The big culprits are linked to despair, namely “poisoning” which is opiod abuse first and alcoholism second, and suicides. Case and Deaton dug into the underlying statistics, and found distressingly high levels of pain and impaired health in this age group, so pain and physical impairment may well be bigger culprits than economic distress.
Agreed. Also, self-destructive ways of coping with feelings of disenfranchisement, loss of faith in the promise of a better personal future, being trapped in various kinds of loan schemes and plain old dissonance between individual perceptions/cognition and reality as manufactured medially.
Yep. Don't have much to add, but I see a real decline in optimism about the future. Even here in economically blasted Appalachia where you might figure folks are used to this sort of thing. Political ads are more rabid than ever to resonate with that sort of dissatisfaction. "Who can be blamed? Immigrants, minorities, slackers, socialists?"
Beatles, Byrds, Beach Boys, Dylan, Rolling Stones, Who, Zep, etc While I can cop to owning some Beatles, some Stones and some Led Zeppelin, I can also say that I own it purely because my daughter is a fan. Beatles and Cranes. Those are her faves.
I believe the thought process goes something like this. 'Hey I have a little in savings so I'm protected if things go bad.' 'Oh shit, diagnosis that means lots of expensive care or I die.' 'Oh shit, turns out that even with expensive care, I die eventually anyway, but I die broke' 'I want to leave something for my kids/grandkids/spouse, no way in hell am I destroying whatever nest-egg I have for a few more years of life' keels overerosion of medical benefits
Not sure if you're serious... ...but if you are, I'd replace homebrewing with Miller Lite (see also NFL).
Bit surprising. But then, I had to explain to someone why ABBA isn't 'oldies' today. The wikipedia page is wrong. The term oldies has nothing to do with time interval, and everything to do with a type of music popular in the '50s and '60s which no longer exists. It is physically impossible to call Nirvana or Taylor Swift oldies. She did not believe me.