You owe it to yourself to read long-time blogosphere stalwart Radley Balko’s Washington Post op-ed on the systemic racism of the criminal justice system. It covers territory he’s been working for years but it’s nicely collected in the op-ed. He opens with a solid definition of “systemic racism” as applied to the criminal justice system:

Of particular concern to some on the right is the term “systemic racism,” often wrongly interpreted as an accusation that everyone in the system is racist. In fact, systemic racism means almost the opposite. It means that we have systems and institutions that produce racially disparate outcomes, regardless of the intentions of the people who work within them.

and follows that with a link-filled list of studies including studies that contradict the view that the criminal justice system is systemically racist. Included are sections on

• Policing and profiling
• Misdemeanors, petty crimes and driver’s license suspensions
• The drug war
• Juries and jury selection
• The death penalty
• Prosecutors, discretion and plea bargaining
• Judges and sentencing
• School suspensions and the school-to-prison pipeline
• Prison, incarceration and solitary confinement
• Bail, pretrial detention, commutations and pardons, gangs and other issues
• The dissent — contrarian studies on race and the criminal-justice system

It seems to me that if you accept Mr. Balko’s conclusions you are inevitably driven to the conclusion that the move to “defund the police” is misguided because the problem does not merely reside with the police but with the entire system of which they are just one part and that stopping at police reform will not actually solve the problem. Why not “defund the judiciary”? Or “defund the states attorneys”?

IMO the necessary reforms are along the lines I’ve been suggesting for some time. Presidents, governors, mayors, legislators at all levels, judges, prosecutors, police officers, and everyone else in the system need to see themselves as enforcing the law rather than imposing order. To accomplish that the incentives from one end of the system to the other need to change. Systemic problems require systemic change. Failing that and if the reforms are focused only within police forces inevitably police forces will return to the status quo ante because that is the thrust of the system.

Among the things that means is that we need a much more limited view of criminal law and its enforcement. Accountability is key. Ending qualified immunity but protecting jurisdictions themselves from suit is an important component in that.

At Bloomberg Sarah Halzack has noticed the same thing that I have about the apparel industry:

Instead of dressing up for vacations, weddings, church services and board meetings, many shoppers are going to spend the rest of 2020 in sweatpants or their comfy, sartorial cousins. Yes, retailers have spent years making their supply chains speedier and more flexible to react more nimbly to trends. But this situation requires a change in assortment far more profound than adding more off-the-shoulder tops or animal prints, and I fear many of them will end up with piles of blazers, dresses and glittery high heels that they can’t sell.

and

Moody’s estimates that Ebitda [ed. “Ebitda” means earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization] will decline by at least 50% for most apparel retailers this year, and that even by 2021, earnings will be 15% to 35% below what they were in 2019. It seems inevitable that some chains won’t survive those conditions. Last month, J. Crew Group Inc. filed for bankruptcy protection, becoming the first major coronavirus casualty, and was followed soon after by Neiman Marcus Group Inc. and J.C. Penney Co. In the past week, Bloomberg News has reported that both Ascena Retail Group Inc., the corporate parent of Ann Taylor and other stores, and Tailored Brands Inc., parent of Men’s Wearhouse, are also considering bankruptcy.

The clothing business is just beginning to unravel. It may be nearly unrecognizable by the time this crisis fully takes its toll.

The apparel sector is important to both New York and Los Angeles—for New York it’s right after finance and, as I pointed out, finance has become extremely portable over the last couple of decades.

Without apparel or retail more generally, hospitality, or aerospace, it’s hard to see where a robust recovery might emerge. The financial sector is already overbuilt and it’s laying off employees not bringing them on. When the dust settles I suspect that it will become apparent that we already have more retail and office space than is needed so construction is out. Maybe a lot more. Health care? Go back and read up on “the cat and rat farm”. Perpetual motion doesn’t work.

That’s why I keep harping on the need to shorten supply chains which probably means more suppliers in Canada and Mexico as much as more in the U. S. The consumer-oriented stimulus packages to which Congress has become accustomed may spur more consumer spending but unless companies start buying from U. S., Mexican, Canadian and other suppliers it won’t do much to stimulate the U. S. economy.

On my regular morning walk with Kara this morning I ran into a neighbor walking his two Great Pyrenees who I happened to know was a dentist. I had received an email from my dentist a few days ago advising me that they were seeing patients again so I asked him if he were back at work and how he was finding it. In short it’s difficult. Observing the proper precautions is expensive, he can’t treat as many patients, and everything is more expensive.

Where’s that deflation that some economists were predicting? I certainly haven’t seen it. Food and other consumables are more expensive. Gas prices are holding steady as is insurance. I expect the prices for medical care to rise sharply.

In my stores at least toilet paper and paper towels remain in short supply with off brands continuing to be sold rather than the brands we’re accustomed to seeing and buying. That’s after three months. Does anyone take the panic-buying, profiteering, or consumer/commercial arguments that were brought forward when the shortages first materialized seriously any more?

I think that supply chain problems remain the only credible explanation left. Wood pulp for TP is imported from Brazil, something of a scandal in itself. Additives are imported from God knows where, presumably China.

The same may be true for bleach although it’s possible I’m looking in the wrong place for it. I hear it’s been moved to the beverage section. No one has ever lost money by underestimating the intelligence of the great masses of the people.

I think that Jason L. Riley’s Wall Street Journal column has it about right:

So long as blacks are committing more than half of all murders and robberies while making up only 13% of the population, and so long as almost all of their victims are their neighbors, these communities will draw the lion’s share of police attention. Defunding the police, or making it easier to prosecute officers, will only result in more lives lost in those neighborhoods that most need protecting.

There’s nothing wrong with having a debate about better policing strategies, how to root out bad cops, the role of police unions and so forth. But that conversation needs perspective and context, and the press rarely provides it. People are protesting because the public has been led to believe that racist cops are gunning for blacks, yet the available evidence shows that police use of deadly force has plunged in recent decades, including in big cities with large populations of low-income minorities. In the early 1970s, New York City police officers shot more than 300 people a year. By 2019 that number had fallen to 34.

Part of the confusion stems from attempts to equate any racial disparities with racism, which is as mistaken as equating age and gender disparities with systemic discrimination. Young people are incarcerated at higher rates than older people, and men draw more police attention than women. Is something fishy going on here, or do such outcomes simply reflect the fact that young men are behind most violent crimes? When journalists break down police behavior by race but don’t do the same for criminal behavior, you’re not getting the whole story.

Advocates of “defunding the police” are quick to point to success stories but less eager to note that after the police were defunded in Baltimore five years ago black homicides shot up. In Chicago murders of black people are inversely correlated with the number of black people shot and killed by police, not that I’m advocating it.

But you would almost think that black genocide were the objective of those imagining a U. S. with more social workers and fewer police officers. I guess you can’t make an omelet with breaking black eggs.

If the description of the Justice in Policing Act provided by the editors of the Washington Post and in the section-by-section summary here actually are fair summaries of the bill’s provisions, it sounds pretty good to me. From the editorial linked above:

Holding life-and-death powers over American citizens is a high trust; it is not anti-cop to demand high levels of responsibility and accountability. In fact, it is in the interest of the thousands of police officers who do their difficult jobs with integrity and honor.

The devil, of course, will be in the details. If you have ever been directly involved in the oversight of grants (I have), you will recognize how frequently they are a license to steal. I also think that, if you’re going to expose police officers to more legal jeopardy, you need to shield state and local governments when police officers act contrary to state or local laws or regulations. I’m fine with personal accountability. I’m less fine with my own personal accountability for things over which I have no control.

I missed this when it actually took place last week. The State of Illinois has secured a reprieve from its fiscal crisis. From Truth in Accounting:

On April 9, amidst plunging economic conditions, the Federal Reserve announced a set of lending policy initiatives that included a new “Municipal Liquidity Facility” for state and local governments. For legal authority, the Fed cited the emergency lending provisions in section 13(3) of the Federal Reserve Act.

Normally, a central bank lends to banks, but emergency provisions have historically been used by the Fed to justify direct lending to “individuals, partnerships and corporations” in “unusual and exigent circumstances.” Section 13(3) is titled “Discounts for individuals, partnerships, and corporations,” raising questions whether the Municipal Liquidity Facility is actually authorized under Section 13(3).

The new facility is unprecedented. It is available to cities and counties meeting population requirements, and all 50 states. Smaller cities and counties may be supported by state borrowing through the facility. The lending facility is operated by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. The facility may lend as much as $500 billion.

The State of Illinois became the first entity to use the facility, under a transaction that closed last Friday.

The balance of the post considers whether a) the Fed has exceeded its authority in extending a loan to Illinois (it has) and b) whether the Fed is being reckless in extending credit to Illinois (it is).

Note that securing a short term loan from the Federal Reserve doesn’t change the fiscal, political, or behavioral basis of Illinois’s problems. It is almost literally just kicking the can down the road.

Oh, well. The caliph may die, the donkey may die, or I may die.

In a piece at Bloomberg dripping with nostalgia but which fails to take the actual New York City of today into account, Brian Chappatta and Elaine He confidently declaim that the rest of the country needs New York City too much for it to decline:

The most difficult question confronting the nation’s elected leaders is how to balance the health and safety of the citizenry on one hand and preventing unnecessary damage to the world’s largest economy on the other. The New York City metropolitan area looms large in that calculation. Data from the Bureau of Economic Analysis put in stark relief just how much New York powered the U.S. economy during its longest expansion in history and provide a crucial starting point to understanding how a lasting bite to the Big Apple could hinder hopes for a swift nationwide recovery.

What they fail to grasp is the dominance to which they point (financial sector, consumer spending) has never been connected so tenuously not just to the rest of the country but to New York City itself as it is today. Let’s consider just one factor: income inequality. Income inequality In New York City is the fifth highest in the U. S. Higher than Chicago. Higher than Washington, DC. And when you consider the metro area (rather than the city itself) the situation is even worse. That is lopsidedly due to the financial sector and the financial sector has never been more portable than it is now. It doesn’t need the infrastructure. It doesn’t need the people. It doesn’t need the city.

What that means is that those big spenders can pick up and leave New York City behind and all of that spending will go with them, leaving a lot of much poorer people behind.

Dig deeper into New York and you find that the other sectors on which New York’s economy depends, e.g. the apparel industry, have taken an enormous hit from the lockdown. It’s far too early to predict how much or whether the sectors will recover.

There were two more predictions I neglected to work into my earlier post this morning.

First, although initially they may support the demonstrators after a moment’s consideration and a bit of throat-clearing, the public employees’ unions and by “public employees’ unions” I mean the firefighters, teachers, and the SEIU will all rally to the support of the police officers. I don’t know how they’ll rationalize it but rationalize it they will. Defunding the police is an existential threat to all public employees’ unions. The only factor that might stand in the way of that leads to my second prediction.

In a contest between political affiliation and cognitive dissonance affiliation will win every time. It doesn’t make any difference that the system the demonstrators are unhappy about was put into place and supported, in some cases acerbically, by the very politicians they’re going to vote for in November. Vote for them they will.