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More middle-aged white guys killing themselves
From Bloomberg,
The suicide rate in the U.S. rose from 1999 to 2005, the first increase after a decline of more than a decade, fueled by a 17 percent rise among middle-aged whites, researchers reported today.
Middle-aged men continued to kill themselves at a much higher rate than middle-aged women, while the rate rose faster in women than men. Rates of suicide declined slightly among blacks and Asians of all ages, as well as among white teenagers and adults younger than 40. They fell even more in people 65 and older.
My theories:
- Fewer men are getting married. With no wife, nights can be pretty lonely at age 45 for a lot of men. I know that some men can adjust and are perfectly happy.
- Collapsing fertility rate. I believe the purposes of life are to 1) survive (aka job or entrepreneurship), 2) reproduce, and 3) raise your children properly. But hey, that's just me, basing my opinion on the natural order and millions of years of evolution. I think women are better able to cope with being childless. Lonely women do crazy things like taking in stray cats and listening to Stevie Nicks records. Men do crazy things like drinking themselves to death.
- The end of guaranteed employment. Over the past 50 years, unions have strangled the goose that lays the golden eggs. Which for many men destroys the first purpose of life I referenced above. After 20 years on an assembly line, with no education past high school, the future looks grim for those who are permanently laid off.
11 comments:
Paul writes,
All I know is ever Harvard lesbian professors, every commercial, every CBS documentary, every Democrat politician says that it's the working white guys fault.
But then I like to watch 'All In The Family' because after all these years, Archie was right.
Lastly, why do married men die, on average, 5 years earlier than their wife? Because they want to.
I think divorce is a major cause. Men get royally screwed over in court.
I know a guy who went through a nasty divorce. He spent everything he had to fix up an old house. His wife got tired of her life and divorced him. She lied all through the trial (and the judge admitted it) and yet she has a beautiful house that he pays for. He cannot see his kids without a court appointed monitor due to lies his wife told during the trial. This guy (who earns $130K per year) is back to living with his mommy he's so broke.
If this doesn't make you want to do yourself in, I don't know what would.
Don't worry about jobs, Lou! Soon, when President Obama abrogates the right to secret unionization ballots and union thugs can target those who oppose them, everybody will have jobs again! Right before they get outsourced to a country with saner labor laws...
Well, the stats show that the biggest increase is among white _women_. One suggestion is that the removal of HRT has driven some women off the deep end; I don't buy that, having read up on such matters for my own needs. Then they say that most female suicides are with prescription drugs.
I'm reserving judgement until I hear of the reason for the increase in white baby boomer suicides. It is odd and it is interesting and - should I be worried? And don't tell me to listen to Stevie Nicks! She was never a fave. Gimme Pat Benatar!
some just get tired of hanging out on a planet full of f@ckwhits.
All I know is ever Harvard lesbian professors, every commercial, every CBS documentary, every Democrat politician says that it's the working white guys fault.
Well, yeah. Who else is responsible for everything wrong with the world? White men even created AIDS, according to Obama's most cherished personal advisor and minister.
Let's be a bit honest here Lou and readers. HAMWASPS (heterosexual able-bodied male white anglos saxon protestants) aren't really responsible for everything. After all, they are most assuredly not responsible for all the good stuff in the world
Lou,
Just be healthy, you've got small children who love you like crazy.
A long-time reader added via e-mail, and posted w/ permission:
Concerning theories about suicide...... two middle aged white guys here locally (two different shops) took the final step towards finding out which religion or atheist is telling the truth, and which ones have been fibbing or telling "stretchers" as Mark Twain put it. Of course, if it is the atheists who are right, they never found out anything, but that's another issue.
Before taking their own lives, I noticed an increasing disillusionment with social and political conversations. Both envisioned a future where America is literally a Third World country, ruled by elites who own the hack 2-party politicians....... a very depressing image to say the least. But one that many of us want to rise and fight each in our own ways, rather than drinking the Kool-Aid. One was divorced, one lived what seemed to be a normal life with his wife who had not hint he was going to take the final journey.
Two very different people, but both seriously believing that the world around them was collapsing in a way totally beyond their control. They both believed America and the American lifestyle was lost and was not ever coming back again.
I used to try to lighten it up a bit when talking with them, and I could always make them laugh...
Anyway, some people may well be taking the big step driven by a social depression that exaggerates their private personal issues.
I think a certain 26-year-old needs to be pulled out of his Sacramento bunker by his parents.
This suicide thing by people without fatal illness' is something I don't understand. Never have, never will. For the first 18 years and two days of my life I lived in the Easter Avenue housing projects in Oakland, CA, which has always been one of the most violent areas in the nation. You get up, you slug your guts out, you go to bed, and along the way you appreciate the beauty in this world and the opportunities available to those of us lucky enough to live in the USA.
In the majority of the world, hardship is having your child die of starvation in your arms. Here, it is having to borrow the latest XBox.
In the majority of the world, hardship is having your child die of starvation in your arms. Here, it is having to borrow the latest XBox.
Indeed.
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