Posted on 02/12/2011 3:40:07 AM PST by Cincinatus' Wife
Men on the Gurnos estate in Merthyr Tydfil, South Wales, can expect to live 58.8 years - three years less than people in Haiti and eight years less than those in Iraq.
Life expectancy....is 20 years lower than the national UK average - and the same as it was for men in Britain back in the depression era of the 1930s.
The grim figures revealed by the local Public Health Board are blamed on poor diet, heavy smoking and a high suicide rate due to unemployment.
There is also a "culture of despair" in the former iron and coal town where men don't care about living long healthy lives - because their quality of life is so poor.
"A lot of Merthyr people rely on benefits and are generally poorer, and poverty affects health."
The figures were given to Merthyr Tydfil Council after a study into men's life expectancy by the Cwm Taf Public Health Board.
Board director Nicola John said: "There is a strong correlation between being out of work and public health.
"Figures show that suicide in men who have been out of work for more than six months increases by 40 per cent."
....Huw Lewis, Assembly Member for Merthyr Tydfil, said: "Gurnos suffers from very high levels of deprivation which have been ingrained over many decades.
"Traditionally high rates of unemployment and the associated problems, all have a bearing on life chances and life expectancy of residents."
Chief medical officer Dr Tony Jewel said: "This is unacceptable and we are committed to tackling the underlying causes.
"Smoking and obesity continue to be major causes of health inequalities.
"Measures are in place to discourage people from smoking or to help them quit and a number of initiatives are in place to improve people's lifestyle and diet."
(Excerpt) Read more at telegraph.co.uk ...
Indeed! And thank you for the link.
Great point.
We need to be free and experience all that comes with that.
Amen. You could expand that into an essay, and it would be better than most “famous name” commentary in the blogosphere. Well said.
Would they actually just sit in front of the telly and starve to death if the government checks stop coming? If so, good riddance.
The only hope for our own country is that the Chinese call in all their loans to our irresponsible government. As long as you fund a drug addict, he will get more dependent. We need to be forced to kick the government out of our lives cold turkey.
Amen. You could expand that into an essay, and it would be better than most “famous name” commentary in the blogosphere. Well said.
****men’s troubles come from their inability to sit quietly in their room****
True.
Government is in the business of wiping out our natural instincts;
to compete with one another for territory,
to procreate,
to pursue happiness for our posterity and
to practice Christian principles.
Witness the obesity, dependancy and lack of hope in the population. These are precursors to crisis and war -either civil or international.
Nevertheless, you gotta love living in a place called Merthyr Tydfil, South Wales.
If I recall right, the average price in the UK for a pack of cigarettes is hovering around the 7 pound mark, roughly $11. A typical smoker consumes a pack a day, a heavy smoker averages twice that. So $4,000 - $8,000 a year per smoker.
How much are benefits for those living in these ‘estates’ if they can afford to blow that kind of money in the first place? And since 90% of the price is taxes (direct or indirect), how much more money could be in the economy to actually employ people rather than pay them to sit on their rumps were it gone?
Even the basis of the study claims that unemployment is contributing to the amount of smoking, and their solution is to take more money out of the economy that could be used to hire people to work, and instead tell people who have nothing to do with their time to stop smoking.
Probably taking into account the number of government employees to administer the program and ‘measure the results’, that likely the campaign itself will cost at least a million dollars per year just for this estate.
I can’t help but think that if they took just half of that money, hired an unemployed wood worker, and built a woodworking shop and stocked it with supplies, if this would be a more effective alternative to actually cutting down on smoking, not to mention the resulting furniture and crafts would likely improve the quality of life for the residents of the estate.
Treasury bonds can't be called in by the purchaser of the bonds. Over their lives (i.e. until their maturity date), interest payments are made every six months, with the final interest payment coincident with the repayment of principal. Treasury bonds owners can sell their bonds or opt not to buy any more Treasury bonds when their holdings mature. But they can't ask for the early return of their principal.
Judging by what has happened in the UK over the past 40-50 years....sounds like the Free Trade Communists and Globalists have trashed Britain, and plan to do that to the US
Take away manufacturing and industry, and you have nothing. This is happening in America, too
You’ve never been to WV, have you?
Already been happening there-for years. I saw raw sewage running in the streets daily in Clarksburg (which was in KKK Byrd’s district). Across the Elk River, in a hamlet whose name I can’t recall at present, it was even worse...
bfl
Thank you.
I’d much rather be writing about gardening but .....
...the issues at stake are existential.
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