New posts at Many Years Young 12/31/11
States Crack Down on Drunk Drivers This Holiday Season
ERs fill with intoxicated at year’s end
Walking home drunk is no solution
Search for hangover remedy remains elusive
Plus lots more.
New posts at Many Years Young 12/30/11
Bring Good Luck with New Year’s Food Traditions
Three Foods That May Fend Off Diabetes
Red meat lovers have more kidney cancer
Reduce cancer risk by walking and by eating more vegetables
Plus lots more.
New posts at Many Years Young 12/29/11
Vitamins, Omega-3s May Keep Brain From Shrinking: Study
‘Silent strokes’ linked to memory loss
Smile a lot to prevent stroke
Want to get happiness? Give it
Plus lots more.
New posts at Many Years Young 12/28/11
Mediterranean Diet Gives Longer Life, Study Suggests
The Mainstreaming of Vegan Diets
Eating Out Doesn’t Have to Mean Excess Calories
Fish, olive oil relieve pancreatitis symptoms
Plus lots more.
Corporate shark
27-Dec-11
America’s decline: The evidence
27-Dec-11
PsychCentral.com:
Meta-Twitter Analysis Shows Happiness Trending Down
Using Twitter, a team of scientists from the University of Vermont has created a happiness graph, which shows happiness has fallen over the last few years.
“After a gradual upward trend that ran from January to April 2009, the overall time series has shown a gradual downward trend, accelerating somewhat over the first half of 2011,” the researchers write in the Dec. 7 issue of the journal PLoS ONE.
“It appears that happiness is going down,” said Peter Dodds, an applied mathematician at UVM and the lead author on the new study.
Gannett:
Barely half of U.S. adults are married, a record low
The percentage of married adults in the U.S. dropped to a record low 51 percent in 2010 — down from 72 percent in 1960, according to a Pew Research Center analysis of U.S. Census data.
The steepest drop occurred among adults ages 18 to 29. Just 20 percent of them were married last year, compared with 59 percent in 1960…
Pew researchers said it’s not yet known whether today’s young adults are abandoning marriage or merely delaying it. A much higher share of people — 72 percent — have been married at least once. But even that’s down from 1960, when 85 percent of people were counted as “ever married.”
Reuters:
U.S. population grows at slowest rate since 1940s
The population of the United States is growing at its slowest rate in more than 70 years, the U.S. Census Bureau said on Wednesday.
The country’s population increased by an estimated 2.8 million to 311.6 million from April 1, 2010 to July 1, 2011. The growth rate of 0.92 percent was the lowest since the mid-1940s.
“The nation’s overall growth rate is now at its lowest point since before the Baby Boom,” Census Bureau Director Robert Groves said in a statement.
Why is it happening?
27-Dec-11
David Hill, Singularity Hub:
American Middle Class Dwindles As Household Income Drops To 1996 Levels
Back in 1999, middle-class Americans were following the impeachment trial of President Clinton, reeling from the Columbine shootings, and fretting about Y2K. But if they knew then what we know today, they would have also been holding onto every penny of their savings with a kung-fu grip. Why? Because in that year the average American household earned its peak income, and though it has fluctuated during its decline over more than a decade, a post-recession nosedive has sunk income three years in a row to 1996 levels, according to a recent report from the Census Bureau. This has prompted a flood of media coverage about the end of the middle class, including the recent We Are the 99.9% op-ed in the New York Times, which effectively draws the line between the super rich and everyone else.
As in previous tough times, the middle class could hunker down and weather the storm if it weren’t for certain detrimental factors at play (I’m looking at you globalization). While one would hope that analysts could read economic statistics like tea leaves to uncover something promising for the future, the numbers don’t look good.
Political Wire:
Esquire: “There are some truths so hard to face, so ugly and so at odds with how we imagine the world should be, that nobody can accept them.
“Here’s one: It is obvious that a class system has arrived in America — a recent study of the thirty-four countries in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development found that only Italy and Great Britain have less social mobility. But nobody wants to admit: If your daddy was rich, you’re gonna stay rich, and if your daddy was poor, you’re gonna stay poor.
“Every instinct in the American gut, every institution, every national symbol, runs on the idea that anybody can make it; the only limits are your own limits. Which is an amazing idea, a gift to the world — just no longer true. Culturally, and in their daily lives, Americans continue to glide through a ghostly land of opportunity they can’t bear to tell themselves isn’t real. It’s the most dangerous lie the country tells itself.”
Dean Baker:
David Brooks Is Projecting His Self Indulgence Again
Undoubtedly projecting from the fact that he can draw a nice 6-figure income for little obvious work, David Brooks complained in his column:…
“Today’s economy is not a jobs machine and lacks that bursting vibrancy. The rate of new business start-ups was declining even before the 2008 financial crisis. Companies are finding that they can get by with fewer workers. As President Obama has observed, factories that used to employ 1,000 workers can now be even more productive with less than 100.”
The fact that factories can produce large amounts of output with 100 workers is in fact evidence of economic vibrancy, not the opposite. This is called “productivity growth.” It is the main measure of the economy’s ability to raise living standards through time. The fact that 100 people in a factory can produce the same output as 1000 people did 30 years ago means that we are potentially much richer than we were 30 years ago. We can have the other 900 people doing other productive work. Alternatively, we can all work many fewer hours.
Whether or not this productivity growth generates jobs depends on the structure of the economy. If the productivity growth translates into wage growth, as was the case with the very rapid productivity growth of early post-war period, then it is likely to be associated with a vibrant jobs machine. On the other hand, if the One Percent pocket most of the benefits of productivity growth, then we may have real problems of stagnation and lack of job growth, since the Bill Gates of the world will probably not increase their spending much if they get another billion or two. The key issue here is the distribution of the gains of productivity growth, a simple fact that totally escapes Brooks.
Sam Smith:
One thing I’ve learned about free markets in America is that they belong on the economic endangered species list. And high on the list would be the DC taxi industry.
For many decades, DC had a taxi fare system based on zones rather than meters. This system made it virtually impossible for large corporations to take over the taxi industry as they had no way of knowing how much an individual driver was truly making. Thus the big outfits avoided the city.
DC’s taxi industry flourished…
A few years ago, the city did away with the zone system. It also introduced a series of new regulations designed to make the industry more favorable to a corporate takeover, adding to the drivers’ expenses without helping their business. It was assumed that these measures might lead eventually to a medallion system under which cabbies would be required to fork over six figures just for the right to drive a vehicle. In the few years since meters were introduced, the number of cab drivers in the city has already plummeted by around thirty percent.
So much for free markets.
The only markets that Washington politicians truly understand are highly corrupted ones, either by regulation-induced monopolies or campaign financed bribes known as contributions.
Paul Krugman:
And it’s a beautiful thing to see…
Joe once again goes after the Big Lie — the claim that Fannie and Freddie caused the crisis — and drives home the point that the people advancing this story aren’t just wrong but are acting with intent, engaged in deliberate deception…
Basically, Joe is arriving where I’ve been since 2000: what’s going on in the discussion of economic affairs (and other matters, like justifications for war) isn’t just a case where different people look at the same facts but reach different conclusions. Instead, we’re looking at a situation in which one side of the debate just isn’t interested in the truth, in which alleged scholarship is actually just propaganda.
Saying this, of course, gets you declared “shrill”, denounced as partisan; you’re supposed to pretend that we’re having a civilized discussion between people with good intentions. And you’re supposed to match each attack on Republicans with an attack on Democrats, as if the mendacity were equal on both sides. Sorry, but it isn’t. Democrats aren’t angels; they’re human and sometimes corrupt — but they don’t operate a lie machine 24/7 the way modern Republicans do.
“Old” Europe does it better than we do
27-Dec-11
Undernews:
How Germany builds twice as many cars as the U.S. and pays its workers twice as much
Frederick E. Allen, Forbes - In 2010, Germany produced more than 5.5 million automobiles; the U.S produced 2.7 million. At the same time, the average auto worker in Germany made $67.14 per hour in salary in benefits; the average one in the U.S. made $33.77 per hour. Yet Germany’s big three car companies—BMW, Daimler (Mercedes-Benz), and Volkswagen—are very profitable.
How can that be? The question is explored in a new article from Remapping Debate, a public policy e-journal. Its author, Kevin C. Brown, writes that “the salient difference is that, in Germany, the automakers operate within an environment that precludes a race to the bottom; in the U.S., they operate within an environment that encourages such a race.”
8 Reasons the French Are Slim
27-Dec-11
New posts at Many Years Young 12/27/11
8 Reasons the French Are Slim
The working equation: Move more, eat less
Recommended: Eat This, Not That: Surviving the supermarket
Shave 200 Calories a Day with This Swap
Plus lots more.
New posts at Many Years Young 12/26/11
Gallup: U.S. diabetes rate up, related to obesity
Obesity stigma tied to hefty pay cut
Obesity Linked to Higher Esophageal Cancer Death Rates
Obesity doesn’t have to be your destiny
Plus lots more.
Happy Holidays!
25-Dec-11
Happy HanukkahChristmasKwanzaaWinterSolstice
Why layaway angels touch even Grinches
24-Dec-11
New posts at Many Years Young 12/24/11
Why layaway angels touch even Grinches
All that family togetherness calls for survival strategies
Your Misery Has Company — Not Realizing it Is Hurting You Even More
Foolproof ways not to pack on holiday pounds
Plus lots more.
Prevent a holiday heart attack
23-Dec-11
New posts at Many Years Young 12/23/11
Prevent a holiday heart attack
How to bring holiday to the hospitalized
How to Survive the Holiday Eating Season
Expert: Some foods can reduce stress
Plus lots more.
New posts at Many Years Young 12/22/11
Poor better than wealthy at detecting suffering
Going through some hard times may make people tougher
Study: Altruism benefits givers’ health
Thriving through touch
Plus lots more.
New posts at Many Years Young 12/21/11
The real truth about those kitschy health sayings
Health disparities reflect education level
More than 30 organizations to test new health-care model for seniors
House Vote Sets Stage for Medicare Physician Pay Cut
Plus lots more.
An unjolly Christmas may be deadly
20-Dec-11
New posts at Many Years Young 12/20/11
An unjolly Christmas may be deadly
Facebook plan raises question: What’s a suicidal thought?
Dentist Gives Advice to Keep Holiday Smiles Bright
Exercise can help beat cravings and holiday weight gain
Plus lots more.
New posts at Many Years Young 12/19/11
Slow Down Aging by Cooking with This Juice
The Buzz on Coffee
Treating menopause symptoms with rhubarb
Healthy Snacks for Staying Slim
Plus lots more.
New posts at Many Years Young 12/18/11
What we eat is bumming us out, new book says
3 Steps to Incredible Health
Biggest Diet News of 2011
Fast-food need not be high in calories
Plus lots more.
New posts at Many Years Young 12/17/11
Lose the fat, not the fun during holidays
Holiday Giving is Good for You
6 Ways to Stress Less During the Holidays
Before holiday travel, have family meeting
Plus lots more.
New posts at Many Years Young 12/16/11
Poor Lifestyles Harming U.S. Heart Health: Report
Hints for the Heart: Easy Changes to Lower Risks
One can of cola = one hour’s run: Exercise labels could be ‘more effective than calorie counts’
Brief, Intense Exercise Lowers Blood Sugar, Small Study Finds
Plus lots more.
