The Great Recession and Rise in Suicide 35-65 Years of Age

[jertheber]

Originally Posted by julian17033

Hi Fran,

This has been the single most destructive thing I have ever witnessed in all of my 47 years on this planet.
I'm counting natural disasters and man made disasters as well.

I personally have been very blessed and very lucky to have weathered this depression with job and income intact.
I know many including family members that have not been so fortunate.

Many people that have had a job and security during this time are extremely out of touch with the pain, depression, hopelessness and despair that those that have struggled and are struggling continue to deal with day in day out.

I hear in my office comments like "" these bums need to get off their ass and take any job "" and "" I'm tired of my tax dollars going to those that lost their jobs and won't work. ""

For the most part people would take a job, any job to get by but when you have the stigma of being long term unemployment weighing you down like a ship anchor it isn't as simple as "" just take any job. ""

Many companies blatantly state in job descriptions that no unemployed applicants will be accepted for consideration.

Is it any wonder why many people who have lost their homes, cars and sometimes family due to unemployment consider suicide a valid option?

I pray for them everyday.

For many, It's easier to hate than think.......

[NorthStarDelight]

Originally Posted by Escort Rider

So Mr. Misanthrope, what would you do if you were in charge of hiring for two open positions and you had 50 applicants? Forty-eight of the applicants are going to be disappointed no matter what you do. It is your job to make the choice, and if you hire bad, incompetent workers out of some misplaced sense of pity, then you yourself are going to be out of a job and your company will eventually have to fire them anyway. I don't buy your logic and I don't see how anyone has "blood on their hands". Can you say "overly emotional"?

Some human beings have always treated each other badly, going back to cave man days. Others have treated each other with kindness and compassion, and continue to do so. I have done extensive reading on the Holocaust, certainly one of the nadirs of human cruelty on a massive scale. Even in the midst of that, however, some people risked their lives to hide and shelter potential victims.

You are hoping for the slaughter of all of us, the compassionate along with the cruel. What does that say about you? Don't like the world as it is? You have options.

Perhaps I am wrong to hope for the destruction of the world - or perhaps it's my innermost desire to see the world returned to its former pristine state before humans F'd it all up.

But the point I want to make in this reply is that you state that "we have options." Yes, that is very true - we have lots of options to change our lives and the world around us. It just so happens that folks on the plus side of the column probably won't like the changes we'll probably attempt to implement - like that town in Spain which is circumventing the crushing economic depression over there by going communist. Shared property, shared work, shared resources - no one is left out. Of course, that means the end of the "rich" - the few that get to have the lion's share of just about everything. Don't like that concept? Well, you just said "we have options." That's the option some people are putting into action, as they have no other way of making a living in society. And they're making it work. Surprised? Don't be. It's just humans cooperating with each other to make a society work for everyone who is a part of that society.

So, what if all of Spain goes communist in this fashion, followed by Italy and France? What if this movement spreads into the UK and leaps across the Atlantic to the good ol' USA? And once it gains enough of a foothold, there will be no stopping it. Once the formerly powerless become empowered, there will be nothing that the "haves" of the current world will be able to do to stop them - it'd be like trying to hold back a mighty tsunami with your bare hands.

Don't like that prospect? Too bad, it's coming. Unless the "haves" find a way to spread their so-called "compassion" to the rest of us and put Humpty Dumpty back together again. The choice is yours - you fix this problem, or *we'll* fix this problem, in our own way, most likely in a way you'll not like very much. At all.

[Dayton Sux]

As usual the economics forum is a great place to review the wide divide between those who are doing alright and those others, who aren't. This is the one outstanding and usually ignored aspect of any economic theory, the divide. It's been an integral part of human development since humans began to document the changes in societies. You can't read too far down the posts before it becomes evident who is on one side or the other, what's in your pocket ($) alters your view. Those who are feeling the pain of all that financial ruination of the last seven years have my sympathy, going down is something that one has to experience in order to fully realize the fact that most of what we learned with regard to economics doesn't take into account the personal grief brought about by various economic policies.

The anger that shows in so many of the posters comments is evidence of that grief, and often enough, people respond to grief with thoughts of self destruction. The other noteworthy aspect of this is the fact that American's have long associated wealth as the most important defining attribute of a person. Without money you are now descending down to the level of contempt, friends look away, and society chides the poor with the age old mantras of pulling oneself up by the bootstraps, "chin up mate", "things'll improve", "get retrained", "be sure to downsize", but, when all fails, most people just can't stomach the thought that there is little one can do now in a world changed well beyond the average persons comprehension.

This collapse of the old economy isn't simply a blast from the past, it signals the huge change that most of the world will experience at some level. In his book, The End of Work, Jeremy Rifkin laid out his view of the future of western societies and their dilemma concerning the disappearance of so much of what humans did to survive. The question now is, what are we to do with so many people who have become economically marginalized? On the face of it we are looking at the possibility of creating a kind of mega-welfare program, in fact most states are already loaded down with a rising number of their citizens looking for financial relief. This is happening at a time when the American pie is steadily shrinking and people are starting to look at their unemployed neighbors with suspicion, "are you living on MY DIME?" For myself, I can only hope that we all ask ourselves if it isn't possible to end up like those who have lost their job, friends, and ultimately their dignity.

...what a great post! Thanks!