Posted on 11/02/2015 6:35:08 PM PST by ruination
Something startling is happening to middle-aged white Americans. Unlike every other age group, unlike every other racial and ethnic group, unlike their counterparts in other rich countries, death rates in this group have been rising, not falling.
That finding was reported Monday by two Princeton economists, Angus Deaton, who last month won the 2015 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Science, and Anne Case. Analyzing health and mortality data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and from other sources, they concluded that rising annual death rates among this group are being driven not by the big killers like heart disease and diabetes but by an epidemic of suicides and afflictions stemming from substance abuse: alcoholic liver disease and overdoses of heroin and prescription opioids.
The analysis by Dr. Deaton and Dr. Case may offer the most rigorous evidence to date of both the causes and implications of a development that has been puzzling demographers in recent years: the declining health and fortunes of poorly educated American whites. In middle age, they are dying at such a high rate that they are increasing the death rate for the entire group of middle-aged white Americans, Dr. Deaton and Dr. Case found.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
“Whitey” also has a self-loathing complex in many cases.
All my classmates from the Academy are in their seventies now and we had a 50 year homecoming recently at Annapolis. Several of the guys were on their last legs. However, some of us are still working, which seems to keep us going a little stronger than those who have given up any activity.
“We are more than capable. But we (esp. men and really esp. Christains) get a constant pounding, way beyond anyone else.”
I look at my life and compare it to my dad’s life and there is no question that he and members of his generation took a “pounding” like I can never imagine.
He and his family endured the pounding of the Depression and then he and his brothers went off to WWII and took poundings in Europe and the Pacific. They returned to America sad build modern America.
If dad were still alive and I told him that the “pounding” I take at the hands of the media are more severe than tgr pounding he took at hands of the Germans, he would have laughed and called me a pansy.
The cure for this will be a ‘living wage’ and a single payer health care system. Just you watch.
Other races and religions are able to handle jokes? Color me shocked because I don’t see other races being joked about 24/7 in every aspect of our media. I don’t see other religions, other than Christian, being mocked 24/7. I don’t see other than white males being mocked 24/7 in all media.
White Americans are less able to handle economic hardships? Maybe because they benefit the least from the government largess and pay into it more than any other racial and ethnic class?
Yeah, I’m majorly pissed off that this white woman and her white husband who pay taxes, work our asses off, raised our white kids without any help from the government, got nothing for free, sent out kids to college on our dime, still get to fund all the freeloaders.
Yeah, I’m pissed off and I’m white and proud of it. #whitelivesmatter
Of course they’re not. Why would you think that?
Yup.
Right now my husband’s getting ready to retire from the military and there are some great jobs out there for him.
With one of them, combined with his retirement, he’d be making $30K more a year.
He was very happy about this - until he did the month and realized that he’d be pushed from a 15% tax bracket into the 28% bracket and he’d actually end up making $200 a month LESS than he does now.
He just sat here, shaking his head. “Why did I fight to get my degree? Why am I fighting for a great job? If I take the $40K job, I’ll actually bring home more...”
It hurt.
Drug abuse has nothing to do with this in the long run.
Constant criticism is sort of like Chinese water torture, or nagging back pain, or a nagging wife. I ignore it and tell everyone I’m black from the white side of the family.
Um The Greatest Generation was way too long ago to matter in this.
I’m going to start it:
#whitemalemiddleagedlivesmatter
Not diverse at all.
The older generation, the greatest generation (so called) didn’t raise pansies. I don’t understand where you’re getting that.
We’re not allowed to be made of stronger stuff. This is 2015 and we lost the cultural war and every other war.
Ouch
White liberals have a self loathing complex.
There are a lot of people dying from overdosing on prescription opioids these days. Intentional and unintentional.
As he should have but the difference is, the media, the government and the other institutions weren’t actively working against him and his kind. They are now. It started with how the Vietnam Vets were treated back here at home.
I’ve run into quite a few who are on disability the last couple of years. It’s not riches, its just subsistence, but they also get other benefits, like Medicaid and EBT cards. Every single one of them complains how miserable they are. So, I’m not surprised if they are offing themselves.
It may surprise you to hear that time is a continuity, not a collection of events with defined barriers in between. The consequences of people and events long past are still making themselves felt today.
For example, the Civil war is why we have "Gay Marriage." It's why we have no prayers in public schools. It's why we have abortion. It's why we have "Anchor babies." It's why we have no end of peculiar legal doctrine currently running rampant over the nation.
There are consequences to things that happen. There are often unseen and non-linear consequences for decisions people made in the past. One of the things that made the 1950s so prosperous for the United States was because most of the rest of the world was exhausted and desolated from all the fighting. Much of their infrastructure was destroyed. American factories were humming because they were still standing, unlike many of their foreign counterparts.
If you haven't watched that James Burke series called "Connections", you should give it a go. A lot of stuff is connected together, and the connections are not always obvious.
Yep.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.