NYT Editorial: How Austerity Kills---Fiscal policy, it turns out, can be a matter of life or death…

[kpete]

How Austerity Kills
By DAVID STUCKLER and SANJAY BASU
Published: May 12, 2013

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…The correlation between unemployment and suicide has been observed since the 19th century. People looking for work are about twice as likely to end their lives as those who have jobs.
In the United States, the suicide rate, which had slowly risen since 2000, jumped during and after the 2007-9 recession. In a new book, we estimate that 4,750 “excess” suicides — that is, deaths above what pre-existing trends would predict — occurred from 2007 to 2010. Rates of such suicides were significantly greater in the states that experienced the greatest job losses. Deaths from suicide overtook deaths from car crashes in 2009.

If suicides were an unavoidable consequence of economic downturns, this would just be another story about the human toll of the Great Recession. But it isn’t so. Countries that slashed health and social protection budgets, like Greece, Italy and Spain, have seen starkly worse health outcomes than nations like Germany, Iceland and Sweden, which maintained their social safety nets and opted for stimulus over austerity…

…As scholars of public health and political economy, we have watched aghast as politicians endlessly debate debts and deficits with little regard for the human costs of their decisions... ...What we’ve found is that people do not inevitably get sick or die because the economy has faltered. Fiscal policy, it turns out, can be a matter of life or death…

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One need not be an economic ideologue — we certainly aren’t — to recognize that the price of austerity can be calculated in human lives. We are not exonerating poor policy decisions of the past or calling for universal debt forgiveness. It’s up to policy makers in America and Europe to figure out the right mix of fiscal and monetary policy. What we have found is that austerity — severe, immediate, indiscriminate cuts to social and health spending — is not only self-defeating, but fatal.




MORE:
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/13/opinion/how-austerity-kills.html?hpw&_r=0

[Live and Learn]

1. The problem is that those advocating austerity don't care about those lives.

Something about decreasing the surplus population..

[duffyduff]

2. They may find out the rest of us don't care about THEIR lives.

There are a lot more of us than there are of THEM.

[hfojvt]

5. there doesn't seem to be that much concern on DU either

as this thread sinks into oblivion.

[fredamae]

3. End of Life Without Dignity

is what those we Elected to Congress to Represent Us choose For us through Austerity measures.
They have manufactured this economic problem.
Austerity IS the pathway to Privatizing All of "it"--for profit.

Which of the 535 Sens/Reps in Congress have come out in Support of Herndons Rebuttal to Rogoff/Reinhart's Austerity Budget???? Anybody?
Specifically, those in Leadership?
Reid could have fixed the Filibuster.
Pelosi didn't have to come out in Support of CPI
Many More Etc's.

Not ONE Dem Sen or GOP either, for that matter---Objected to the Unanimous Consent/Vote allowing for the "gutting" of the STOCK Act and the Resoration of Sequester Funding to the FAA-to stand up FOR those losing Cancer Treatments, Meals on Wheels and Head Start which in far too many cases gives a hungry child their best/only food for the day. But Both Houses And Parties Did Prove Bi-Partisanship IS Not DOA when it "serves to serve them and Their Ilk".

No one wants to talk about This very Real and very Final Irreversible Consequence of Their Fkg Votes.
When we ask: What's Wrong with them? Call them Stupid etc? They're NOT. None of this is an "accident through stupidity". It's Intentional Raw Greed-and "they" All need to be called out, in Public. Ask them the hard questions, Hold them accountable, demand honest and fruitful answers.
Rep Schakowsky came closest to "owning it" the day FAA Funding was restored when she admitted on MSM that Yes, sometimes Congress does vote for their Own Personal Self Interest. But Once does not make it sweet, nor does it fully explain their votes over the last couple decades which have led us "here".

[hfojvt]

4. knr - except I might point out

that almost all of those deaths took place BEFORE austerity

"that is, deaths above what pre-existing trends would predict — occurred from 2007 to 2010."

The stimulus was not passed until February 2009 after Obama took office, and until January 2011, Democrats had control of the House, the Senate and the White House. So a) it was before austerity, and b) it was when Democrats were in charge.

However, two more points

1) it was a Bush/Republican recession http://www.democraticunderground.com/10021566043

2) In spite of weak job numbers, Republicans opposed another round of stimulus from 2010 on when money to states and cities could have prevented more job losses http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=2819737