Sprinkled through a vast amount of breast-beating and finger-pointing about the events unfolding in Ferguson, Missouri, I’ve found a few good things. ThinkProgress has a good backgrounder on the housing policies that have contributed to the very segregated housing situation in St. Louis and its environs. Segregated housing creates an environment of mutual distrust. People don’t understand each other and they just don’t have the experience to “read” each other.

Megan McArdle points to rapid demographic change as a contributing factor to the problems there:

The answer, after digging into some census data, seems to be massive demographic change. In 1990, the city of Ferguson had 5,589 black citizens and 16,454 white citizens, making it about three-quarters white. By 2000, blacks were a slim majority of the population. And as of 2010, they made up 69 percent of the city, and it seems likely that trajectory has continued over the last four years. This may be part of the “Great Inversion” that seems to be taking place in St. Louis; as the white population begins to reverse its 1950s-era migration to the suburbs, the black population is migrating out toward the suburbs.

The critical message here is that change and rigid public employee work rules are a bad combination. The area in which I spent my early childhood in St. Louis was considerably south and east of Ferguson. Even then that neighborhood was changing and its residents have been almost exclusively black for most of the last half century. Until recently Ferguson, as I’ve mentioned before, was a white, blue collar, some would say red-necked near-in suburb.

In a number of ways the best thing I’ve is from the editors of the Wall Street Journal:

There is little question that some young law-abiding black men are viewed suspiciously by some cops and the motivation may sometimes be race. It is also true that young black men—or rather, young men—commit crimes, often violent and whose victims are also mostly black. Instead of applying a predetermined racial template to every episode, both problems should be treated with the seriousness they deserve, which means judging each case on the merits.

Reality is contingent and fact-specific. That is why the U.S. criminal justice system respects due process and requires the government to prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. Attorney General Eric Holder, the FBI and the U.S. Attorney in St. Louis are conducting an independent investigation of Brown’s shooting, which will be a tonic to the extent they are fair and impartial.

Ferguson may now show that racial healing and comity are possible even amid great strain. That task belongs above all to the citizens of Ferguson, and it won’t be made any easier if it is exploited by national actors who are able to pack up and leave once the rioting stops.

These are people that we’re writing about and, consequently, they should be treated as ends rather than means. Doing otherwise is immoral. Let’s see what can be done about the problems, learn the lessons, and move forward without depersonalizing any of the parties involved.

There’s an interesting article in the New York Times tracing the migrations to and from states in the United States state by state. There are graphics from each state and I have, er, sampled graphics for my native state of Missouri (above) and my home state of Illinois (below).

There are some interesting distinctions between the two states. For example, in the year of my birth and through most of my youth the percentage of those born outside the United States living in Missouri was very small—less than 5%—while the same figure in Illinois was double that or more. I suspect that if you could take that statistic down to the county level you’d find most of the foreign-born in Illinois then living in Cook County and its collar counties. My point here is that this presents a very different life experience.

Another example is the larger percentage of people moving from southern states to Missouri compared with Illinois. I suspect if you coujld drill that down to the county level you’d find most of those southern immigrants in the far southern part of the state, the part bordering Arkansas and Kentucky.

The process of catching a fly ball in baseball isn’t one of placing yourself where the ball is. It’s a complex problem of figuring out where the ball will be, reconciled with the time it will take you to get there, and having the athletic prowess to do that. That’s why crafting good policy is difficult, too. The problems you’re trying to solve don’t stand still while you’re trying to solve them.

That’s the kernel of truth in Dr. Scott Atlas’s criticism of the PPACA: the very existence of the law will change the structure of the healthcare and insurance systems it’s intended to reform in ways that its authors could not, cannot, and will not be able to predict. That has several implications. First, the longer the implementation and enforcement of the law are postponed, the greater the gap between the system it was designed for and the system that will exist will be. And, more importantly from my perspective, it assumes continuing refinement of the law over time at a faster pace than our system of government can manage.

However, there are plenty of untruths and half-truths in his op-ed as well. For example, I think the only way the PPACA can be characterized as “a halfway move toward the single-payer model” is if other payers are withdrawing themselves at an appreciable rate. To my eye that doesn’t seem to be happening, at least not yet.

Nonetheless, it’s true that healthcare costs are rising everywhere, not just here, even under single-payer systems and fully socialized systems which Dr. Scott jumbles in his op-ed.

I have some questions. I think it’s clear that the future of healthcare financing is some combination of public and private. What’s the right balance and how is it achieved? Where will the ball be when we can get there?

Also, what is the role of the U. S. system of healthcare and insurance in increasing costs outside the U. S.? If you say “there isn’t any”, you’re asserting that the cost of training and paying providers is irrelevant to costs, a remarkable assertion, or that providers are not portable which is simply false.

Harold Meyerson rejects Greg Mankiw’s and Tyler Cowen’s views of what needs to happen to have a fairer economy in which more of the people share in the benefits of economic growth:

“The returns to growth,” Cowen recently told the New York Times, “are going . . . generally to people with high I.Q., no matter where they live. I don’t really know how you could undermine this dynamic, short of wrecking the world.”

But the IQ premium, to the extent it exists, is just one among many factors behind the upward redistribution of wealth. A more systemic factor is the shift in income from wages and salaries to investments. A study released this month by Standard & Poors Economic Research — no radicals, they — concluded that labor income accounted for three-fourths of all market-based income between 1979 and 2007, but that it had dropped to two-thirds of such income by 2007. Income from capital gains, by contrast, doubled during this time, from 4 percent to 8 percent. Moreover, the S&P study noted, “capital income has become increasingly concentrated since the early 1990s.” Even among the wealthiest 5 percent, more than 80 percent of capital gains were realized just by the wealthiest 1 percent.

There is a network of policies adopted over decades that have tended to produce the outcomes about which Mr. Meyerson is concerned. These policies have tended to reward the ownership of assets rather than labor and include trade, tax, and immigration policies as well as intellectual property law. An increasing share of income going to financial assets is not a law of nature but an artifact of policy.

Sadly, in this column Mr. Meyerson criticizes the views of others but presents no solutions of his own. Increasing the incomes of the poor is simple: you write checks to them. The thrust of policy over the last half century has been to write the checks to people performing services for the poor rather than the poor themselves which, presumably, makes them better off but doesn’t increase their incomes. That’s a policy, too.

Peter Beinart explains the difference between polling data and those in positions of power and influence:

Think about the issues on which Hillary put distance between herself and Obama. She was particularly sharp in her criticism of the president’s reluctance to arm Syria’s rebels. But this supposedly shrewd political maneuver puts Hillary in the company of a mere 20 percent of the population. The last time the Pew Research Center asked Americans whether they support military aid to Syria’s rebels, 20 percent said yes and a whopping 70 percent said no. When respondents were asked in the same poll to evaluate a series of statements about Syria, the most popular was the “U.S. military is already too overcommitted.”

Hillary also took a harder line than Obama on Iran’s right to enrich uranium—a harder line that would make it harder to reach a final nuclear deal with Tehran. As with Syria, many commentators considered Hillary’s more hawkish stance to be politically astute. But again, the public is actually closer to Obama. According to a University of Maryland poll in July, 61 percent of Americans support a deal that would limit—but not prohibit—Iranian enrichment, while only 35 percent support increasing sanctions in an effort to eliminate Tehran’s enriched uranium altogether.

[…]

Given these results, why do most commentators think Hillary’s hawkishness is politically wise? Because over the last year or so—as a result of the conflict in Ukraine and the rise of ISIS in Syria and Iraq—elite opinion has grown more hawkish even though public opinion at large hasn’t. When it comes to foreign policy, in fact, the key divide is no longer between Democrats and Republicans. It’s between the elites of both parties and their rank and file. When asked about arming Syria’s rebels, an Iran deal that allows some uranium enrichment, and whether America should do more or less in the world, both Democrats and Republicans overwhelmingly take the more dovish view. On each question, the partisan divide is five percentage points or less.

The real gap emerges when you compare ordinary Americans to elites. According to Pew, for instance, rank-and-file Republicans are 34 percentage points more likely to want America to do less overseas. Rank-and-file Democrats are 31 points more likely to want America to do less. Members of the prestigious, bipartisan Council on Foreign Relations, by contrast, are 20 points more likely to say America should do more.

One way of explaining this gap is that elites understand Things As They Are while Americans more generally are ignorant yahoos, a self-congratulatory and irrefutable proposition. That interventionist responses have repeatedly gotten us into trouble over the period of the last half century should at least cast a little doubt on that view.

Moreover, I wonder what makes Mr. Beinart think that this gap between what elites want to do and what the majority of Americans want to do is limited to foreign policy? On immigration, for example, Americans generally overwhelmingly support not increasing the number of people who come to live and work here. Elites characteristically support increases.

Americans, generally, see the economy and jobs as the most important problems confronting us. Judging by political speeches and opinion pieces in the media, that’s rather clearly not the way elites see things. You will see much, much more on income inequality, wage issues, and other economic issues that are minor by comparison.

What do American, generally, see as the most important non-economic problem? They’re dissatisfied with government.

Lauren Bacall has died:

Bacall, the Hollywood icon who taught Bogart how to whistle in the film that launched her career and turned “Bogie and Bacall” into one of the movie world’s most celebrated couples, died Tuesday in New York, where she had lived for several decades. She was 89.

Her death was confirmed by Robbert de Klerk, co-managing partner of the Humphrey Bogart Estate with her son, Stephen Bogart. The cause of death was not disclosed.

In a statement released on social media, the Bogart Estate expressed deep sorrow and “great gratitude for her amazing life.” Her daughter, Leslie Bogart, said the family was not releasing any other details at this time.

There are only a few paths that women take to movie stardom: the theater, they can start as child performers, or they start as beauty queens or fashion models. Ms. Bacall took the latter path, going from an 18 year old New York fashion model to a major film star over a remarkably short period. She starred in a half dozen or so iconic movies, mostly opposite Humphrey Bogart, including To Have and Have Not (her first screen appearance), The Big Sleep, and Key Largo. I think Key Largo is one of her best performances.

The screen was her metier; I have a vague recollection of having seen her on stage in Applause, for which she won a Tony in 1981.

Her death marks yet another step in the passing of the Golden Age of Hollywood’s studio system. Now the only major stars left alive from that period that I can recall are Olivia de Havilland and Luise Rainer.

When I was in high school, quite a number of my classmates lived in Ferguson, Missouri. Then it was a blue collar suburb of St. Louis and many of its people worked in the factories that dotted North St. Louis. Over the years it has changed from a slightly gritty, mostly white working class suburb to a much tougher and all but entirely black enclave.

The factories are mostly gone, too, replaced by housing, warehouses, and empty spaces where factories used to be.

Joseph Epstein sees something missing from Ferguson and the episode of the killing of a black teenager (who would have been called “an adult” 50 years ago) by a policeman that has been attended by demonstrations and looting:

Missing, not that anyone is likely to have noticed, was the calming voice of a national civil-rights leader of the kind that was so impressive during the 1950s and ’60s. In those days there was Martin Luther King Jr. of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference; Roy Wilkins of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People; Whitney Young of the National Urban League, Bayard Rustin of the A. Philip Randolph Institute—all solid, serious men, each impressive in different ways, who through dignified forbearance and strategic action, brought down a body of unequivocally immoral laws aimed at America’s black population.

King died in 1968, at age 39; Young in 1971 at 50; Wilkins in 1981 at 80; and Rustin in 1987 at 75. None has been replaced by men of anywhere near the same high caliber. In their place today there is only Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton, each of whom long ago divested himself of the moral force required of true leadership. One of the small but genuine accomplishments of President Obama has been to keep both of these men from becoming associated with the White House.

I don’t think that’s all that’s missing. The development he mourns parallels a development in the society as a whole, a loss of anything resembling community in favor of “looking out for #1”.

My mom used to point out that many of the poor, black kids she taught had the life ambition of being a “cat”, someone who hung out on street corners and made their livings in ways that were not obvious and probably not legal. Her explanation was that it was all that they knew. The dominance of what has been deemed “race hustling” parallels that. These are “cats” whose domain is the land between not-for-profits and government or large corporations.

What are missing are jobs. What is missing is hope.

It astonishes me how many people seem to view events as one disconnected episode after another rather than as a journey in which each step leads to the next which leads to the next to some unknown destination.

The editors of the Wall Street Journal urge the president to confront ISIS in Iraq and defeat it:

The Obama Administration was so preoccupied with a grand political solution in Baghdad that for weeks it refused to arm the Kurds for fear of offending Mr. Maliki, even as it was urging Mr. Maliki to resign. How’s that for consistent logic? The result is that ISIS almost overran the Kurds before the emergency weekend bombing.

Limited air attacks alone will not defeat ISIS, however. That will require a more aggressive military and political strategy. Start by arming and assisting the Kurds, who can form a defensive wall in the north and eventually push back. Work with the new Iraqi government to equip and restore the confidence of the Iraqi military. Then assist the Iraqis in retaking lost territory. Invite help from the regional Sunni neighbors and Turkey, all of which are also threatened by ISIS.

ISIS can always retreat to its strongholds in Syria, but a defeat in Iraq would be a major blow to its prestige and morale. If Mr. Obama finally armed a serious non-Islamist opposition in Syria, he could put pressure on ISIS there too.

The main obstacle to doing all, or even any, of this is less in Baghdad than in Washington. Mr. Obama and most Democrats are so invested in their claim to have ended George W. Bush’s Iraq war that they want to do only what is necessary to prevent a disaster like a rout of the Kurds. This is the thinking that produced the blunder of total U.S. withdrawal in 2011 and that ignored ISIS’s advances this year. It will not defeat ISIS now.

characterizing our bomb strikes in Iraq as “the Third Iraq War”. I believe that’s a misperception. I think that with the exception of a brief, illusory hiatus, we have been at war in Iraq for the last 23 years. Once we had engaged in the first Gulf War and driven Saddam Hussein back to his borders we had produced the conditions that were interpreted as requiring the “No Fly Zone” which produced the conditions which were interpreted as requiring our invasion of Iraq in 2003 which brought about the conditions that have impelled President Obama to order the present bomb strikes.

We could debate forever about the conditions and the interpretations but the reality is that we’re at war there and whether we call it that or not we’re likely to be involved there for the foreseeable future.

I do not find fault with President Obama for his most recent actions. I rejoice in the saving of Iraqi lives just as I mourn the deaths of innocent Iraqis. As the president himself emphasized, this situation won’t be resolved in a week. We will be involved for the foreseeable future.

I think he’s mistaken, however, in his emphasis on a political solution among Sunni Arabs, Shi’ite Arabs, and Kurds. In my view our actions in disbanding the Iraqi army and “de-Ba’athification”, along with the demographic and cultural realities in Iraq mean that any foreseeable Iraqi leader will act as Maliki has done. Time will tell.

If we had wanted another outcome in Iraq, we should have insisted on it but that returns us to my opposition to invading in 2003 or for that matter for opposing Saddam Hussein in 1991. We didn’t have the stomach to do what needed to be done in 2003 and we didn’t in 1991. Nor, in my view, should we.