FUCKING THE ECONOMY FOR YEARS AT A TIME HAS BIG CONSEQUENCES

From AlterNet:

Life Expectancy Decreases by 4 Years Among Poor Whites in U.S.

Yesterday, the New York Times reported on an alarming new study: researchers have documented that the least educated white Americans are experiencing sharp declines in life expectancy. Between 1990 and 2008, white women without a high school diploma lost a full five years of their lives, while their male counterparts lost three years. Experts say that declines in life expectancy in developed countries are exceedingly rare, and that in the U.S., decreases on this scale "have not been seen in the U.S. since the Spanish influenza epidemic of 1918." Even during the Great Depression, which wrought economic devastation and severe psychic trauma for millions of Americans, average life expectancy was on the increase.

More here.  

Again from AlterNet:

Suicide Overtakes Car Accidents As Leading Cause of Death

But there is strong evidence elsewhere that our disastrous economy may be playing a significant role. Last year, a report by the Center for Disease Control and Prevention found that “[s]uicide rates in the U.S. tend to rise during recessions and fall amid economic booms.” 

In Europe, a recent wave of “suicides by economic crisis” has been well-documented, as these shocking statistics attest:

In Greece, the suicide rate among men increased more than 24 percent from 2007 to 2009, government statistics show. In Ireland during the same period, suicides among men rose more than 16 percent. In Italy, suicides motivated by economic difficulties have increased 52 percent, to 187 in 2010 — the most recent year for which statistics were available — from 123 in 2005.

More here.

You know, I've argued a lot against libertarianism, Ann Rand's objectivist swill, neoliberalism, and the like.  I've written extensively over the years in order to illustrate how, exactly, these points of view ultimately hurt most of the people who think these ideas are the path to prosperity.  But, in the end, it all comes down to the horrifying world that must necessarily result from every-man-for-himself attitudes.  Lonely, brutish, backstabbing, hateful, grief-stricken, painful.  That's the civilization, if you want to call it that, the Ann Rand cultists would have us embrace.  We're well on the way down that road right now.  Every fiber of my very being screams out against this.  And if you have an ounce of human soul within you, you're screaming, too.

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