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France also has much lower homelessness and supports child care and health care to a greater extent. In the US the most prominent cause of bankruptcy is medical

by kaitai 4y ago

France also has much lower homelessness and supports child care and health care to a greater extent. In the US the most prominent cause of bankruptcy is medical debt, rents are up an extraordinary amount, homelessness is up quite a lot. Child mortality in the US is the highest in the developed world, from a combo of our terrible infant mortality stats and gun accidents. What are drugs for? For most people, it's not as much chasing the high as pushing away the pain. Look at your own drinking for example (not necessarily you, dminor, but many readers). Mind-altering chemicals are overwhelmingly used in the US to numb oneself and push away the pain of daily living. Folks start with a little to take the edge off, dull the fear & give themselves a bit of mental space, not have to think about the bills, and then...

rayiner 4y ago
[flagged]
- germinalphrase 4y ago
  What is your perspective on the cause?
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
- kibwen 4y ago
  > Yet life is better on pretty much every material metric you list. [...] You think Americans dealing with bills need drugs more than subsistence farmers in Bangladesh? This is irrelevant. When it comes to using drugs, all that matters is the user's own perception of their life. The fact that we have a mental health crisis among young people clearly indicates that, despite any measurable increase to their material quality of life, these young people are increasingly likely to perceive their lot as being dismal. Look at the article and see how many of these kids thought they were taking Xanax, which is an anti-anxiety medication. They weren't even trying to get high, they were seeking something to help them make it through the day. Finding and addressing the cause of this anxiety is, alas, more complicated than just beheading anyone who gets caught popping a pill.
  - rayiner 4y ago
    I don’t see the two things as being in conflict. None of the countries I mentioned use the death penalty on drug users. You can address the demand side by figuring out what’s causing these mental health problems. That doesn’t mean you can’t attack the supply by executing drug dealers.
    - camgunz 4y ago
      I think a lot of people in the US agree with you, but I think you'd all be surprised to know there are a lot of juvenile drug dealers out there. Sometimes they're indies, others they're low on the totem pole of some gang. You can't solve the problem by killing these kids, also they want to be drug dealers because of the money and prestige, and the (perceived) control they get over their life. There's also not a lot of evidence in favor of the death penalty as a deterrent. The most likely outcome of this policy is we just start executing hundreds of young men, mostly minorities.
- lostlogin 4y ago
  I don't live in the US, but it doesn't look like a place getting more liberal to me.
  - Dig1t 4y ago
    Living in California, I can tell I you it most certainly is and has been for a while. Maybe the news paints it as a bunch of cowboys trying to restrict abortions. But look at California, Oregon, Washington, New York, etc laws. They have become so liberal that it has become a meme. Drugs are almost completely decriminalized, you can buy/sell and consume drugs openly on the street, police will not investigate property crimes under $1000 at all anymore, eviction is almost completely impossible even if the tenant hasn’t paid rent in a year. California is about to spend 800 BILLION dollars giving money to black people even though slavery never existed there. It’s legitimately a struggle to think up ways coastal cities in the US could be more liberal.
    - eurasiantiger 4y ago
      That is a corruption issue and cannot be solved by drug laws.
      - JumpCrisscross 4y ago
        What’s the corruption issue?
        nicoburns 4y ago
        Lack of / selective law enforcement
    - ar0 4y ago
      This thread is an interesting example on how not very well defined terms can let people talk past each other… the original poster suggested “let’s try to be more like France, where this problem is solved”, the next one said “no, more liberalism is not the solution” (apparently implying that liberalism is what France does) and now someone states you can’t get more liberal than California, listing as examples things none of which work like that in France! Regardless of the merits of each argument (I am doubtful if you can easily transfer examples from one country to another) we obviously have people arguing with each other here based on completely different definitions of key terms in the discussion.
- lmm 4y ago
  > Yet life is better on pretty much every material metric you list. Drug overdose rates have skyrocketed even as Obamacare and Medicaid expansion dramatically cut the number of uninsured people. Is it? From what I hear living costs are higher and higher, real wages are flat or declining especially for the bottom 20%, and while more people might "have" "health insurance" it doesn't seem to have reduced the costs or rate of bankruptcies.
  - sokoloff 4y ago
    Perhaps looking at data would be in order. Real income over time: (about 10% higher today than in 2000): https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LEU0252881600A https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LEU0252881600A Bottom quintile over time (about 20% higher today than in 2000): https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/CXU900000LB0102M https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/CXU900000LB0102M (edit to add: this one looks to be nominal rather than real income; I’ll see if I can find the real chart on the computer before the edit window closes; I can’t effectively find it on the phone)
    - Jochim 4y ago
      How does that compare to the change in people's expenses? The CPI for rent is more than double what it was in 2000: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/CUSR0000SEHA https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/CUSR0000SEHA
      - sokoloff 4y ago
        My apologies. Only the first chart I posted is real wages (after taking CPI changes into account). I was searching for “real wages over time” but didn’t detect that only the first result was real. (I’ve now edited my post to call that out.)
        Jochim 4y ago
        I appreciate your candor. I missed that the first chart indicated real income. I do find it interesting that housing and living costs seem more unaffordable than the CPI data implies. I came across some Statista data that indicates that real hourly earnings fell for non-managerial workers from a high in 1964 and took nearly 60 years to recover in 2019[0]: > On average, workers in the United States in nonsupervisory positions got paid $23.38 an hour last month. Denominated in constant 1982-1984 dollars, that amounts to real average hourly earnings of $9.40, the highest amount on record since 1964. I could be wrong but I imagine that many of these workers were probably hit harder by the pandemic and current inflation than those lucky enough to be able to work through it. [0] https://www.statista.com/chart/17679/real-wages-in-the-united-states/ https://www.statista.com/chart/17679/real-wages-in-the-unite...
- achenet 4y ago
  > You think Americans dealing with bills need drugs more than subsistence farmers in Bangladesh? well it sure seems that way, don't it? perhaps the issue is because Americans spend their time alone staring at screens, getting mad about politics and depressed while the Bangladeshi are toiling outside in well integrated communities... or maybe it's just a supply issue. Then again, wouldn't alcohol and Afghan opium be relatively easy to acquire in Bangladesh? further reading: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rat_Park https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rat_Park (although it has't been well replicated, from what I gather) https://o-meditation.com/2012/06/12/the-attraction-for-drugs-is-spiritual-osho/ https://o-meditation.com/2012/06/12/the-attraction-for-drugs...
- SyzygistSix 4y ago
  >Yet life is better on pretty much every material metric you list. Lack of housing and the subsequent high cost of housing is a serious issue. Taking steps to avoid people becoming homeless in the first place is extremely important. And has certainly become much, much worse. It is a large factor in the amount of addiction and street drug use.
876978095789789 4y ago
> gun accidents https://injepijournal.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s40621-015-0057-0 https://injepijournal.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s40... > We estimate that there were 110 unintentional firearm deaths to children 0–14 annually in the U.S. during this 8 year time period, 80 % higher than reported by the Vital Statistics. The victims were predominantly male (81 %). Approximately two thirds of the shootings were other-inflicted, and

by kaitai 4y ago

rayiner 4y ago

[flagged]

germinalphrase 4y ago
What is your perspective on the cause?
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
kibwen 4y ago
> Yet life is better on pretty much every material metric you list. [...] You think Americans dealing with bills need drugs more than subsistence farmers in Bangladesh? This is irrelevant. When it comes to using drugs, all that matters is the user's own perception of their life. The fact that we have a mental health crisis among young people clearly indicates that, despite any measurable increase to their material quality of life, these young people are increasingly likely to perceive their lot as being dismal. Look at the article and see how many of these kids thought they were taking Xanax, which is an anti-anxiety medication. They weren't even trying to get high, they were seeking something to help them make it through the day. Finding and addressing the cause of this anxiety is, alas, more complicated than just beheading anyone who gets caught popping a pill.
- rayiner 4y ago
  I don’t see the two things as being in conflict. None of the countries I mentioned use the death penalty on drug users. You can address the demand side by figuring out what’s causing these mental health problems. That doesn’t mean you can’t attack the supply by executing drug dealers.
  - camgunz 4y ago
    I think a lot of people in the US agree with you, but I think you'd all be surprised to know there are a lot of juvenile drug dealers out there. Sometimes they're indies, others they're low on the totem pole of some gang. You can't solve the problem by killing these kids, also they want to be drug dealers because of the money and prestige, and the (perceived) control they get over their life. There's also not a lot of evidence in favor of the death penalty as a deterrent. The most likely outcome of this policy is we just start executing hundreds of young men, mostly minorities.
lostlogin 4y ago
I don't live in the US, but it doesn't look like a place getting more liberal to me.
- Dig1t 4y ago
  Living in California, I can tell I you it most certainly is and has been for a while. Maybe the news paints it as a bunch of cowboys trying to restrict abortions. But look at California, Oregon, Washington, New York, etc laws. They have become so liberal that it has become a meme. Drugs are almost completely decriminalized, you can buy/sell and consume drugs openly on the street, police will not investigate property crimes under $1000 at all anymore, eviction is almost completely impossible even if the tenant hasn’t paid rent in a year. California is about to spend 800 BILLION dollars giving money to black people even though slavery never existed there. It’s legitimately a struggle to think up ways coastal cities in the US could be more liberal.
  - eurasiantiger 4y ago
    That is a corruption issue and cannot be solved by drug laws.
    - JumpCrisscross 4y ago
      What’s the corruption issue?
      - nicoburns 4y ago
        Lack of / selective law enforcement
  - ar0 4y ago
    This thread is an interesting example on how not very well defined terms can let people talk past each other… the original poster suggested “let’s try to be more like France, where this problem is solved”, the next one said “no, more liberalism is not the solution” (apparently implying that liberalism is what France does) and now someone states you can’t get more liberal than California, listing as examples things none of which work like that in France! Regardless of the merits of each argument (I am doubtful if you can easily transfer examples from one country to another) we obviously have people arguing with each other here based on completely different definitions of key terms in the discussion.
lmm 4y ago
> Yet life is better on pretty much every material metric you list. Drug overdose rates have skyrocketed even as Obamacare and Medicaid expansion dramatically cut the number of uninsured people. Is it? From what I hear living costs are higher and higher, real wages are flat or declining especially for the bottom 20%, and while more people might "have" "health insurance" it doesn't seem to have reduced the costs or rate of bankruptcies.
- sokoloff 4y ago
  Perhaps looking at data would be in order. Real income over time: (about 10% higher today than in 2000): https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LEU0252881600A https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LEU0252881600A Bottom quintile over time (about 20% higher today than in 2000): https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/CXU900000LB0102M https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/CXU900000LB0102M (edit to add: this one looks to be nominal rather than real income; I’ll see if I can find the real chart on the computer before the edit window closes; I can’t effectively find it on the phone)
  - Jochim 4y ago
    How does that compare to the change in people's expenses? The CPI for rent is more than double what it was in 2000: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/CUSR0000SEHA https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/CUSR0000SEHA
    - sokoloff 4y ago
      My apologies. Only the first chart I posted is real wages (after taking CPI changes into account). I was searching for “real wages over time” but didn’t detect that only the first result was real. (I’ve now edited my post to call that out.)
      - Jochim 4y ago
        I appreciate your candor. I missed that the first chart indicated real income. I do find it interesting that housing and living costs seem more unaffordable than the CPI data implies. I came across some Statista data that indicates that real hourly earnings fell for non-managerial workers from a high in 1964 and took nearly 60 years to recover in 2019[0]: > On average, workers in the United States in nonsupervisory positions got paid $23.38 an hour last month. Denominated in constant 1982-1984 dollars, that amounts to real average hourly earnings of $9.40, the highest amount on record since 1964. I could be wrong but I imagine that many of these workers were probably hit harder by the pandemic and current inflation than those lucky enough to be able to work through it. [0] https://www.statista.com/chart/17679/real-wages-in-the-united-states/ https://www.statista.com/chart/17679/real-wages-in-the-unite...
achenet 4y ago
> You think Americans dealing with bills need drugs more than subsistence farmers in Bangladesh? well it sure seems that way, don't it? perhaps the issue is because Americans spend their time alone staring at screens, getting mad about politics and depressed while the Bangladeshi are toiling outside in well integrated communities... or maybe it's just a supply issue. Then again, wouldn't alcohol and Afghan opium be relatively easy to acquire in Bangladesh? further reading: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rat_Park https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rat_Park (although it has't been well replicated, from what I gather) https://o-meditation.com/2012/06/12/the-attraction-for-drugs-is-spiritual-osho/ https://o-meditation.com/2012/06/12/the-attraction-for-drugs...
SyzygistSix 4y ago
>Yet life is better on pretty much every material metric you list. Lack of housing and the subsequent high cost of housing is a serious issue. Taking steps to avoid people becoming homeless in the first place is extremely important. And has certainly become much, much worse. It is a large factor in the amount of addiction and street drug use.

876978095789789 4y ago

> gun accidents https://injepijournal.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s40621-015-0057-0 https://injepijournal.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s40... > We estimate that there were 110 unintentional firearm deaths to children 0–14 annually in the U.S. during this 8 year time period, 80 % higher than reported by the Vital Statistics. The victims were predominantly male (81 %). Approximately two thirds of the shootings were other-inflicted, and