End of the World? We Don't Know How Good We Have It.

You may not know it from the media, but in many ways, things have never been better.

by Richard Rahn
July 12, 2016

Is today the worst of times? This past week we had shootings of police and shootings by police. The world economy and political situation is a mess. It is a time of crisis without an apparent Churchill, Thatcher or Reagan?

Yet, in many ways, things have never been better.

In 1930, 304 American police officers were killed in the line of duty; last year it was 122.

In 1930, the U.S. population was a little over one third of what it is today, so, on a population adjusted basis, there were about seven times as many policemen being killed per year 85 years ago compared to recent years. And police killing of others, including black men, has also fallen sharply.

As perverse as it might seem, there was an item of good news in the shootings of police in Dallas, and that is that the killer was taken out by a robot — perhaps saving the lives of other police officers. Over the next couple of decades, advanced robots will take over many of the most dangerous aspects of poli…