Stupidparty Disciples are literally dying of Stupidity:
Two Princeton economists, Angus Deaton, who last month won the 2015 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Science, and Anne Case- have seemingly by pure accident stumbled across the fact that middle age white death rates are climbing massively relative to other groups and other countries. These economists along with the New York Times seem quite perplexed.
While the explanation is blindingly obvious, I must take a moment to throw a bucket of ice water on to these blithering geniuses who probably would not be able to find their way out of a paper bag, or at least out of the bubble of their bucolic college life.
It is not just these two economists who need a wake up call:
Dr. Preston of the University of Pennsylvania noted that the National Academy of Sciences had published two monographs reporting that the United States had fallen behind other rich countries in improvements in life expectancy. One was on mortality below age 50 and the other on mortality above age 50. He co-edited one of those reports. But, he said, because of the age divisions, the researchers analyzing the data missed what Dr. Deaton and Dr. Case found hiding in plain sight.
“We didn’t pick it up,” Dr. Preston said, referring to the increasing mortality rates among middle-aged whites.
Ronald D. Lee, professor of economics, professor of demography and director of the Center on Economics and Demography of Aging at the University of California, Berkeley, was among those taken aback by what Dr. Deaton and Dr. Case discovered.
“Seldom have I felt as affected by a paper,” he said. “It seems so sad.”
“It is difficult to find modern settings with survival losses of this magnitude,” wrote two Dartmouth economists, Ellen Meara and Jonathan S. Skinner, in a commentary to the Deaton-Case analysis that was published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
“Wow,” said Samuel Preston, a professor of sociology at the University of Pennsylvania and an expert on mortality trends and the health of populations, who was not involved in the research. “This is a vivid indication that something is awry in these American households.”
I am stunned, not by the this outrageous mortality trend, but because academia is so behind the curve. If they would just ask the right questions, the answers would have more meaning. This is not the only economic orthodoxy that drives me nuts. I had recently looked into the positive impact of trickle up economic policy and concluded that the stimulative impact of trickle up was significantly greater than conventional wisdom. The reason being that economists were asking the wrong questions – their research being base upon taking the top 50% v the bottom 50%. But that is hardly the problem in America is it? Of course not. But I guess spending ones lives in the serene surroundings of Princeton University means that you are living in a bubble. To any one with common sense, when analyzing trickle up in the USA, one should take the top 10% v the bottom 90% – or even the top 1% v the top 99%. This is the issue of the age.
Like wise these above mentioned Nobel prize winning economists are asking the wrong question. They talk about America -but remain totally oblivious that we have two America’s -and by splitting the Country into two America’s you will soon see that the actual picture will rapidly come into sharp focus. But I want to make this real easy – so I am going to keep words to a minimum and turn this narrative into a story board:
If a picture paints a thousand words
Then why can’t I paint you?
The words will never show
The you I’ve come to know
Before asking you to spot a pattern -I want to give you five clues -clues that evidently have yet to be pursued by academia. I will start with what their own research showed that should have pointed them in the right direction , and then logically progress from that starting point.
Clue #1.Falling Standard of Living
In the period examined by Dr. Deaton and Dr. Case, the inflation-adjusted income for households headed by a high school graduate fell by 19 percent.
Clue # 2 The Top 1%- Income Discrepancy trends
Clue #3
Firearms, [re increasing suicide rates] the most common method, are a pervasive part of the culture; 51 percent of rural households own a gun, compared with 25 percent of urban homes, the Pew Research Center reported last year. Experts also note a mind-set, born long ago of necessity, dictating that people solve their own problems. This is twinned with increasing levels of Stupid* (it has doubled) -as evidenced by this graph. Bare in mind, that this below graph is not showing increase in gun ownership by numbers of households, but by average numbers of guns in the house holds of Gun owners.
*In this context “Stupid” should not be taken literally -but as a euphemism for worse traits. Stupidparty traits.
Clue#4 Standard Mortality rates are not he only thing spiking in an absurd manner. Just look at this for a second and ask -what the heck?
Basically only America is suffering from this trend:
Clue #5 American Health Care
So now that I have provided the clues – let me provide the facts in picture form, that will explain what those clues are not so much hinting at, but screaming until they are Red or Blue in the face at.
America is two Countries!!! – Red v Blue, Myth v Fact, Ignorance v Critical thinking. So where are middle aged American whites, who are now clearly cutting their own throats, located?
- Life expectancy:
2. Religion and Correlation with Education:
3. Religion and Correlation with Education -Who is dragging America down:
4. Education and who is Dragging America Down:
5. Poverty:
6. Poverty and Who is Dragging America Down:
7. Gun Culture -and who is Dragging America Down:
8. Most Regressively Taxed States:
9. Exercise:
10. Sexism -Women’s Issues:
I could go on forever ; but the next two graphs will have to suffice: Using twenty different metrics in all— let us look at the ultimate chart.
*Red Font Numbers are guesstimates. I chose 30 for Kansas because they seem to have a pattern of coming in around 30. The interesting point about Kansas is to consider not where they have been, but where they are going. On the racism question – which can be hard to get data on – I was probably overly cautious (harsh) in giving Vermont 30 – but I did this because they have had some recent bad press in regards to some police actions against minorities and likewise I was probably being kind to Kansas—but since I could find no data I gave them a 15.
Stupidparty disciples love to go on about “freedoms” -yet are totally self unaware of the double edged aspect of ” freedoms”. It appears that they are exercising their freedom not to be liberated from poverty sickness and death. Yet the least free place ? the most socialist? are States that to me are the most liberated – the most liberated from ignorance.
So now -to all those academics trying to explain those increasing mortality rates amongst middle aged whites -now you know where to look. Having figured that out you will actually be able to draw the obvious conclusion. Stupidparty Governance—literally kills their own; Karma for having blood on their hands for killing so many others around the world.
Good article & information. Although, with all due respect, when lyrics of a song are used — as in the four lines of the song “If”, written by David Gates (as used in the above work) — the writer needs to be acknowledged/credited in the article.
You raise an interesting point, and at the very least you are technically correct —I usually do attribute especially when dealing with substance, rather than “improv”- but in this case I am in two minds – a) it was clearly formatted as a quote b) when using such lyrics -as I like to do, I like to tease the reader into making the connection – thus indicating on my part some degree of resistance to an academic approach, a style where I rarely provide answers or opinions to the question and then in this case I wonder did the Lyricist give credit to Christopher Marlowe. Talking of Marlowe I often use short quotes from such writers with out attribution for similar reasons -if the reader gets the connection that is great, if not then they do not feel uncomfortable not knowing. My writing style also blends in different voices, as I am a nebulous entity, and the way I identify such different voices is via hyper links -as to do other wise would make the narrative stutter along. In my book this writing style created grammatical roadblocks -which we got round by using color coded font – and that was one reason why I v=never allowed a Black and White version to be sold. However the math and Graphs and research in this blog is mine.
Having said my piece I will mull on it -and if I can add attribution with out losing the whimsy -I will probably make the addition. But for now I hear some one scolding me — “Virtue is the fount whence honor springs” -so off to bed I must head, for ever I hear times winged chariot hurrying near.