Month: October 2023

Matt Yglesias asks today whether the big rise in murders in 2020 was due to COVID or George Floyd. It's a tricky question: COVID basically started on March 11 and George Floyd was killed on May 25. They're so close together that they're hard to disentangle.

But naturally I thought I'd try. FBI figures don't provide much detail, so instead I went to the CDC and searched vital statistics for all deaths coded as homicides. What I'd like is homicides by date so I could see if they spiked specifically after May 25 as opposed to earlier in the month. I couldn't do that, but I could do this:

Let me explain. The George Floyd murder happened on Monday the 25th. In May of 2020, homicides ran at the same rate as April on Mondays and Tuesdays. Then they rose a bit, rose a bit more on the weekend, and then spiked much higher on Sunday.

It seems unlikely that this happened throughout the entire month. Why would Monday-Tuesday homicides be the same in April and May but different after that—and especially different on the weekend? More likely, I think, is that these numbers represent a spike beginning specifically on Wednesday, May 27th, and spiking higher on the first weekend after the murder, which raised the monthly aggregate. This suggests Floyd rather than COVID as the reason for the murder spike.

Here's another chart:

In May 2020, Blacks were killed at a rate 39% higher than the average of the first four months. Whites, by contrast, were killed at a rate only 10% higher. It seems very unlikely that COVID would produce such a large racial difference. Once again, the evidence points to Floyd rather than COVID.

Matt adds another observation: murder went up in the US but, generally, didn't in other countries. This again suggests Floyd rather than COVID as the explanation for a rise in US homicides. And as Matt points out, it's well known that civil unrest often leads to temporarily higher murder rates (the "Ferguson effect"). What was unique about George Floyd was its size: the protests were national; they were big; and they lasted for months.

Did COVID cause the high murder rate to last longer than it otherwise would have? Maybe. I can't think of any way to tell. Does any of this explain why only murder was up, not violent crime in general? Not really. Do we know why civil unrest frequently leads to spikes in murder? Nope. So we still have mysteries.

And of course, my evidence is a little sketchy. It's just the best I could come up with. But sketchy or not, we have four things that all point in the direction of the George Floyd murder being largely responsible for the rise in murders that began in 2020. That's not case closed, but the door is definitely just barely ajar.

UPDATE: A reader points out that the top chart has a problem. In April 2020 there were only four weekend days. In May there were five.

I've updated the chart to show homicides per day for April and May and changed the text to reflect this. It changes things, but the basic picture remains much the same.

Peter Suderman reminds us today that the congressional budgeting process is in tatters:

Since the 1990s, Congress has consistently failed to follow its own budgetary process rules, which call for writing, debating and passing a dozen single-subject appropriations bills over the course of each fiscal year.... Instead, Congress has relied on continuing resolutions, which are essentially deadline extensions, and omnibus spending packages, which bundle all or most of the nation’s discretionary spending into a single, giant spending bill. From time to time, lawmakers have combined these two into something that sounds like a horror movie monster — a “cromnibus.”

Like many of his predecessors, our new Speaker of the House has promised to restore order and transparency to the budget. Good luck with that. But if everyone on both sides of the aisle hates the current broken process, how come it never gets fixed despite endless promises to do so? Suderman is no idiot, so he knows perfectly well why Mike Johnson will be unable to meet his promised budget schedule:

To meet that ambitious schedule, Mr. Johnson will need to unite a querulous and unruly House Republican caucus behind a single budgetary agenda.

The only reason Johnson is speaker in the first place is because Republicans rebelled against Kevin McCarthy. And why did they rebel? Because they couldn't even agree on a continuing resolution to keep the government muddling along, let alone a dozen complicated funding bills. So McCarthy did a deal with Democrats and sealed his fate.

With this level of chaos, there's no way to agree on a budget except for leaders to do it behind closed doors. Even that's a dicey proposition, despite giving leaders the latitude to horse trade between agencies, not just within them. If the key to a deal is a billion dollars less for HHS and a billion more for Homeland Security, you can do it in an omnibus bill.

Right now, of course, House leaders are presumably still planning to break the promise they made earlier this year about spending levels, which puts them on a collision course with the Senate even if they miraculously agree on a budget among themselves.

This is no secret. Budgeting isn't chaotic because there's not enough time or because the government is too complex. It's because the wingnut wing of the Republican Party refuses to ever agree on anything.

This tweet has been making the rounds today:

Abortion, Every Day Exclusive:

Idaho has brought forward charges in the state's first 'abortion trafficking' case.

Law enforcement used geolocation data to place a teenager at an Oregon abortion clinic. pic.twitter.com/Ndisv2sjmB

— Jessica Valenti (@JessicaValenti) October 31, 2023

This is clickbait. As Valenti acknowledges, Idaho's abortion trafficking law wasn't used in this case. It involves a boy named Kadyn Swainston who was in a sexual relationship with a 15-year-old girl. Here's a summary of what happened:

The relationship began when Kadyn was 17, the girl said, according to the affidavit, but continued after his 18th birthday. She was pleased to learn that she was pregnant, the girl said, but Kadyn was not. Kadyn allegedly told the girl if she did not have an abortion, their relationship would be over, and he would refuse to pay any child support.

The victim initially did not want to tell her parents about the pregnancy or abortion for fear it would get Kadyn in trouble. Eventually, she changed her mind, and when she was about to tell her parents, Rachael [Kadyn's mother] threatened to kick the girl out of the home, the girl said.

The victim said Rachael made arrangements for the abortion. Then, on May 18, Rachael rented a car and drive the victim to Oregon, where the abortion was performed on May 19.

There are plenty of weird gray areas here. Kadyn is charged with rape for continuing to have a consensual relationship with a 15-year-old girl after he turned 18. When the girl got pregnant, Kadyn pressured her to get an abortion. When the girl wanted to tell her parents about her pregnancy, Kadyn's mother threatened her and then made arrangements for the abortion.

This didn't come to light because of some crusading right-wing prosecutor. The girl's mother called the police, and the girl herself supported the investigation. So it's a case of genuine parental anger. On the other hand, you have to wonder how much her mother was even acting as her mother. The girl had been living in the Kadyn house for six months. On the other other hand, Kadyn's mother was not especially motherly herself. She had apparently been providing the girl with meth.

What a mess. And there's more, including sex tapes, meth trafficking, and harboring a fugitive. But abortion trafficking? Not in the sense we usually mean it. The charge is that Kadyn's mother pressured the girl into getting an abortion even though the girl was hesitant and the girl's mother was deliberately left in the dark. That's a bit of a different thing.

There's been lots of chatter over the past few days about how labor unions "are back" following the successful conclusion of the autoworkers strike. I hate to throw cold water on all this, but here's what UAW pay looks like next year, following the immediate 11% hike in the first year of the contract:

Autoworkers still won't be at the wage level of 2019.

There are strong points in the contract. The two-tier wage scale is basically gone. Future raises will include automatic COLA increases that prevent autoworkers from falling behind inflation. The weak bargaining of previous years was toughened up.

Still, this contract is basically just catching up with the unexpectedly high inflation of the past couple of years. That's why the topline number is so big. This, combined with strong economic growth and a tight labor market, made bargaining easier than in previous years. The strength of unions, unfortunately, is still about as weak as ever.

Cows!

Yesterday the Biden administration issued "a landmark Executive Order to ensure that America leads the way in seizing the promise and managing the risks of artificial intelligence (AI)." As best I can tell, it includes basically one item of any importance: NIST will develop standards for red-team testing of AI software that affects "critical infrastructure, as well as chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear, and cybersecurity risks." This testing is mandatory:

Companies developing any foundation model that poses a serious risk to national security, national economic security, or national public health and safety must notify the federal government when training the model, and must share the results of all red-team safety tests. These measures will ensure AI systems are safe, secure, and trustworthy before companies make them public.

Here is my translation of the rest of the executive order:

Establish standards and best practices blah, blah, blah.
Establish an advanced cybersecurity program blah, blah, blah.
National Security Memorandum blah, blah, blah.
Prioritize federal support blah, blah, blah.
Strengthen blah, blah, blah.
Evaluate blah, blah, blah.
Provide clear guidance blah, blah, blah.
Address blah, blah, blah.
Ensure fairness blah, blah, blah.
Advance the responsible use blah, blah, blah.
Shape AI’s potential blah, blah, blah.
Develop principles and best practices blah, blah, blah.
Produce a report blah, blah, blah.
Catalyze AI research blah, blah, blah.
Promote a fair, open, and competitive blah, blah, blah.
Use existing authorities blah, blah, blah.
Expand bilateral, multilateral blah, blah, blah.
Accelerate development of vital AI standards blah, blah, blah.
Promote the safe, responsible blah, blah, blah.
Issue guidance blah, blah, blah.
Help agencies blah, blah, blah.
Accelerate blah, blah, blah.

Am I being a wee bit too cynical here? Maybe. But aside from the national security stuff, the entire EO strikes me as little more than a laundry list of aspirational wishes that will produce lots of bureaucratic report writing and recommendation making (guide, shape, develop, strengthen, evaluate, promote, advance, etc.) but not much more.

In fairness, EOs have limited authority outside the federal government itself, so the impact of the AI executive order has built-in restraints. And the blizzard of upcoming reports about AI, coming from every agency imaginable, could eventually turn into real rulemaking,¹ if only through bureaucratic inertia. Even here, though, these effects will be mostly about how to use AI, not regulate it.

Full disclosure: I haven't read the EO itself, only the fact sheet. But I've also read a bunch of commentary from experts who have read it. It's certainly possible I've missed something big, but overall the EO seems almost entirely focused on investigating and thinking about the use of AI. There's not much in the way of mandatory regulation for anyone to be very concerned about.²

¹"Eventually" because real rules take years of hearings, public comments, and industry input before they can take effect.

²Though perhaps plenty to be concerned about if you think the government should adopt strong AI rules. But that would take congressional action. No mere EO could accomplish very much along these lines.

Tommy Tuberville, the moron senator from Alabama, has been holding up hundreds of military promotions for months. This weekend the commandant of the Marine Corps collapsed after suffering a heart attack, which leaves the Corps leaderless since Tuberville has blocked the confirmation of Lt. Gen. Christopher Mahoney as assistant commandant. So now we have this:

On Tuesday, Tuberville began circulating a petition, which would need signatures from at least 16 senators, to force the chamber to consider the nomination of Mahoney....That maneuver is the same one that lawmakers used in September to vote to install Gen. Charles Brown Jr as the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

wtaf? Tuberville is now trying to force a confirmation vote for a man whose confirmation he's blocking?

This whole affair is crackers. It's preposterous that a single senator can hold up nominations on a whim, and in any sane world the Senate would ditch this rule. But they won't. Why? Because every single one of them wants to retain this power in case they themselves want to use it someday. Idiots.

Every newspaper I read has suddenly started running gigantic banner ads. It's pretty annoying since they occupy about half the screen until you scroll past them. What's going on?

Home prices are high but they keep on rising anyway. In August they increased at an annualized rate of 3.3%:

We're still not quite back up to the 2022 peak, but we're getting there. Here's a longer term look:

Prices have been above the peak of the early aughts housing boom for the past three years. They are now nearly 10% higher.

The wokest parts of higher education are the various ______ studies departments. You know, gender studies, Black studies, women's studies, and so forth. These are the disciplines that get the most criticism for being ultra-left, ultra-identity-oriented, and a disgrace to university standards in general. They also get pranked a lot. That's not entirely without cause, I think, but still, I got curious: how many of these people are there, anyway?

This was a little tricky to figure out until I hit myself on the head and just headed over to the Digest of Educational Statistics, which had the number of degrees granted in these fields in a single, neat line. Here it is:

Ah, sorry, that's not much help, is it? Let's zoom in:

Still not very helpful. Let's zoom in even further:

Finally we have it. In 2020, the various critical studies programs accounted for 0.36% of all bachelor's degrees granted. That's about 7,000 degrees out of 2 million total. Here's another look at that:

I dunno. These disciplines may or may not be credits to the academy, but after 50 years they account for a minuscule portion of degrees and they aren't growing. If this is a threat to the nation, or to Western civilization, I have a hard time seeing it. Just because they're loud and kinda nuts doesn't mean we have to pay so much damn attention to them.