Chapter 3.7, Problem 61E

Conservative commentator Rush Limbaugh directed this passage at liberals and the way they think about crime.

Of course, liberals will argue that these actions [contemporary youth crime] can be laid at the foot of socioeconomic inequities, or poverty. However, the Great Depression caused a level of poverty unknown to exist in America today, and yet I have been unable to find any accounts of crime waves sweeping our large cities. Let the liberals chew on that.

(See, I Told You So, p. 83)

Limbaugh’s passage can be expressed in the form of an argument:

If poverty causes crime, then crime waves would have swept American cities during the Great Crime Depression. Crime waves did not sweep American cities during the Great Depression.

$\frac{\text{Crime waves did not sweep American cities during the Great Deoression}\text{. }}{\therefore \text{Poverty}\text{does not cause crime}\text{.(Liberals are wrong}\text{.) }}$

Translate this argument into symbolic form and determine whether it is valid or invalid.