Terroronomics Part 2
Steven Levitt has posted a follow-up to yesterday’s controversial terror brainstorming session. Apparently yesterday’s post generated more hate mail than anything he’s produced since his famously controversial paper linking abortions to crime reduction. I dare say Levitt does a much better job responding to his critics than I did.
Many of the e-mails he received seem to have demanded he write a post explaining how to stop terrorism. I’m glad to see so many people have such faith in academics. I’m just upset Levitt and the rest of UChicago’s America-hating economics professors have been withholding this valuable information for so long.
Despite the absurd request, Levitt offers some reasonable suggestions, but more importantly he acknowledges that low-grade terrorist attacks are extremely hard to prevent completely. The fact there aren’t many of these attacks suggests they are very unlikely. When they do occur, Levitt suggests we follow in the footsteps of Britain and Israel and learn to cope with what ultimately amounts to an extremely low decrease in our personal safety.