[jeanlucneptune]

Sure I'll give COVID and drug ODs their due in knocking down our overall life expectancy, but if we don't address the impacts of late stage capitalism (late stage Reaganism), we're missing much of the story. Ask yourself:

1.) How many Americans STILL don't have access to healthcare? 2.) How many Americans who have access to healthcare underutilize because of cost? 3.) How many Americans working physical jobs are having their bodies destroyed because of lack of workplace protections? 4.) How many Americans live paycheck-to-paycheck and have to make hard decisions every month about food? 5.) How many Americans live in isolation because our economy encourages a nomadic existence even (especially?) for high income workers? 6.) How many American children are raised without supervision because their parents are trying to scratch out an existence at low-wage jobs? 7.) How many American children are separated from a parent by incarceration?

I could go on and on... Most Americans don't understand what they're living through because most Americans have no lived experience outside of our country.

No country is perfect, and it's hard to compare the USA to other nations, but there are many countries (mostly in northern Europe) where the average person is much happier and much healthier than the typical American.

[unregistereddev]

While these points can provide interesting debate, the actual data showed that COVID and drug ODs (particularly fentanyl) were the driving force behind the change.

Your other points may be tangentially related at best, and likely unrelated.

[jeanlucneptune]

Who do you think ODs on drugs? Just random people making bad choices? Obviously not. It's people who are losing hope, losing community, and losing themselves. Read "Deaths of Despair and the Future of Capitalism" from respected economists Anne Case and Angus Deaton. https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691190785/de...

[tdehnel]

Oh knock it off with the “late stage capitalism” crap please. You sound like a college sophomore. We are so close to the beginning of capitalism we have basically not even started. Standards of living have been steadily increasing since the enlightenment and will continue long into the future.

[jeanlucneptune]

Can't begin to LOL this enough. Go ask people in Appalachia, on an Indian reservation, in urban public housing about their increased living standards. Living standards have surely gone up if you're on the leading edge of the economy, but basically for everybody else in the US things are getting worse and not better. Get out more.

[tdehnel]

Proves the point, there is so much more progress to be made.

[zenAndroid]

lol, lmao

[jeanlucneptune]

Word, my brother.