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For suicide prevention, try raising the minimum wage, research suggests

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Re: For suicide prevention, try raising the minimum wage, research suggests

#281
post #9

As the old saying goes: Money can't buy happiness, but it can buy a jet ski. And you never see an unhappy person riding a jet ski.

I have my own little saying that I always say in response to that saying: Lack of money can definitely cause unhappiness though You don't need to look further than Maslow's hierarchy of needs to see why, when you don't have enough money to reliably fulfill some of the most fundamental needs like shelter and food, it's going to severely hinder your self actualization. Forget about moving on to the more psychological h…

Another hidden need that is studiously ignored is having enough margin that you can help others. I think that something that hits men very hard when they are struggling financially.

Re: For suicide prevention, try raising the minimum wage, research suggests

#282
post #277
post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Only if demand is entirely in elastic. You can be damn sure if the cost of mobile phones suddenly doubled, a lot fewer phones would be purchased and companies would go out of business.

Of course labor makes up a fraction of the total cost of a phone, so doubling your labor costs does not double the unit cost of a phone.

My comment was in response to “When everybody raises prices at the same time, business survive.”

Which is clearly not true.

Re: For suicide prevention, try raising the minimum wage, research suggests

#283
post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have my own little saying that I always say in response to that saying: Lack of money can definitely cause unhappiness though You don't need to look further than Maslow's hierarchy of needs to see why, when you don't have enough money to reliably fulfill some of the most fundamental needs like shelter and food, it's going to severely hinder your self actualization. Forget about moving on to the more psychological h…

Another hidden need that is studiously ignored is having enough margin that you can help others. I think that something that hits men very hard when they are struggling financially.

Also keep an eye on margin in terms of time, not just money. Maybe also emotional energy.

Re: For suicide prevention, try raising the minimum wage, research suggests

#284
post #95

Alternatively stop exporting jobs and outsourcing joining a race to the bottom. Stop buying cheap, disposable stuff and buy durable things affording locals a living wage. Minimum wages are only slightly better. In my mind minimum wages are wages to minimally support a teenager or similar who has no other responsibilities. People with responsibilities need actually decent jobs. Hollowing our decent paying blue collar…

> Alternatively stop exporting jobs and outsourcing joining a race to the bottom.

Isn't that's just one half of the problem. Isn't the importing of labor the other half of the problem.

We've exported jobs and imported labor. That's a double whammy for workers and can't help but put downward pressure on wages. But it's great for the wealthy elites. Exploit cheap labor overseas and cheapen labor at home.

Re: For suicide prevention, try raising the minimum wage, research suggests

#285

Isn't it obvious that most of America's problems stem from life being shitty for very many people?

Yes, but the specifics are important. It's different for different people. Perverted justice system, news hysteria, jobs that are either awful or great, bad medical system, seems like every institution trying to rob you, war culture, political corruption from all sides, corporate dominance, civil forfeiture, bad public schools, expensive college, government encroachment on basic liberties, mob mentality laws, decades of the above; that's just off the top of my head. It's amazing we aren't worse off.

Re: For suicide prevention, try raising the minimum wage, research suggests

#286

As the old saying goes: Money can't buy happiness, but it can buy a jet ski. And you never see an unhappy person riding a jet ski.

Money can't buy happiness, but it prevents one of the worst things in the world for people/families - financial stress. I bet financial stress is one of the major causes of divorce/destruction of families, child underdevelopment ( mentally/physically ), crime, suicide, etc.

Can't be happy when you can't afford medicine for yourself and your kids, can't pay for food, can't pay the rent/mortgage, etc.

Money can't buy happiness, but lack of money causes a lot of unhappiness.

Re: For suicide prevention, try raising the minimum wage, research suggests

#287
post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We can have get accidental death up to second place by banning railings, air bags, helmets, and tire tread patterns. In other words, was there really a spike in youth suicide or did it just climb in rank because we reduced other causes of death? Something must be first, something must be second, and so on.

Teen/young adult suicides are now occurring at the highest rate since we’ve been keeping statistics (1960): https://www.latimes.com/science/la-sci-suicide-rates-rising-... So there’s unequivocally a spike. The only argument you could really make is that suicide rates have been rising across the US since 1999, up in most states and up by 30% in half of all states, making youth suicide of a part with the broader trend.…

CDC chart does not show what you are saying it shows:

https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/66/wr/mm6630a6.htm

Re: For suicide prevention, try raising the minimum wage, research suggests

#288

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can we stop pretending the rest of the developed world doesn't exist? The per-capita healthcare spending of Europe, public and private, is about half what ours is with similar health outcomes. We are an extreme outlier. https://data.oecd.org/healthres/health-spending.htm The remainder of the premium stops going into the pockets of insurance middlemen .

> the premium stops going into the pockets of insurance middlemen. This just replaces one middleman (insurance co) for another (government). I can tell by the downvotes that my point whooshed over everyone's head -- my point was essentially yours. Changing who pays isn't going to change anything. We have to change what gets charged.

> We have to change what gets charged.

This is substantially easier to do in a single-payer style system.

Re: For suicide prevention, try raising the minimum wage, research suggests

#289
post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Re/ medicare for all ... Canada has universal health care yet a very similar suicide rate to the USA.[1] Canada doesn't have a livable minimum wage either. Each province sets its own. There is talk of UBI experiments. [1] https://politicalcalculations.blogspot.com/2011/02/us-vs-can...

That's 2011 data. Most recent data is here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_suicide_r... * Global rate: 10.5 per 100,000 people * Canada rate: 10.4 per 100,000 people * US rate: 13.7 per 100,000 people

Wonder if this can be normalized with other factors that influence these things, like average daily sunlight and temperature...

Curious to see how Michigan would compare with Ontario or Alaska or Northern Washington would compare with British Columbia

Re: For suicide prevention, try raising the minimum wage, research suggests

#290
post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Re/ medicare for all ... Canada has universal health care yet a very similar suicide rate to the USA.[1] Canada doesn't have a livable minimum wage either. Each province sets its own. There is talk of UBI experiments. [1] https://politicalcalculations.blogspot.com/2011/02/us-vs-can...

I really hope we do not get a UBI in any current forms. I know the second the stores realize that every person now has 'x' amount of dollars to spend, they will raise the prices to match the most they can extract. What I wish Canada would do instead is establish some sort of Universal Basic Rights like every man woman and child is entitled to 5lbs of potatoes a week, 1 gallon of milk, 1 pound of carrots, ect. I as a…

Set up temp motorhome parks until the housing crisis is over. Happened in the 1950s, during that housing crisis.

Have free 'bootcamps'. Want to change careers and be a mechanic or welder? Take an intense 6 month course. That's what happened in WWII, people stuck in crappy depression era towns all of a sudden got retrained in a few months.

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