>> crime rates go up when people live below a certain level and there's a cost to you and me for that.
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>>He was right. I shut up and we helped the guy finish the round.
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>Don't confuse inequality with poverty, my NY/NJ friend. :)
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>Just curious - if you lived under the exact same economic conditions as your caddy, would YOU commit crimes / violent crimes? Do you think I would as well? If so, I detect a pattern of generalization, which is potentially flawed.
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>But if you can say that you wouldn't, then you're implicitly stating there's something beyond just economic status - that somehow you have moral/ethics/values underpinnings that the other person didn't.
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>I don't like Bill O'Reilly much - truthfully the older I get, the more issues I have with him. But it is on this specific topic that I agree with him nearly 100%.
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>I am not saying that economic status plays 0% of a factor - but I am saying that character plays a much bigger role than the DNC/pitchfork zeitgeist would like you to believe. And there's a reason they don't want people to believe that - because to state that character and values play a significant role in crime would mean acknowledging that people espousing old-fashioned values have a point.

You might be confusing micro and macro influences.

For an extreme example I saw first hand how thousands of women became prostitutes because of the severe economic depravation their countries faced during war.
As times improved, those numbers shrank rapidly.
Those were macro influences that shaped the behavior of thousands of people.

On the other hand, in those same countries, some women found other ways to survive. Things like family, talents, character, etc came into play.
Those were micro influences.

Government policies can't do much about micro influences but they can affect macro influences.