The suicide rate increased 3 percent in the 2001 recession and has generally ridden the tide of the economy since the Great Depression, rising in bad times and falling in good ones, according to a comprehensive government analysis released Thursday.
Experts said the new study may help clarify a long-clouded relationship between suicide and economic trends.
While many researchers have argued that economic hardship can raise the likelihood of suicide in people who are already vulnerable — like those with depression or other mental illnesses — research has been mixed. Some studies have supported such a link, but others have found the opposite: that rates drop in periods of high unemployment, as if people exhibit resilience when they need it most.
Using more comprehensive data to nail down economic trends, the new study found a clear correlation between suicide rates and the business cycle among young and middle-age adults. That correlation vanished when researchers looked only at children and the elderly. It may not be the case that economic troubles cause suicide attempts, but they can be factors.
“They did a nice job of adding a piece to a very complex puzzle,” said Eve Moscicki, a researcher at the American Psychiatric Institute for Research and Education who was not involved in the study. “It may be that when people who are more vulnerable to suicide to begin with lose a job or get a pay cut, it adds one more stressor.”
It’s sort of the same mind filter through which New Gingrich attacked Bill Clinton for being an immoral adulterer, and Sen. Larry Craig worked to preserve the sanctity of marriage. Are we seeing a pattern yet?
WASHINGTON — Democrats pounced on the man Republicans chose today to be their spokesman for fiscal restraint: a freshman Arkansas congressman who once filed bankruptcy over unpaid credit card bills.
Rep. Rick Crawford (R-Ark.) was the lead signer of a letter endorsed by a pack of GOP freshmen demanding Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) pass a budget-cutting spending measure to fund the government for the rest of this fiscal year.”Mr. Reid, your record on spending in the Senate is one of failure,” wrote the 30 lawmakers, who alsovowed to rally on the Capitol steps until the Senate passed a budget. “You have failed to pass a budget, failed to restrain spending, and failed to put our country on sound fiscal footing,” they said.
But Crawford seemed an odd choice to expound on sound fiscal footing.”Really?” said Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee spokesman Jesse Ferguson.
“Of all the people for House Republican freshmen to pick as their front man for a stunt about fiscal responsibility, they picked Representative Rick Crawford who couldn’t even pay his own credit card bills and went bankrupt because of it,” Ferguson said in a statement.
According to press accounts during Crawford’s campaign, he declared bankruptcy in 1994 over $12,611.67 in debt – mostly for credit cards.
An autopsy report released by the Miami-Dade County medical examiner this week described the tragic circumstances surrounding the suicide of former Chicago Bears safety and two-time Super Bowl winner Dave Duerson.
Duerson retired from the NFL after 11 seasons and may have suffered from chronic traumatic encephalopathy, a condition linked to athletes who have sustained repeated concussions, according to the Associated Press. Despite his athletic success, Duerson fell on hard times later in life. He was divorced in 2009 and after years of running a successful business, filed for bankruptcy months before his suicide.
The autopsy report confirms that the 50-year-old Duerson “complained of memory loss and inability to spell” before his death, and had asked his family to donate his brain to the NFL Brain Bank. The New York Times reported in February that Duerson wanted to know if he had the degenerative disease tied to depression, dementia and suicide.
The autopsy report states that on February 17, Duerson was discovered in his bed with a gunshot wound to his chest. He had reportedly propped a chair against the front door of his Florida apartment and folded an American flag on his bed along with two certificates and medals.
“The walk-in closet in the master bedroom has a football statue, three helmets from different football teams, and three football trophies,” the report says. He had also laid out multiple documents on the dining room table.
Note: The photograph that originally ran with this piece identified as Valerie Cass was falsely labeled. It was a woman named Valerie Kurka who has nothing whatsoever to do with either of the principles in this story. My deep apologies to Ms. Kurka — I know all too well how things on the internet take on a life of their own.
This reminds me of something I tweeted a month ago: GOP job creation? Marry your mistress, creating job vacancy, and fill it. Progress!
As he pointed out in his campaign ad, Wisconsin Republican Sen. Randy Hopper really does know how to create jobs. His new girlfriend (he’s 45, she’s 26 — like we don’t all know how this ends?) just got a new job working for the state — and it pays $11,000 more than the last person who filled it.
Even though the state is supposedly broke, top officials in Gov. Scott Walker’s team were able to scrape together enough money to give a state job to the woman identified as Sen. Randy Hopper’s girlfriend.
Anything for a political ally.
Valerie Cass, a former Republican legislative staffer, was hired Feb. 7 as a communications specialist with the state Department of Regulation and Licensing. She is being paid $20.35 per hour. The job is considered a temporary post.
Cass previously had worked in the state Senate and for the GOP campaign consulting firm Persuasion Partners in Madison. She also was paid for campaign work for the state Republican Party and U.S. Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner before that.
“Ms. Cass’ name was among many forwarded to DRL by the Governor’s Transition Team as potential candidates for positions with the department,” said David Carlson, the agency’s spokesman.
But who exactly recommended her for the post?
Cullen Werwie, spokesman for the governor, confirmed that it was Keith Gilkes, Walker’s chief of staff. She was then interviewed by the Department of Regulations and Licensing’s executive assistant and deputy and hired by Secretary Dave Ross, a Walker cabinet member.
An internal staff directory lists Cass as working in the secretary’s office as the assistant to the executive assistant.
Werwie said Gilkes did not recommend her as a favor to the first-term lawmaker, who voted for the governor’s controversial budget-repair bill earlier this month.
[…] Since the recall effort was launched, news outlets and bloggers have focused in on Hopper’s pending divorce. His estranged wife, Alysia, issued a statement to WTMJ-TV (Channel 4) accusing Hopper, 45, of beginning an affair with Cass, 26, last year. He filed for divorce in August.
“Randy is the love of my life,” she said in the statement. “This divorce and the lack of any attempt to save our marriage is solely his decision not mine.”
There have been conflicting reports on whether she or the family’s maid signed Hopper’s recall petition. Democratic Party sources have told No Quarter that Hopper’s estranged wife has agreed to give to his opponent, whoever that may be.
Hopper has maintained that he had nothing to do with Cass’ recent appointment to the state job.
[…] Carlson said she filled a vacancy created by a previous limited-term employee who left in January. These temporary workers can put in no more than 1,043 hours during a fiscal year, which ends June 30. According to a Madison TV report, Cass received a substantial pay raise over her predecessor.
If she were to put in a full year in her current job, she would make about $43,200. Her predecessor was paid at a rate of $31,200 a year.
