Ferguson Effect: Murders up 60% in 2015 in heavily black US cities

An article in this morning's Wall Street Journal ( http://on.wsj.com/1sNu9Ws ) discusses the effect of the end of "proactive policing" produced by federal policies and various pressure groups, such as "Black Lives Matter," on security in urban areas. Last year murders were up 17% in the 56 largest urban areas in the US, 60% in heavily black cities. In Chicago, in the first 4 1/2 months of 2016 murders are up 95% compared to the same period in 2014.

I am somewhat relieved that we let our family membership in the Museum of Fine Arts (Boston) lapse. There is no point in taking unnecessary risks.

Of course, this is consistent with everything else that is happening.

You may click on the image below to read the article:

Middle aged white women are killing themselves.

Middle aged white women are killing themselves.

And they are not alone.

There was a fascinating article, “A great divide in American death,” about the decline in life expectancy of rural white women in today’s Washington Post. It can be found at this site:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/sf/national/2016/04/10/a-new-divide-in-american-death/

Here is one of many fascinating graphs (click on graph to see it more clearly):

There is more and more drinking, smoking, drug-taking and depression in rural America, and it’s not working out very well.