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Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:
London, United Kingdom - A decade of "austerity" - a political programme of slashing public spending on services in a bid to reduce government budget deficits - has seen significant effects on the health and wellbeing of Britons, new research has reported.
Life expectancy has stalled and mortality rates have increased, especially for the poorest in the United Kingdom, according to a report commissioned by the Institute of Health Equity.
The report, Health Equity in England: The Marmot Review Ten Years On, was launched on Tuesday and sees Sir Michael Marmot, a former president of the World Medical Association, updating his influential 2010 report, having been asked by the then-Labour government to study the question: "Is inequality making us sick?"
Marmot's latest research analysed a wealth of data from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) and Public Health England to explore what has happened since his last landmark report. And the answer can only be summarised as: Not only is inequality making us sick but it is killing us quicker.
In the past decade - for the first time in 120 years of increasing life expectancy in England - life expectancy has stalled for those people living in the UK's 10 percent most deprived areas, particularly in the northeast.
Among women from the most deprived areas - especially British women of Bangladeshi and Pakistani origin - life expectancy fell between 2010-2012 and again between 2016-2018.
Mortality rates have meanwhile increased for people aged between 45 and 49 - the generation that grew up under former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher's administrations. The report details how life expectancy follows the social gradient - the more deprived the area, the shorter the life expectancy.
Marmot's data analysis finds that, as the social gradient has become steeper, so inequalities in life expectancy have also increased.
Austerity has adversely affected the social determinants that impact on health in the short, medium and long term. Austerity will cast a long shadow over the lives of the children born and growing up under its effects
:- Professor Sir Michael Marmot
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Friday February 28 2020, @03:19AM (5 children)
Dude, there is no possible motivation for that position except envy. We've known envy was a very bad thing since back when people were sure this whole "writing" thing was a fad. And you're here basing your economic views entirely on it. Rethink your shat.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Friday February 28 2020, @02:44PM (3 children)
While I must admit at times being tempted to envy the wealthy, I have to say that it is not so. While wealth can "medicate" a lot of life's problems, and distract with comforts, it doesn't seem to fill the void inside. As observed by the lives of the wealthy. I think wealth, with no purpose in life, can be, well, something to not be envied. It seems, to me, that very few, like Elon Musk, can find something useful and consuming to do with such resources. Some others use it to have power over other people's lives.
The lower I set my standards the more accomplishments I have.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday March 02 2020, @04:12AM (2 children)
Dude, you're wanting to punish them for doing better than you. You don't get to the decision that outstanding accomplishment and contribution to society should be punished instead of rewarded by anything resembling a virtuous train of thought.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by DannyB on Monday March 02 2020, @03:16PM (1 child)
I'm not wanting to punish them. I'm wanting them to pay their fair share. I just don't think we're going to agree that the wealthy should pay more than the poor.
The lower I set my standards the more accomplishments I have.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday March 03 2020, @02:07PM
"Their fair share" is the exact same share, percentage-wise, as anyone else or you lose the ability to use the adjective in that clause. You don't get to redefine fair to mean "those assholes are doing better than us, so we're going to screw them".
And please don't give me any of that "they benefited more from society so should pay more" idiocy. A man who works his way up to rich from not rich* had exactly zero benefits that were not available to everyone else. They benefited more because they contributed more. Full stop.
* Yes, that is in fact the usual case. Dynasties are quite rare among the rich in US society.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by Dr Spin on Friday February 28 2020, @05:55PM
The left has made envy the basis of their election campaigns. It is not going very well for them.
In reality, there is a fundamental problem: money is power, and there is positive feedback where having wealth
gives you the power to squeeze the poor harder and harder, while the poor have less and less ability to
defend themselves.
Those with little or no "disposable" income are unable to climb the ladder of unearned income - of course the
foolish manage to dispose of the whole their incomes foolishly too.
It is the case that the wealthy are wealthy because they exist in in a society which includes poor people, and
indeed, benefit from the work of the poor - eg teachers and nurses, rubbish collectors, Uber drivers and pizza
delivery scum.
However, if you oppress the poor excessively, you get the French (and American) revolution, or Isis or Boko Haram. The poor
explode into a violent rage, killing and destroying with no specific objective - particularly if they are likely to die anyway.
It is in the interest of all of society to provide some constraints on the flow of wealth to the rich.
Here in the UK, we have the opposite:
We have "National Insurance" which is actually a tax which falls dis-proportionately on the poor, and a lower tax rate on unearned
income than on earned income.
We also have an education system that totally fails to explain the concept of wealth creation, corporate structure, and, (certainly
used to have) a lot of teachers that believed that Karl Marx' economic theories are "basically sound" when they are provably
complete rubbish - no you don't need to own something to control it - a stolen car will still go which ever way the thief turns
the wheel - an Uber will go where you pay the driver to take it. And no you don't need land for a business - loads of people
these days run on-line businesses from rented accommodation.
The average oik lives and dies with not the slightest idea of what investment is - partly because beer provides quicker results,
and partly because "Spurs are playing on Saturday". ("Bread and Circuses" as they used to say in Rome). No - putting money
is slot machines is NOT investment.
Fortunately the web will save us ;-}
Windows does not give you CoVID-19 (but only because Make-a-fee anti-virus is really effective).
Warning: Opening your mouth may invalidate your brain!