Max Boot, a neocon with regular OpEd columns in the LA Times, points to some burning cars in Paris and takes on Europe’s problems.
It is precisely because of France’s high level of "social protection" that it is now experiencing its own version of urban hell. The welfare state that is the pride and joy of postwar France has become a ball-and-chain hobbling its ability to keep up economically with the despised Anglo-Saxons. In the United States, the government spends 35.9% of gross domestic product; in France, it’s 54.5%.
Generous unemployment benefits, free housing and healthcare and other goodies make life cushy even for those without a job. Yet this generosity has not bought social peace. The prisons in France are filled with young men of African and Arab descent who decided to supplement their subsidies with the proceeds from muggings, break-ins and drug deals. The crime rate in France is soaring even as it is declining to a 40-year low across the Atlantic.
According to the World Prison Brief published by the London King’s College the incarceration rate in France is 88 per 100,000 national population. The rate in the United States is 726 prisoners per 100,000 Americans.
According to Nation Master there are some 80.1 crimes per 1,000 people in the United States compared to some 62.2 per 1,000 people in France.
Looking at GDP figures one finds 0.2 prisoners per $1 million GDP in the United States, while France has 0.03 prisoners per $1 million GDP.
Boot implies, that a high level of government GDP spending is positive correlated with a high rate of crime and prison population. This is obviously false. The correlation is precisely negative. To achieve his tendency Boot looks at change rates which are mostly depending on short term changes in law (esp. drug and immigration delicts) and general statitical issues. Given the huge differences in absolute numbers, those change rates says nothing about the general quality of life or advantages of certain economic concepts.
Also:
Europeans are finding it almost impossible to Viagrify their sclerotic economies because the political class lacks the will to face down such powerful entrenched interests as labor unions, farmers and pensioners.
Dear Mr. Boot, maybe the political class, including you(?), in the United States needs pharmaceutical help to screw the voters. But let me assure you that European workers, farmers and pensioners don´t need any pharmaceutical help to face down their politicans when needed.
Why do editors allow such experts to fill their papers pages? Sorry – a rhetorical question. The LA Times just fired columnist Robert Scheer but added Jonah Goldberg of National Review infamy to their OpEds. Liberal media?