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[Kabouter]

TU Delft discovered a particle...

I try to avoid posting news I don't understand on at least some level.

 

[speculawyer]

This may sound weird, but I'm absolutely AMAZED that almost no one has gone postal so far. We had an incident last year in which a very stressed man blasted two bank employees, his former boss and his son with a shotgun (the later two owed him a lot of money, apparently) but other than that particular case things seem rather calm. Handguns may be rare over Europe, but we have plenty of hunters.

I think it is happening all the time in the USA these days. You just don't often hear about it because it requires following up on stories. The headlines are filled with the immediate killing horror. Then a couple days later in some buried story, you real about an pending forclosure, a job loss, huge debts, etc. Even that guy who shot up the Afghanis . . . he was in financial turmoil.

There is a quiet underbelly of desperation & people cracking going on.

 

[Always-honest]

Don't forget all the old people who will die this summer in heat waves.

Sure. Old age, diseases, heatwaves, suicide, suffication, crime passoinelle, death by fart, etc.

I try to avoid posting news I don't understand on at least some level.

ah, got you. Seems wise. Although the news might be interesting to others ofcourse.

 

[More Fun To Compute]

Politicians do think of the long term. Look at how much money Tony Blair is making for himself, that's some serious long term planning.

 

[Lord Error]

Crime has generally gone down in the US during this recession.
I have not yet heard a convincing explanation as to why.

My guess: People in a desperate situation are too depressed to do anything anymore. Crime requires lots of courage even when you technically have nothing to lose. Most people just go into the depressed mode rather than in rage mode, unless there's some kind of mob to carry them along.

 

[Chichikov]

Well, even lower rates are higher than the rates that arguably increased crime during the 70s. I'm not sure how convinced I am of the argument, but there's some mad correlation going on there.

There was a sharp drop in the early 90s, that correlates (with a time delay) with the rise of abortions .
Ever since there was a steady decline in abortion rates, if that causation exists, it should push crime rates up, not down.

But yeah, I'm not 100% persuaded by that theory too.

My guess: People in a desperate situation are too depressed to do anything anymore. Crime requires lots of courage even when you technically have nothing to lose. Most people just go into the depressed mode rather than in rage mode, unless there's some kind of mob to carry them along.

Historically, bad economic times correlate with a rise in crime.
I heard many theories, I can come up with some myself, but I have yet to see anything conclusive, definitive, or at even rigorous.

 

[Kabouter]

There was a sharp drop in the early 90s, that correlates (with a time delay) with the rise of abortions .
Ever since there was a steady decline in abortion rates, if that causation exists, it should push crime rates up, not down.

http://i.imgur.com/y4mOu.gif[IMG]
[IMG]http://i.imgur.com/Uc6gc.png[IMG]

But yeah, I'm not 100% persuaded by that theory too.[/QUOTE]

Doesn't the drop in crime also correlate with increasingly harsh law enforcement techniques, increased imprisonment rates and so on? I think their theory on abortion is a plausible one, but obviously it needn't be the only factor at work.

 

[Admiral Bone to Pick]

Abortion rates have been going down since the 80s.

I've always chalked this up to a couple factors.

1. Younger people spending more time indoors. This may sound like a minor variable, but kids are a lot less likely to spend time hanging out in the streets if they're being distracted by inside activities like videogames and Facebook.

2. The absurdly high incarceration rate. As much as I hate to admit it, arresting millions of people (even for non-violent offenses) will keep them from committing crimes in society. The majority of those arrested are young males, the most likely demographic to commit crimes.

3. The general aging of the population. Younger people are more likely to commit crimes, so an increasingly older population should have a consistent drop in crime rate. It would explain why the crime rate began to spike in the late 60s/early 70s as the large baby boom population (which peaked around 1957) stated to reach adolescence.

Of course there were also absurdly high crime rates in the 80s and early 90s as well, but I think this was largely due to the crack epidemic. It's tough to put every factor into account.

 

[elrechazado]

Doesn't the drop in crime also correlate with increasingly harsh law enforcement techniques, increased imprisonment rates and so on? I think their theory on abortion is a plausible one, but obviously it needn't be the only factor at work.

What do you mean by harsh law enforcement techniques? If you're talking about things like mandatory minimums for drugs and whatnot, then probably.

 

[Kabouter]

What do you mean by harsh law enforcement techniques? If you're talking about things like mandatory minimums for drugs and whatnot, then probably.

Yes, that is exactly what I meant. Should probably have used a different, clearer, term. I'll just blame it on ESL.

 

[Akainu]

Suicide among men has always been high, of course no one really cares.

 

[empty vessel]

Doesn't the drop in crime also correlate with increasingly harsh law enforcement techniques, increased imprisonment rates and so on?

I believe that has contributed (although I agree with Chichikov that I'm not aware of any rigorous evidence demonstrating it). The US incarcerates more people than any other country on earth. And that's in absolute numbers, not even per capita. While decreasing crime rates are obviously a good thing, if US crime policy has any responsibility for it, I don't think that outweighs its detriments. It's extremely draconian, racist, and classist. Primarily, it's another in a long line of attempts in the US to avoid effective social welfare policies. Giving people education, health care, stability in employment and housing would empower them too much, in the views of some. Better to just let their deprivation cause them to commit crimes and then put them in a cage for life afterwards. It's much better to spend money on prisons (especially when they are for-profit!) than on social welfare. Prisons don't have that nasty side effect of economic empowerment.

 

[shadyspace]

Doesn't the drop in crime also correlate with increasingly harsh law enforcement techniques, increased imprisonment rates and so on? I think their theory on abortion is a plausible one, but obviously it needn't be the only factor at work.

America's Prison-Industrial Complex: Working just as advertised!

 

[el retorno]

Yes. I'm usually one of the stronger advocates of austerity, but you should never overdo it like many European nations are right now. Restore market confidence with long term reforms rather than swift and deep cuts, and allow economies to grow again. I also feel like there just needs to be more of a general plan across the EU (or at least, the Eurozone) in how to deal with the crisis, rather than letting each nation go at it alone. Sure, federalization would be better still, but I'd settle for some real cooperation with nations truly committing to that cooperation.

I feel you. I do feel a lot of the countries didn't prepare for a crisis like this and spend a bit too much. But what their doing now is suicide.

I speak spanish so I tend to follow Spanish and UK news more than the other countries (I hate reading US newspapers talking about europe) But in the case of Spain its been cutting since the begining and has never had a respite (it also never ran a deficit in the boom years unlike say france). Its private debt problem became its public debt problem and now nothing is enough. The country today is predicted to have a 1.7% decline this year (on top of a 24% unemployment rate) and this was before 47 billion dollars cuts which did nothing so they announced a labor reform and 10 billion more, guess what that did nothing! I will be highly suprised if that 1.7 figure turns out to be true.

I just hate hearing policians when the country is declining saying they can cut and at the same time grow. It doesn't work that way when your not starting out with growth. Get the growth growing and cut underthat.

And there does need to be a lot of reforms in Europe but its crazy that their comming at the same time as the economy is falling. But instead of these reforms we have Italy blaming spain, France blaming everyone, Grecee blaming Germany, etc.

There won't be shit to dominate if Germany's gov. doesn't wise up. This is the thing that really drives me mad: Merkel can only think in short terms and at the same time is incredibly inmobilist when it comes to her own country's economy.

She doesn't understand that much of Germany's wealth and almost its entire power comes from its European exports. Italy and Spain are the third and the fourth biggest economies in the EU (barring the UK); strangle them to death and let's see how that works out for Germany.

I'd think she'd change her tune if she wins reelection next year (though thats too far off). And I think she might think developing countries could pick up the slack (so much for european solidarity).

Europeans can't handle losing some benefits they have over third world countries ? Just as when the economy is flourishing they get many social benefits, they should be willing to give up on these benefits during a downturn.

This has nothing to do with benefits (the underlying problems).


As an American I keep seeing the current EU as the US under the articles of confederation. There was out of control debt a "federal government" unable to do anything and a bunch of bickering states....

 

[bigtroyjon]

The US hasn't done austerity (yet). In fact, that's why the US is experiencing a (weak) recovery so far while Europe is not.

Not true at all. Most states had their revenues drop sharply and had to respond by slashing spending, firing state employees and eliminating social programs. The reason the US is recovering is that the states were able to set and stay within a reasonable budget instead of just borrowing money to keep up their inflated spending or raising taxes and killing personal spending.

 

[elrechazado]

Not true at all. Most states had their revenues drop sharply and had to respond by slashing spending, firing state employees and eliminating social programs. The reason the US is recovering is that the states were able to set and stay within a reasonable budget instead of just borrowing money to keep up their inflated spending or raising taxes and killing personal spending.

Shots fired at empty vessel.

/popcorn.gif

 

[Kabouter]

I believe that has contributed (although I agree with Chichikov that I'm not aware of any rigorous evidence demonstrating it). The US incarcerates more people than any other country on earth. And that's in absolute numbers, not even per capita. While decreasing crime rates are obviously a good thing, if US crime policy has any responsibility for it, I don't think that outweighs its detriments. It's extremely draconian, racist, and classist. Primarily, it's another in a long line of attempts in the US to avoid effective social welfare policies. Giving people education, health care, stability in employment and housing would empower them too much, in the views of some. Better to just let their deprivation cause them to commit crimes and then put them in a cage for life afterwards. It's much better to spend money on prisons (especially when they are for-profit!) than on social welfare. Prisons don't have that nasty side effect of economic empowerment.

Yes, I'm familiar with America's crowded prisons, like I imagine most Westerners are at this point thanks to numerous documentaries and news stories on the matter. It's certainly something that the US should do something about, because while I do think it has produced lower crime rates, the other effects like you say are extreme.

Not true at all. Most states had their revenues drop sharply and had to respond by slashing spending, firing state employees and eliminating social programs. The reason the US is recovering is that the states were able to set and stay within a reasonable budget instead of just borrowing money to keep up their inflated spending or raising taxes and killing personal spending.

That's the reason the US is recovering? Really?

 

[empty vessel]

Not true at all. Most states had their revenues drop sharply and had to respond by slashing spending, firing state employees and eliminating social programs. The reason the US is recovering is that the states were able to set and stay within a reasonable budget instead of just borrowing money to keep up their inflated spending or raising taxes and killing personal spending.

Both state and federal government spending increased during the recession. This is not what austerity looks like.

 

[Chichikov]

Oh, and I found that graph looking for something else -

May be somewhat related (though I would caution against drawing too conclusive of a conclusion from this).

 

[IceCold]

Don't forget all the old people who will die this summer in heat waves.

Don't forget the forest fires.

 

[empty vessel]

Oh, and I found that graph looking for something else -

May be somewhat related (though I would caution against drawing too conclusive of a conclusion from this).

And there's certainly no austerity in US criminal justice spending:

I wish this data went further back.

 

[dinazimmerman]

If we're only considering unemployment, it's not even true that the US is suffering much less than Europe at the moment.

[GRAPH LINK, IT WAS TOO BIG LOL: http://i.imgur.com/RW231.png]

Sure, Greece, Spain, etc. are in shambles, but they aren't the only EU countries implementing austerity measures (if you're not convinced: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/10162176). And as the graph shows, unemployment has increased less in Europe as a whole than in the US. Remember that Europe started out in 2007 with much higher unemployment to begin with. Take the UK for example. Started with a higher unemployment rate than the US in 2007 but had lower unemployment in 2011.

Anyway, re: the OP article, I took a look at the referenced research claiming to show that austerity worsens the effect of unemployment on the suicide rate. The researchers have published two articles on this subject. In a recent summary article (http://www.lancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(11)61079-9/fulltext), they mention that:

On the basis of our earlier work, we argued that formal and informal social protection such as active labour market policies and strong social support networks could mitigate the predicted increase in suicides.1, 4 In this context, we note that Austria, with a strong social safety net, had a slight decline in suicides despite an increase in unemployment of 0·6 percentage points between 2007 and 2009. However, unexpectedly, Finland, also with strong social protection systems, had an increase in suicides of just over 5% in the same period, by contrast with previous recessions.

So the relationship is not very clear cut. In the article with the actual statistical analysis (located here: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S014067360961124), their claim is that less spending on "active labor market programmes" i.e. retraining, job search assistance, public works programs, worsens the effect of unemployment on the suicide rate. They found that less government spending of any other type has absolutely no effect. But it's not like their statistical analysis is convincing in the first place! As is unfortunately common in sociology, all they do is run a linear regression of the suicide rate on change in unemployment, the interaction of change in unemployment and expenditures on "active labor market programmes," and maybe some other control variables, it's not very clear. That's it! As they're using panel data, country-specific traits that are constant over time are controlled for, but they do not consider endogeneity issues beyond that. This research would not pass muster in any applied economics journal.

 

[Flying_Phoenix]

I know I've said it before but Christ! The Euro was the stupidest idea I've ever heard. If all countries are going to have the same currency than they should all act as a single entity, one nation. Similar to the United States. Otherwise you just get nations with completely different fiscal and social views messing around with your cash.

 

[IceCold]

I know I've said it before but Christ! The Euro was the stupidest idea I've ever heard. If all countries are going to have the same currency than they should all act as a single entity, one nation. Similar to the United States. Otherwise you just get nations with completely different fiscal and social views messing around with your cash.

Europe is too diverse anyways. You can't have that many countries who speak different languages, have different values, religion, and history to just behave as one entity all of a sudden. The EU was destined to fail from the very beginning.

 

[el retorno]

Europe is too diverse anyways. You can't have that many countries who speak different languages, have different values, religion, and history to just behave as one entity all of a sudden. The EU was destined to fail from the very beginning.

That's not why it failed.

 

[Flying_Phoenix]

Europe is too diverse anyways. You can't have that many countries who speak different languages, have different values, religion, and history to just behave as one entity all of a sudden. The EU was destined to fail from the very beginning.

Its inevitable that a European States of Europe will happen eventually IMO. As time goes on you'll need more and more mouths to continue being relevant in the globe. China starting to become a superpower and India on its way, Brazil is growing, and America is well America. If the European nations want to keep their influence than they need their own "superpower".

 

[Clegg]

The Euro failed because there was no single fiscal policy for all member states. There was a system in place whereby a nation couldn't join the Euro unless they met certain criteria. One of those was that the debt to GDP ratio couldn't exceed a certain limit. Germany and France exceeded that limit but everyone just chose to ignore that. It gave every other nation carte blanche to continue.

Instead it was left to the central banks and governments of each nation. Things were out of control in Ireland. We had an economic boom from 1995 to 2001. Then we had a bubble caused by a property boom. And that was never sustainable.

When that bubble burst, Ireland was fucked.

 

[Kabouter]

Small bump, given that we were talking about austerity vs. growth here, Reuters just put up an article about just that subject.

Analysis: No simple answer to EU growth vs austerity conundrum