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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: 5, Insightful) by DannyB on Thursday February 27 2020, @04:15PM (20 children)
But you can afford it if the wealthiest pay their fair share.
Just look up some info graphics. The top most 1% have more wealth than they could spend in a hundred lifetimes. And they mostly hoard these resources.
I'm not against anyone being able to become wealthy. Even very wealthy. Even inheriting it. But there is some point where it becomes obscene.
If you eat an entire cake without cutting it, you technically only had one piece.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 27 2020, @04:42PM (10 children)
What does it mean to hoard it? Are they taking huge percentages of farm harvests and piling them up in giant silos? What are they doing with it that you believe to be bad?
(Score: 5, Informative) by tangomargarine on Thursday February 27 2020, @04:59PM (4 children)
Not paying taxes to even out the deficit spending.
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday February 27 2020, @08:59PM (3 children)
(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Friday February 28 2020, @04:05PM (2 children)
Well sure, it's a multi-part approach--you can't keep increasing the amount you spend boundlessly, either. The Republicans do sometimes actually do as they claim they like to and cut spending, but often in the most moronic areas possible, like education and road maintenance.
It's like how computers get more powerful every year, but software gets more bloated and complicated to fill up the extra hardware. (go ask Troutman [tomrobertshaw.net])
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday February 29 2020, @02:02AM (1 child)
How come this acknowledgment never comes up until there's criticism of "we need more revenue"?
So what's the justification that we should increase tax revenue when we're not only not spending it well, but getting worse every time we actually do increase tax revenue?
My take is that we already are spending too much and building up huge liabilities in the process. It's not just the debt. It's also the promises made. Here, this study purports to show that more social programs and the like means a healthier population. But it's only considering one side of the equation. The resources that go into backing those promises come from somewhere be it something concrete like someone's wealth and ability to contribute to society (such as employing people or making useful things), or something nebulous like confidence in the government and economy.
(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Monday March 02 2020, @04:38PM
It's one of those things I don't generally think to bring up because it's so bleeding obvious.
Or at least, it *should* be. At the scale of the federal government, apparently logic ceases to apply, e.g. "too big to fail."
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Thursday February 27 2020, @06:36PM (4 children)
You did read the part about a hundred lifetimes?
Such great resources should not be quite so concentrated into so few hands.
I suppose you'll disagree. Maybe one person should be able to own the entire planet? Or at least the USA?
If you eat an entire cake without cutting it, you technically only had one piece.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by canopic jug on Thursday February 27 2020, @07:06PM (3 children)
No matter how wealthy, there's only so much beer you can drink in a day. Beyond that the money goes to waste.
You did read the part about a hundred lifetimes?
Even the current pope noticed the dual problems of obscene wealth and cultivation of poverty [billmoyers.com]. He mentioned it explictly [npr.org] a few years ago:
Notice list item #5 and #6 in particular, but #4 is also relevant if one uses the older, traditional definition of justice like he did in his encyclical.
Money is not free speech. Elections should not be auctions.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Thursday February 27 2020, @08:18PM (2 children)
Interesting.
However you will never convince some people that corporations or the obscenely wealthy should pay their fair share.
If you eat an entire cake without cutting it, you technically only had one piece.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Thursday February 27 2020, @09:31PM (1 child)
I'm convinced. Corps and rich people should pay equivalent or greater than the working class. Every time that conversation gets started, the rightists pipe up with, "Well they don't have income!"
If they are making money, they have income. That should be taxed. Only corruption in congress can create a false fact like, "Well rich people don't have income!"
Abortion is the number one killed of children in the United States.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Thursday February 27 2020, @09:45PM
Corruption, rather than differences in public policy ideas, is the cause of a LOT of our nation's problems.
If you eat an entire cake without cutting it, you technically only had one piece.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by Phoenix666 on Thursday February 27 2020, @10:35PM (1 child)
The thing about the wealthy that most people don't realize is that most of the wealthy are quite bad at making money. Study after study by outfits like the Harvard Business Review have shown that those who inherit wealth excel in squandering it, and that most who luck into it turn out to be just as poor at investing it as the general population (see: poor success among angel investors).
That is why they work so very hard at rigging the game so they get huge windfalls at public expense. It's risk-free money. It is why they are fighting so very hard right now, because with Trump as a populist on the right and Bernie as a populist on the left, they are facing a squeeze play.
So we don't need to implement socialism a la Bernie to revive the American project. Rather, we need to reprise the Teddy Roosevelt Trust Busting that issued in the American Century. If we wrest control of our country back from shadowy figures in international banking and put a stop to regulatory capture the problem of wealth inequality will start to reverse itself as the ultra-wealthy begin to suffer the effects of their bad decisions instead of socializing their losses onto the rest of us.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 28 2020, @03:52PM
> because with Trump as a populist on the right
Please 'splain to me how Trump is squeezing the rich?
(Score: 2) by Joe Desertrat on Thursday February 27 2020, @11:02PM
I'm not sure that tax cuts for the rich are the core of the problem. The problem is that spending continues to flow to the rich despite cutting the share they have to pay, and it is the rest of society, which really can't afford it, who ends up paying for it.
(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.
If you eat an entire cake without cutting it, you technically only had one piece.
(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.
If you eat an entire cake without cutting it, you technically only had one piece.
(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!