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posted by on Thursday March 30 2017, @02:03PM   Printer-friendly

Rural America is facing an existential crisis. As cities continue to grow and prosper, small towns are shrinking. That fundamental divide played itself out in the recent presidential election.

[...] The trend is clear: Rural America is literally fading away. It shouldn't come as a surprise, therefore, that the opioid overdose epidemic has hit rural states, like Kentucky and West Virginia, especially hard. And the latest research from the CDC also shouldn't come as a surprise: Suicides in rural America (labeled as non-core) have increased over 40% in 16 years.

From 1999 to 2015, suicide rates increased everywhere in America. On average, across the U.S., suicides increased from 12.2 per 100,000 to 15.7 per 100,0001, an increase of just under 30%. However, in rural America, the suicide rate surged over 40%2, from just over 15 per 100,000 to roughly 22 per 100,000. Similarly, the suicide rate in micropolitan areas (defined as having a population between 10,000-49,999) went from 14 per 100,000 to 19 per 100,000, an increase of around 35%.

On the flip side, major cities saw much smaller increases in suicide rates, on the order of 10%. The graph depicts a clear pattern: Suicide rates are highest in the most rural parts of the country, and they slowly decrease as urbanization increases. As of 2015, the suicide rate in rural areas (22 per 100,000) is about 40% higher than in the nation as a whole (15.7 per 100,000) and 83% higher than in large cities (12 per 100,000).

-- submitted from IRC


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  • (Score: 4, Insightful) by hemocyanin on Thursday March 30 2017, @03:36PM (23 children)

    by hemocyanin (186) on Thursday March 30 2017, @03:36PM (#486517) Journal

    Automation is a popular scapegoat, but ...

    This "automation rather than trade story" is the equivalent of global warming denialism for the well-educated. And its proponents deserve at least as much contempt as global warming deniers.

    ***

    The extraordinary plunge in manufacturing jobs in the years 2000 to 2007 was due to the explosion of the trade deficit, which peaked at just under 6 percent of GDP ($1.2 trillion in today's economy) in 2005 and 2006. This was first and foremost due to the growth of imports from China during these years, although we ran large trade deficits with other countries as well.

    There really is very little ambiguity in this story. Does anyone believe that if we had balanced trade it wouldn't mean more manufacturing jobs? Do they think we could produce another $1.2 trillion in manufacturing output without employing any workers?

    http://www.truth-out.org/opinion/item/39995-trade-denialism-continues-trade-really-did-kill-manufacturing-jobs [truth-out.org]

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  • (Score: 2) by canopic jug on Thursday March 30 2017, @03:55PM (6 children)

    by canopic jug (3949) Subscriber Badge on Thursday March 30 2017, @03:55PM (#486541) Journal

    It has an effect in that robots do lower wages and reduce jobs [theverge.com]. However, I suspect ideological factors play several orders of magnitude more impact. I'd like to have hard data about the ideological factors where janitors, secretaries, grounds crew, and other useful jobs are axed seemingly just because some C-level scum want to make life hard for both those they have fired and those that will be forced to pick up the slack out of necessity. That looks to me to be the big wound, not the pin prick caused by robots.

    --
    Money is not free speech. Elections should not be auctions.
    • (Score: 3, Insightful) by DannyB on Thursday March 30 2017, @04:35PM (5 children)

      by DannyB (5839) Subscriber Badge on Thursday March 30 2017, @04:35PM (#486577) Journal

      Robots may lower wages and reduce jobs, but this may not be as important a factor as the vast bulk of the world's wealth is held by a small number of people.

      --
      People today are educated enough to repeat what they are taught but not to question what they are taught.
      • (Score: 5, Insightful) by canopic jug on Thursday March 30 2017, @05:26PM (4 children)

        by canopic jug (3949) Subscriber Badge on Thursday March 30 2017, @05:26PM (#486614) Journal

        That's basically it in a nutshell. The average CEO takes 300 times as much as the average employee [fortune.com], and a similar discrepancy is there for the other executives. People complain about robots, but firing one executive would allow hundreds of employees to stay one at average wage. Or it would allow half that many but at a double wage. That would be money pouring back into the economy, because poor and middle class do spend a lot. I'm not sure why people still fall for that Trickle Down crap that was discredited even back in Reagan's time.

        --
        Money is not free speech. Elections should not be auctions.
        • (Score: 4, Informative) by bob_super on Thursday March 30 2017, @05:34PM

          by bob_super (1357) on Thursday March 30 2017, @05:34PM (#486624)

          > money pouring back into the economy, because poor and middle class do spend a lot

          The be precise, the poor spend about 100% of their income, and much of the middle class spend more than that (yay for debt!).
          Before the 2008 financial crisis, the average was about 107%. I'm not sure what the current numbers are.

        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 30 2017, @05:37PM (1 child)

          by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 30 2017, @05:37PM (#486626)

          Cause they're idiots who fall for propaganda and just loooove talk radio.

          • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 30 2017, @07:46PM

            by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 30 2017, @07:46PM (#486695)

            The do a lot more than talk radio. Like vote, wrecking good ideas in work life, meddling with other peoples life which they can't comprehend, etc..
            Whenever there's a idiot in the ecosystem. The type of area matters less.... :-)

        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 31 2017, @01:00AM

          by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 31 2017, @01:00AM (#486858)

          I'm not sure why people still fall for that Trickle Down crap that was discredited even back in Reagan's time.

          I'm guessing that, for most of them, it is because they believe themselves to be temporarily embarrassed millionaires.

  • (Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 30 2017, @04:08PM (3 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 30 2017, @04:08PM (#486550)

    > The extraordinary plunge in manufacturing jobs in the years 2000 to 2007 was due to the explosion of the trade deficit,

    And yet, US manufacturing output increased more than 10% [stlouisfed.org] during that time period, even while manufacturing employment decreased by nearly 20%.

    That looks like pretty strong evidence of automation being the dominating factor to me.

    • (Score: 2) by hemocyanin on Thursday March 30 2017, @04:21PM (1 child)

      by hemocyanin (186) on Thursday March 30 2017, @04:21PM (#486562) Journal

      Right -- the massive increase in the ratio of imports to exports since 2000 had zero effect. /sarc

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 30 2017, @04:41PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 30 2017, @04:41PM (#486580)

        Maybe you could explain your logic in a way that could be evaluated rather than a "you are stupid" declaration. Because that sure makes it look like you can't explain your logic.

        Manufacturing output increased while employment decreased.

        One explanation for why the trade deficit didn't meaningfully harm employment is simply that americans bought more stuff.

    • (Score: 3, Interesting) by urza9814 on Friday March 31 2017, @03:49PM

      by urza9814 (3954) on Friday March 31 2017, @03:49PM (#487119) Journal
      And yet, US manufacturing output increased more than 10% [stlouisfed.org] during that time period, even while manufacturing employment decreased by nearly 20%.

      That looks like pretty strong evidence of automation being the dominating factor to me.

      Not necessarily. If you automate the manufacturing it requires fewer employees to produce the same output. But that also means the products cost less to produce, which means people can buy more of them, so demand increases so you need more employees again. Although it's likely to increase employment in a different field -- If food gets cheaper I still won't need to eat more, but I'll almost certainly spend that money on computers instead. Which, given the current global economy, means some of the money that used to buy produce from California is now buying motherboards from China.

      This isn't going to balance perfectly, but there's no reason that automation MUST cause a corresponding drop in employment. You need to also consider consumption of those goods. I'd be interested in seeing a graph that compares US employment vs production where production is measured not compared to past US production but as a percentage of global consumption. That would show if employment is decreasing because someone else is producing the goods or if it's decreasing because automation is causing supply to outpace demand. I suspect it would be a mix of both.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 30 2017, @04:12PM (1 child)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 30 2017, @04:12PM (#486555)

    I will agree it's a combination of trade practices and automation. However, keep in mind that American labor will be more expensive than labor in newly industrialized countries. Even if tariff's etc. were erected to bring manufacturing back, automation would be more likely deployed in the US than such nations due to the high labor rate. Thus, it's not a 1-to-1 comparison of job outsourcing. Detroit makes the same number of cars with fewer employees due to automation. Same with farm work and mining. Machines are slowly marching up the job-skills ladder. Self-driving trucks are almost inevitable: they are out of sci-fi realm and being tuned for practicality, at least for pre-mapped routes.

    I will agree our "trade deals are bad", but renegotiating them will only delay the inevitable.

    • (Score: 2) by hemocyanin on Friday March 31 2017, @12:34AM

      by hemocyanin (186) on Friday March 31 2017, @12:34AM (#486844) Journal

      And in that delay, is a short respite that allows people to transition more smoothly than being thrown to the wolves.

  • (Score: 3, Informative) by meustrus on Thursday March 30 2017, @04:21PM (8 children)

    by meustrus (4961) on Thursday March 30 2017, @04:21PM (#486560)

    Usually the argument is not framed as "automation killed more jobs than globalism in general". At least not when you're talking to anybody that wants to see the data. Most of the time, the argument is carefully narrowed down to "automation killed more jobs than trade with Mexico/China/any other single country", followed by data to prove it. Which can be true, even when automation is the smaller boogeyman. Especially since a lot of those jobs now go to several of the different countries south of China, further diluting each individual country's share of global jobs moved out of America.

    --
    If there isn't at least one reference or primary source, it's not +1 Informative. Maybe the underused +1 Interesting?
    • (Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 30 2017, @05:40PM (7 children)

      by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 30 2017, @05:40PM (#486628)

      All of that sort of analysis assumes that markets are static. In fact, trade doesn't just move jobs around, it also creates new jobs because it creates new consumers. The amount of poverty in the world has been vastly reduced, it is hard to over-state just how much poverty has been eliminated by globalism. [businessinsider.com]

      • (Score: 3, Insightful) by c0lo on Thursday March 30 2017, @10:54PM (6 children)

        by c0lo (156) Subscriber Badge on Thursday March 30 2017, @10:54PM (#486796) Journal

        In fact, trade doesn't just move jobs around, it also creates new jobs because it creates new consumers.

        Service-economy... imagine 100 hairdressers in a circle, each one tending the hair of the one in front of it. Would you qualify this as a "well-being upward spiral"?

        Now, tell me what type of new customers are created when the population can not get enough money to pay for the... mmm... customs?
        Middle-class is disappearing, fast; the bottom of the barrel is showing already.

        --
        https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
        • (Score: 2) by hemocyanin on Friday March 31 2017, @12:37AM (1 child)

          by hemocyanin (186) on Friday March 31 2017, @12:37AM (#486845) Journal

          Yep. Services are necessary but without an underlying wealth generating economy in place (*), services become unfordable eventually. A pure service economy is like a perpetual motion machine -- doesn't work.

          (*) by wealth generating, I do not mean middlemen personally enriching themselves - I mean creating new stuff that people want.

          • (Score: 2) by c0lo on Friday March 31 2017, @05:53AM

            by c0lo (156) Subscriber Badge on Friday March 31 2017, @05:53AM (#486948) Journal
            (*) by wealth generating, I do not mean middlemen personally enriching themselves - I mean creating new stuff that people want.

            Umm... I wish this would be a clear cut. nut it isn't.

            Someone may argue that "production" is actually a special kind of service:
            - the service of extracting and processing already existing minerals, a service of processing them and transforming them in tangible, a service of transporting/distributing them.
            - a service of planting seeds, growing produce/cereals/animals, no different in nature from flipping burgers.
            - etc

            No actual creation, just many specialized services of transforming substances and energy from one form to another

            And beat me if I know how to refute the above argumentation.

            --
            https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 31 2017, @03:53AM (3 children)

          by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 31 2017, @03:53AM (#486917)

          Service-economy... imagine 100 hairdressers in a circle, each one tending the hair of the one in front of it. Would you qualify this as a "well-being upward spiral"?

          A service economy isn't just hairdressers. Its doctors. Its teachers. Its gardeners. Its musicians, authors and painters.

          And a transition to a service economy is inevitable in a world of growing automation. That's because automation makes manufacturing cheaper, which makes goods cheaper. But you can't as easily automate a home health aid or a tennis pro as you can a television assembly line. So when the amount of available money stays the same and the cost of physical goods is reduced it is inevitable that more money will be spent on services because they get proportionally more expensive.

          So try to get past your reductive mischaracterization of what a service economy entails and realize that not only is it inevitable, its also not a bad thing. Its just a new thing.

          • (Score: 2) by c0lo on Friday March 31 2017, @05:39AM (2 children)

            by c0lo (156) Subscriber Badge on Friday March 31 2017, @05:39AM (#486945) Journal
            A service economy isn't just hairdressers. Its doctors. Its teachers. Its gardeners. Its musicians, authors and painters.

            And a transition to a service economy is inevitable in a world of growing automation. That's because automation makes manufacturing cheaper, which makes goods cheaper.

            So it would be, except for a nagging detail... make the wealth generated by the use of automation be distributed to the population. Otherwise you are building a house of cards on a sandy ground while a storm is blowing high winds.

            --
            https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
            • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 31 2017, @07:28AM (1 child)

              by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 31 2017, @07:28AM (#486974)

              > make the wealth generated by the use of automation be distributed to the population.

              As long as there is effective competition the prices should reflect the vastly reduced costs, which means that wealth is distributed via the increased purchasing power. You get a lot more stuff for the same price or you get the same amount of stuff and you keep a lot more cash in your wallet.

              • (Score: 2) by c0lo on Friday March 31 2017, @08:45AM

                by c0lo (156) Subscriber Badge on Friday March 31 2017, @08:45AM (#486986) Journal
                You get a lot more stuff for the same price or you get the same amount of stuff and you keep a lot more cash in your wallet.

                Implicit assumption: you have money in your wallet to start with.
                Verify this assumption after 3 years of being unemployed.

                --
                https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
  • (Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 30 2017, @08:22PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 30 2017, @08:22PM (#486723)

    You already have robots eating into the prostitution market.