The Economist: United States

United States

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•  The Republican nomination: The big bellwether swings for Romney 02 Feb 2012, 18:03

  

  AT A polling station nestled among the mansions and marinas of the Miami suburb of Coral Gables, a tanned couple in designer sunglasses paused on their way back to their Porsche to explain how they voted in Florida’s Republican presidential primary. The man said he chose Mitt Romney, the former governor of Massachusetts, because his knowledge of business and finance should equip him to tackle America’s economic ills. Plus, added his companion, Mr Romney has a better chance than the other candidates of beating Barack Obama come November.It was not just the sleekly wealthy, however, who plumped for Mr Romney. A few miles away, beneath towering motorway viaducts on the fringes of Little Havana, a grizzled Cuban-American in a Panama hat also declared that Mr Romney was the most electable candidate. Farther into Miami’s sprawl, in one of the desolate new subdivisions created by the housing bubble and then half-emptied by its bursting, an elderly woman argued that Mr Romney had both the character and the ideas she wanted in a president. Some voters complained that Mr Romney was not a true conservative, or that he was...

  

•  Gang violence: Turf wars 02 Feb 2012, 18:03

  

  THEY are, typically, young Hispanic or black males; but the victims of gang killings are no more likely to be involved in drugs or other crimes than their non-gang slain counterparts. According to a new study by the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), which looked at five cities with high numbers of gang murders between the years 2003 and 2008, drug trading or usage and other criminal activity ranged from zero to 25% of all gang-related killings. Less than 1% of gang homicides were drug-related in two of the cities; Long Beach and Los Angeles, in California. And in three of the cities less than 3% of gang homicides took place during a crime.That the great majority of gang homicides involve a firearm and took place in public suggests that inter-gang conflict and retaliation (perhaps territory disputes, personal beefs or just defending reputations) as the main causes of killings. Newark, New Jersey, however is an exception. The proportion of drug-related gang homicides there was significantly greater than with those not reckoned to be gang-related (20% compared with 5.5%). Newark’s police...

  

•  Fund-raising: The money primary 02 Feb 2012, 18:03

  Adelson gave Gingrich this much

  THE fund-raising reports that the candidates recently filed for the final quarter of last year give a sense of their relative financial muscle. As of December 31st, Mitt Romney had $20m on hand, having raised $24m in the preceding three months. Newt Gingrich, the best funded of his opponents, had only $2.1m left to spend, having raised only $9.8m. Rick Santorum brought in less than $1m and had less than $300,000 on hand.Explore our interactive map and guide to the race for the Republican candidacyThe varying fortunes of the “super PACs” backing the different candidates were even more striking. These groups are supposedly independent of the candidates, and so are not subject to the limits (of just $2,500 per donor) placed on donations to their campaigns, even though super PACs...

  

•  The economy: A hair of the dog 02 Feb 2012, 18:03

  AFTER three years of stagnant loan growth, The Peoples Bank in Coldwater, Ohio, has noticed a change. Clients who two years ago would not have qualified for a loan now find that they can. One customer who was working for only 35 hours a week two years ago is now working 45 to 50 hours. “That was his reason for coming in: he had steadier income,” says Jack Hartings, president of the seven-branch bank. Since the bank’s main alternative to lending money is buying Treasury bonds that yield only 1%-2%, Mr Hartings is eager to make new loans.

  

  Across the country, bank lending, which shrank almost steadily from early 2009, is growing again (see chart), thanks to modest employment growth, stabilising home prices in many regions, and the Federal Reserve’s Herculean efforts to hold down interest rates.This is helping. In the fourth quarter, America’s economy grew by 2.8% at an annual rate, the fastest in an otherwise dreary year. Much of that was from inventory restocking which will not be repeated. Still, consumer spending rose at a 2% annual rate and house building expanded by 11%, the most since 2004.Both of these...

  

•  Chinese college students: Making ting tong cool 02 Feb 2012, 18:03

  Annoying Ms Wallace

  LAST March, Alexandra Wallace, a blonde Californian who was attending the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), was so annoyed by “these hordes of Asian people” filling up her campus and talking on their cellphones in the library that she made a YouTube video mocking them: “Aah, ching chong ling long ting tong.” Her clumsy imitation of Chinese catapulted Ms Wallace to her moment of fame. Asians and others responded with YouTube counterattacks; “ching-chong-ling-long” became a ringtone; UCLA declared itself outraged; and Ms Wallace apologised, then left the university.A year on, and the incident has spawned its own genre of local comedy, but nobody seems the least bit bothered by it anymore. In fact, the increase in applications by Chinese students only quickened in the past year, says Bob Ericksen, the director of UCLA’s centre for international students. There are now 695 undergraduates from China at UCLA, five times more than two years ago. They represent 3% of the student body.This is a nationwide trend. After years of staying flat, the number of...