Steven Levitt, Freakonomics and the Rudy Gulliani Myth

     Speaking of Phillip Mirowski- and I speak of him a lot-

     http://diaryofarepublicanhater.blogspot.com/2013/09/neoclassical-econ-microfoundations-and.html

     -he's not a fan of Steve Levitt either. Of course, he's not a favorite of many heterodox proponents as he is seen as justifying Neoclassical econ. Still I've got to give him this-at least he punctures the Gulliani myth.

      http://www.amazon.com/Freakonomics-Economist-Explores-Everything-ebook/dp/B002VL1CLW/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1380376589&sr=1-1&keywords=stephen+leavitt

    I think doing so is a rather timely thing to do as we seem poised to get a Democratic Mayor again here in NYC after 20 years of Republican rule. We've had some discussion of Bloomberg's legacy.

   http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/09/16/the-political-economy-of-bloombergism/

   I think it's a mixed bag. He had his strong points though he doesn't get it on inequality-not so surprising that a billionare doesn't get it on how tough it is to be poor.

   Still, I guess one argument the Republicans could make going into this November's election is that we are a much safer city for 20 years of Repubs-I know Bloomberg's party designation changes with the season but on economics he sings from the GOP hymn book even if he used to be nominally a Dem and is now and 'independent.'-so why upset the apple cart? Maybe a Dem Mayor will take us back to the bad old days of the Dinkin years when crime was raging?

   Leavit does a great job of keeping Guiliani honest who has been happy to call himself the savior of NYC and that our crime rate that has plummeted so much is all thanks to his police methods-presumably the episodic cases of gross police brutality is a low price to pay along with stop and frisk and profiling?

   Leavit points out that

   1. Crime actually plummeted across the country.

   2. It had dropped 20% before he came into office.

   So correlation and causality is as so often is the case, much harder to draw conclusively. So, no, the next Mayor-likely de Blasio-will not cause the crime rate to skyrocket even though he will be the most liberal Mayor since John Lindsay.

   http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/johncassidy/2013/09/de-blasios-pledge-ill-be-a-new-type-of-mayor.html