Hostage to news cycle: How long before we find out that “alleged” Woolwich murderer Michael Adebolajo was on some kind of welfare? Or else his household was on welfare. The Tsarnaevs received various kinds of welfare too, of course, as have numerous other terrorists. This is not a coincidence:

“In fact, there’s a good argument that “welfare benefits + ethnic antagonism” is the universal recipe for an underclass with an angry, oppositional culture. The social logic is simple: Ethnic differences make it easy for those outside of, for example, French Arab neighborhoods to discriminate against those inside, and easy for those inside to resent the mainstream culture around them. [Update: See also, Sweden.] Meanwhile, relatively generous welfare benefits enable those in the ethnic ghetto to stay there, stay unemployed, and seethe. Without government subsidies, they would have to overcome the prejudice against them and integrate into the mainstream working culture. Work, in this sense, is anti-terrorist medicine. (And if you work all day, there’s less time to dream up ways and reasons to kill infidels.)”

If Adebolajo turns out to have earned his own living, I’ll be surprised and chastened. Will post update in this space. …

P.S.: Another reason to doubt the wisdom of those oh-so-rational economists who say it’s OK to embark on ambitious new policies that will cost relatively low-level workers their jobs, because, hey, we can always compensate them with transfer payments out of the economic surplus that will result! I will mercifully leave you to guess what those ambitious policies might be. …