If we’re going to narrow comps by a criteria, I think we need to be clear about what those criteria are, and we need to do so objectively and without a bias that will influence the mathematics towards a predestined conclusion. If gun proliferation is a criteria, for instance, Somalia is a much better comp than Great Britain. If homicide rate is a criteria, then we land in the more violent half of the world than the more peaceful half. If we pick “recently hosted the Olympics” as a comp, then we have to include Bosnia in the mix for comps. If ethnic or economic diversity is a criteria, then most of Europe is not in the same bucket we are. At least not until recently, with the big influx of African and Middle Eastern immigrants they’re seeing, and the scuttlebutt on the ground is that immigration is definitely having a destabilizing effect in those areas. Hence #brexit etc.

So it’s more complicated than I think you might be letting on.

How would you establish the comp criteria?