. The average retiree who worked at least 30 years in city government earns an annual pension of $76,981.

The average pension for a retiree from the Fire Department is $108,552. From the Police Department? $95,016. And everybody else? $41,136.

The figures show most retirees aren't getting anywhere near the fat packages that outrage many city residents - like the $264,000 pension paid to former Police Chief Heather Fong last year. [ed.: This paragraph is disingenuous, as the upward trend for pension payouts is exploding upward, and out of control. Look at the trends -- where things are going. Not at where they have been.]

But city retirees are doing pretty well compared with working San Franciscans....Per capita income is $44,373.

Public Defender Jeff Adachi is gathering signatures to place a measure on the November ballot that would require city workers to pay far more of their salaries toward pensions. Currently, most pay 7.5 percent of their paychecks, but some highly paid employees would pay double that in bad economic years under Adachi's plan. _SFGate

San Francisco is a beautiful city, but it has been going downhill rapidly under a steady barrage of corrupt leftist city governments, in thrall to government employee unions.

But the same rapid decay is happening across the state of California, for largely the same reason. The same process of doom is ongoing in Illinois, New York, New Jersey, Michigan, and a number of other parts of the US which are committing ritualistic murder of taxpayers and private sectors in league with government unions.

Greece and much of western Europe are on the same decline plane, destined for financial ruin as a result of an excessive and pyramiding sense of entitlement and tax/regulation suppressed drive and enterprise.

Politically correct groupthink controls western media, governments, academia and popular culture. But reality has the final word.

Five Steps to a Healthy Economy Which Obama Can Never Take

Growing a healthy economy is a lot like growing a healthy garden. One must provide the proper environment for healthy growth and allow natural forces to do the rest. Here are five useful steps for growing a healthy economy, which go against everything Obama believes:

...the fountain of economic growth is to expand the opportunities for voluntary, mutually beneficial exchanges (MBE).

Lower tax rates do so by decreasing the barriers to domestic trade. Income, sales, profits, and capital gains taxes are the equivalent of tariffs on domestic economic activity. Lower tax rates, like lower tariffs, increase the opportunity for trade, or MBEs.

Reducing government spending, especially on transfer payments, tax credits and the like, also increases the opportunities for growth. Government cannot increase MBEs by taking money from some people, and then handing it to others. These are involuntary, or one-side exchanges, and therefore generally decrease our wealth and economic activity.

Monetary stability is also critical for the discovery of MBEs. The more certain we are about the future buying power of the dollar, the easier it is to do business, invest and save. Hence, more business gets done, and more jobs get created.

The rule of law is a vital government function that increases opportunities for MBEs. Upholding contracts, protecting property rights, prohibiting arbitrary use of government power to seize one’s property or to give the politically connected unfair advantage in the marketplace all contribute to economic growth.

Regulations which reduce the risk of fraud by requiring full disclosure or promulgating financial accounting standards reinforce the rule of law. By contrast, regulations that seek to dictate economic outcomes, such as price controls, impose involuntary exchanges, and thereby shrink the opportunities for MBEs. Regulations that restrict economic activity directly reduce economic growth by forbidding exchanges that otherwise would have occurred. _Forbes

Obama and his gang fail on every point, and fail as badly as one could possibly fail. The ideology which drives the Obama agenda pushes the economy away from healthy and sustainable growth, toward cronyist favouritism and top-down fiat. The Obama way cannot continue for long without serious catastrophe.

Persons who voted for Obama were either particularly stupid, particularly young and inexperienced, particularly uninformed and indoctrinated, or particularly greedy for power and advantage. Anyone who imagined that an Obama agenda would revive the US and global economy and provide a healthier environment for markets and trade, was deluded. For a few of them, there is time to learn and change.

Rosenberg: US Crash in 2012 Roubini: China Crash in 2013

David Rosenberg of Gluskin, Sheff, & Associates, predicts a 99% chance of another US recession in the year 2012.

Nouriel Roubini predicts that China is in for a "hard landing" by the year 2013.

"I was recently in Shanghai and I took their high-speed train to Hangzhou," he said, referring to the new Maglev line that has cut traveling time between the two cities to less than an hour from four hours previously.

"The brand new high-speed train is half-empty and the brand new station is three-quarters empty. Parallel to that train line, there is a also a new highway that looked three-quarters empty. Next to the train station is also the new local airport of Shanghai and you can fly to Hangzhou," he said.

"There is no rationale for a country at that level of economic development to have not just duplication but triplication of those infrastructure projects." _Reuters

Roubini also sees the Eurozone in crisis, and possibly heading for a breakup.

The twin processes of debt and demography are poison for both Europe and the US. China's problems lie largely in the corrupt command economy's political constraints and inability to allow market forces to work their creative destruction. China's government appears addicted to the "broken window fallacy," which can create impressive GDP numbers but is hugely wasteful of resources -- human and otherwise. Ghost cities, ghost super-trains, ghost highways, and ghost shopping malls are the least of China's problems.

In no small part due to the US Obama administration's anti-market bias and ultra-cheap dollar policies, the global economy is experiencing multiple simultaneous and interactive shocks and aftershocks.

Getting rid of Obama will do very little good, however, unless the entire bandwagon of catastrophe that brought Obama into office is likewise disposed of. That bandwagon is massive, with a historical momentum that appears unstoppable. Debt and demographic decline can only smooth the way for the monstrosity.

That is why it is so important for future oriented individuals to plan for the possibility of a sustained economic collapse due to dysfunctional government -- as occurred in Zimbabwe, Cuba, the USSR, Mao's China, modern day Venezuela, etc etc etc.

Obama Backers Pore over Palin emails, Brawl at McDonalds

Telegraph
Backers of US President Barack Obama are eagerly poring over thousands of former Alaska governor Sarah Palin's emails, desperate to find incriminating details sufficient to disqualify her from all politics and public affairs. And what have they found so far?

One can only assume that the Left-leaning editors who dispatched teams of reporters to remote Juneau, the Alaskan capital, to pore over the emails in the hope of digging up a scandal are now viewing the result as a rather poor return on their considerable investment.

If anything, Mrs Palin seems likely to emerge from the scrutiny of the 24,000 pages, contained in six boxes and weighing 275 pounds, with her reputation considerably enhanced. As a blogger at Powerline noted, the whole saga might come to be viewed as “an embarrassment for legacy media”. _Telegraph

Most readers of the emails are likely to grow more sympathetic to the plucky little woman from Wasilla, AK, when they learn about all the death threats directed her way by supporters of the current US President.

But we all know that Obama supporters tend to be a bit energetic and rowdy at times -- all in good fun, of course. Consider a recent brawl at a San Jose, CA, McDonald's. Dozens of Obama supporters -- over 100 persons according to witnesses -- enthusiastically took part in the melee, resulting in two stabbings and a certain amount of property destruction.

Meanwhile, in Washington D.C., the Obama administration itself is busy destroying America's energy infrastructure, business infrastructure, economic and financial infrastructure, and the infrastructure of law which up until Obama had given native born Americans and immigrants the opportunity to work hard and develop their potential.

The United States of America -- the world's leading economy and only military superpower -- is being led by a group of people best known for their public antipathy toward the American constitution, American business and commerce, and the generally staid and stable American way of life and personal opportunity.

It is easier to destroy than to create, and it is the practise of destruction which seems to appeal most to Obama supporters and the Obama administration itself.

American voters will have to decide how much longer they will be forced to watch this government of destruction continue in its catastrophic march to the sea.

Three Ugly Sisters of Bureaucracy Paint a Bleak Future

When a government is almost exclusively interested in its own growth and self-preservation at the expense of the people and private institutions it is meant to serve, a poisoned stew of dystopia is on the menu for as long as it takes to dismantle that government.

...the fake recovery is vanishing, the dollar keeps falling against anything of real value, and the average guy on the street is realizing limited benefit for his share of the debt and inflation burdens. How is this possible?

I’ve often said that bureaucrats and politicians have an extremely limited playbook consisting of taxation, regulation, and inflation. These three ugly sisters of bureaucracy effectively serve to steal from people, make things more difficult for them, and rob them of their purchasing power… and yet they’re dressed up as solutions instead of problems.

Consider the case of Illinois– the state is completely insolvent and running out of cash quickly. It doesn’t have the luxury of printing its own currency, and is thus being forced to deal with its fiscal reality… much like Greece.

Rather than trying to make their state more competitive in order to attract talent and capital, they’ve opted for the old playbook… starting with taxes...

...$10 trillion in the hole and facing a steep downward trend, the US government is either looking at substantially higher borrowing costs, substantially higher inflation, or both. Investors are getting jittery about loaning money to the United States, so they will either demand a higher return, or the Federal Reserve will hyperinflate the currency to mop it all up.

Regardless of the scenario, Congress will reach deep into this playbook until they chase away every productive citizen and company they can… In fact, it’s already happening.

The number of people renouncing US citizenship has been more than doubling year-over-year for the last several years. Meanwhile, many businesses are moving overseas, or at least focusing on international operations and shifting profits offshore.

It’s easy for companies to move… much more difficult for people who have emotional ties, fear, anxiety, etc. that maintains their geographical inertia. As such, it will ultimately be the individual citizens remaining behind who will be exploited like malnourished milk cows to pay for the destruction. _Simon Black on ZeroHedge

Because government bureaucrats and politicians put themselves (and their cronies) first and their constituents last, they never even consider doing the right thing. Reducing the size of government interference in markets and private decisions -- to allow individuals' assets and economic markets to grow based upon sound and sustainable economic principles -- would give nations such as the US, Greece, and Spain a new lease on life. But government functionaries can no longer do the responsible thing -- even if they wanted to -- because dependency upon government payouts, preferences, and benefits has grown too high for too many people. The riots in Peoria might even come to rival those in Athens or Paris, once government union organisers and other quasi-collectivist groups had time to bus in the shock troops and stir up local government beneficiaries.

In other words, the trend is set in stone, unless responsible citizens and officials collaborate to strip governments of their power to bribe voters and potential rioters with unsustainable phantom assets -- either borrowed or inflated. Because when the three ugly sisters get finished painting the landscape, you will come to envy those who were able to escape the trap in time. Who is John Galt?

The Obama Economy is Even Worse than You Thought

The policies of the Obama administration have led to the weak condition of the American economy. Growth during the coming year will be subpar at best, leaving high or rising levels of unemployment and underemployment.... The picture is even gloomier if we look in more detail. Estimates of monthly GDP indicate that the only growth in the first quarter of 2011 was from February to March. After a temporary rise in March, the economy began sliding again in April, with declines in real wages, in durable-goods orders and manufacturing production, in existing home sales, and in real per-capita disposable incomes. It is not surprising that the index of leading indicators fell in April, only the second decline since it began to rise in the spring of 2009.

...The economy will continue to suffer until there is a coherent and favorable economic policy. That means bringing long-term deficits under control without raising marginal tax rates—by cutting government outlays and by limiting the tax expenditures that substitute for direct government spending. It means lower tax rates on businesses and individuals to spur entrepreneurship and investment. And it means reforming Social Security and Medicare to protect the living standards of future retirees while limiting the cost to future taxpayers.

All of these things are doable. But the Obama administration has not done them and shows no inclination to do them in the future. _WSJ

There is no guarantee that an economy will thrive, even if an oversized government like that of the US did everything right. But when a bloated monstrosity such as the US federal government does everything wrong -- as under Obama -- it is almost impossible for the economy to thrive.

The US under Obama has become a depressing drag on the world's economic prosperity, as the headstrong tunnel-visioned techniques of revolutionary community organising are applied to the controls of the world's only superpower.

Better make sure your parachute is packed properly.