plata o plomo
SIlver or lead was something Pablo Escobar liked to say. It means do what I want and I will give you money (plata) if you don’t I will use lead to kill someone close to you. I just noticed that it is the Spanish translation of a debate the US should have about the apparent failure of the Great Society (Johnson;s expansion of the New Deal).
In the conventional analysis the hero is Clinton (if one is a moderate Democrat) Reagan (as always, if one is a Republican). The story is that over generous social welfare caused people to treat the safety net as a hammock with very serious long-term consequences. The evidence for this is the dramatic increase in violent crime, drug abuse and teenage pregnancy which began in the 60s and continued until around 1992 (note that the raw data makes trouble for Republicans, as usual given the extreme liberal bias of facts). In this story, the problem was plata — too much money given to people in trouble reducing incentives to avoid getting in trouble. This hypothesis is undermined by modern econometrics (natural experiments) which suggests long term benefits of SNAP (aka food stamps and Medicaid.
Another hypsthesis (tirelessly promoted by Kevin Drum) is that the problen was lead — in particular lead 20 years earlier. The claim is that exposure to lead in very early childhood causes problems with judgement and self control in the always problematic late teens and early 20s. Sorry too many links for the lazy (seriously lead poisoned) Robert Waldmann to look up.
The source of the new lead was leaded gasoline and the hypothesis fits the fact that the trouble came 20 years after the post WWII boom with a huge increase in automobile ownership.
The Plomo hypothesis suggests that the true here is Richard Nixon who signed the clean air act which lead to the adoption of catalytic converters which are destroyed by lead. For that reason, leaded gasoline was abandoned. This suggests that crime should peak later in Europe. I promise that I predicted that violent crime was about to peak in the UK 20 years after they required catalytic converters in new cars. This prediction is extraordinary as it was correct (unlike the very vast majority of my predictions).
I say plomo not plata. This is imortant because the alleged failure of the Great Society allegedly due to inevitable uninted side effects very much affects the policy debate. If it was just an unfortunate coincidence then the case against social welfare is very much weakened.
the case against social welfare cannot be weakened. it was never more than a plausible–if you wanted to believe it–lie. if the great society has failed, it is because the very rich own congress/
one day browsing at the university of florida library i ran across a whole shelf (that is, floor to ceiling) full of scientific studies proving lead was good for people.
i did not know about the lead – catalytic converter connection. but they did take lead out of paint and pipes too, you know.
If I understand correctly, the lead in pipes becomes an issue when the water is acidic enough to leach it out. The lead in paint is “safe” as long as it remains sealed in. Flaking paint and improperly treated water contributed to those now known issues.
Lead in the exhaust easily contaminates the systems of anyone who breathes. It is also still easily disturbed in gardens of anyone who lives close enough to busy highways to have had the stuff settle from the air.
arne
i don’t claim to understand correctly, but paint is going to chip, or get sanded, and apparently pipes are going to corrode, so it’s maybe dangerous to suggest using lead in those applications if safe “if”…
i wonder what else is in the air near highways and less busy roads that might make fresh food from your garden problematic.
Arne:
Depends on the acid. This Chemical Removal of Lead Corrosion Products will explain it better than I can.
Another theory revolves around Roe v Wade. As of 1973 women were no longer forced to carry to term. Instead they were able to plan their family size meaning most children were wanted. This theory lines up pretty well with the very significant drop off in crime twenty years later.
Hypothesis, I think you mean here. Might be a pseudoscience idea….sounds like science but is untestable. The heart of the idea is that those aborted would have had more criminal behavior, which I think is beyond science to assess.
eric
i think i’d give up on worrying about theory v hypothesis, unless you want to add heuristic to your list of cares.
i think the idea here was that wanted children are less likely to be neglected than those their parents can’t take care of. and we sure as hell don’t want to go around “testing” every idea “scientifically.”
how about if we just think about them.
If we abort everyone the crime will really drop for sure! What a ghoulish thought process here: those people who did not get a chance to live would have probably been highly criminal.
Eric
if you keep digging yourself deeper into missing the point you will end up in a metaphorical hot place.
i am one of those who do not regard abortion as the moral equivalent of a manicure, but having too many babies is hard on women, and ultimately hard on the society. And forcing women to carry babies they do not want is hard on US [that is: it is a sin for us]. how I deal with this dilemma is to listen to what Jesus actually said: mind your own business. we have to get over the idea that we have a right to force people to do what we think is “moral.” and we must need to learn to distinguish between things we can call by the same name if we choose. the first is a mtter of morality…the Jesus kind. and the second is a matter of intelligence. they are both a matter of sanity.
no one has said “those who did not get a chance to live would probably have been highly criminal” except you. you are the ghoul here.
Lead is not good for you. Neither is mercury. It’s the twenty-first century
Ten Bears
so is plastic. but what seems to be destroying the brains of Americans and other fine people is the power of modern communications to insert poisonous memes into their minds.
the second coming of this comment appears to be a glitch in the programming.
Here is a more detailed discussion of the hypothesis linking family planning to crime rates:
Legalized abortion and crime effect – Wikipedia
This article briefly mentions the impact of taking lead out of gasoline as well.