Scary new suicide statistics

[Ahab]

1 hour ago, rongo said:

I don't get this sentiment (and you're not alone, by any means). My parents have served two couples missions in Eastern Europe, and they only have Social Security (no pensions or retirement savings). It is definitely possible to serve couples missions without a "retirement account," provided the house is paid for or you have someone living in and making your house payment.*

I also don't get the obsession with having a fat retirement account so that you can live the dream in retirement (an obsession most have today, driven by financial planners). My family is a single income family of six (Arizona teacher's income, to boot), so my retirement prospects are bleak by most people's standards. But we don't see it that way at all, and when I look at my parents (again, only on Social Security), they have a good retired life. Maybe people need to manage their wants/needs cost/benefit and opportunity cost analysis better? I think a lot of people think that retirement without extensive travel or costly leisure pursuits (not just leisure suits --- pun intended ) is a fate worse than death. I'm looking forward to retirement (in, like, 25 years), but not only if I can live my retirement dream and travel a lot.

*We've stumbled into couples mission house-sitting as a sort of cottage industry. I say stumbled, because we've never sought it out --- we've been asked and then it snowballed from there. In our previous ward, we lived in an enormous house while a couple served in Malaysia for two years, and then have house-sat for my parents while they served their mission. They got home Tuesday, and we have been asked by another couple in that same previous ward to live in their house and make their house payment while they serve in Portugal. Then, our current RS president (a widow) has us lined up to live in her house while she serves a mission when they get back. This has enabled us to live for ca. eight years well below market rate for housing, simply because we can be trusted to make payments and take good care of the house and property (a big incentive is not having to put your things in storage). There is actually a big "market" for this, as this is a major thing that holds a lot of people back from serving a mission (what do we do with our house and things?), and in many cases, they **do not** want kids or grandkids living there. 

So who stays in your house while you are house sitting in someone else's house?  Do you rent out your house when you go somewhere else?  And then go vacation somewhere while staying in someone else's house and paying someone else's mortgage payments?  

I can see how that might be fun and cost effective.  When your own house is paid for you start taking vacations to other places while staying in someone else's house for about 2 years at a time while they serve a mission.  Much less expensive that a vacation rental I suppose.

Is there a booking agency yet to help set all of this up?  Is there a name and website address for it? Can you give it to me?

[rongo]

17 minutes ago, Ahab said:

So who stays in your house while you are house sitting in someone else's house?  Do you rent out your house when you go somewhere else?  And then go vacation somewhere while staying in someone else's house and paying someone else's mortgage payments?  

I can see how that might be fun and cost effective.  When your own house is paid for you start taking vacations to other places while staying in someone else's house for about 2 years at a time while they serve a mission.  Much less expensive that a vacation rental I suppose.

Is there a booking agency yet to help set all of this up?  Is there a name and website address for it? Can you give it to me?

We've rented for years, so we're just renting from whomever we're house-sitting for. 

It's just word-of-mouth and personal relationships. The first one, I was their bishop. The one we're in now is my parents. The next one is my former young men's president and his wife. And the next one is our current RS president (my wife is her secretary). It's really peace of mind, knowing that you have someone who will keep making your house payment and take good care of your home. Plus, they don't have to put stuff in storage while they're gone. 

It's been interesting how it's taken off. "Wait, they're coming back when? We've been wanting to go. Want to rent from us and stay in our house?"

It's all personal relationship and word of mouth. 

ETA: I don't think this is something that could or should really be done through a booking or management agency, if such a thing existed. It really should be a gentlemen's agreement between people who trust each other. Like family, or if not family, then people you really trust.

Edited March 12, 2020 by rongo

[Ahab]

37 minutes ago, rongo said:

We've rented for years, so we're just renting from whomever we're house-sitting for. 

It's just word-of-mouth and personal relationships. The first one, I was their bishop. The one we're in now is my parents. The next one is my former young men's president and his wife. And the next one is our current RS president (my wife is her secretary). It's really peace of mind, knowing that you have someone who will keep making your house payment and take good care of your home. Plus, they don't have to put stuff in storage while they're gone. 

It's been interesting how it's taken off. "Wait, they're coming back when? We've been wanting to go. Want to rent from us and stay in our house?"

It's all personal relationship and word of mouth. 

ETA: I don't think this is something that could or should really be done through a booking or management agency, if such a thing existed. It really should be a gentlemen's agreement between people who trust each other. Like family, or if not family, then people you really trust.

Thank you for helping me to understand your experience with all of this. I'm looking at it a bit differently though, it seems, as someone who frequently rents houses on the beaches of Oregon state and am considering renting houses in other places that I and my wife visit on vacation.

Since an average mission is 2 years in duration, renting or paying a mortgage on another house for 2 years isn't something my wife and I would be able to do until I retire from my job, but it does sound like it would be fun when I do retire and can be gone from home for that long.  We would then either let our house sit empty or we could rent it out to others while we are on our vacation.

Edited March 12, 2020 by Ahab

[mfbukowski]

On 10/17/2019 at 8:25 AM, bsjkki said:

I’ve seen many threads that seem to try and tie the church’s lgbtq policies to increased suicides in Utah. In most of these threads, it seems, the statistics do not support the premise. 

The statistics from the CDC support the premise that there is a large increase in suicide across the country as outlined in this article. https://www.wsj.com/articles/youth-suicide-rate-rises-56-in-decade-cdc-says-11571284861

”The suicide rate among people ages 10 to 24 years old climbed 56% between 2007 and 2017, according to the report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.”

The authors do admit they do not know why.

In a recent Adult Stake Conference session depression and suicide among the youth was the concern discussed in a question and answer segment.

Most felt social media/smart phones were the main cause. The comments in the WSJ article were the same. One commenter did include statistics that anti depressant use in youth increases their suicide risk. 

I also happened to read this speech on religious freedom today. https://www.justice.gov/opa/speech/attorney-general-william-p-barr-delivers-remarks-law-school-and-de-nicola-center-ethics?mod=article_inline

We are trying to raise religious kids in a secular society. It’s a challenge, in part, due to the conflicting teachings of home and church vs the rest of the world. 

Bill Barr "But today – in the face of all the increasing pathologies – instead of addressing the underlying cause, we have the State in the role of Alleviator of Bad Consequences. We call on the State to mitigate the social costs of personal misconduct and irresponsibility.

So the reaction to growing illegitimacy is not sexual responsibility, but abortion.

The reaction to drug addiction is safe injection sites.

The solution to the breakdown of the family is for the State to set itself up as the ersatz husband for single mothers and the ersatz father to their children.

The call comes for more and more social programs to deal with the wreckage. While we think we are solving problems, we are underwriting them.

We start with an untrammeled freedom and we end up as dependents of a coercive state on whom we depend.

Interestingly, this idea of the State as the alleviator of bad consequences has given rise to a new moral system that goes hand-in-hand with the secularization of society.  It can be called the system of “macro-morality.”  It is in some ways an inversion of Christian morality.

Christianity teaches a micro-morality. We transform the world by focusing on our own personal morality and transformation. “ 

Our kids are caught up in the shifting/conflicting morality of our day and I think, some of it’s first casualties.

 

Are we catching up to Denmark, paradise on earth? 

[Islander]

The thread has drifted completely off topic. Just my thought.

[Ahab]

5 minutes ago, Islander said:

The thread has drifted completely off topic. Just my thought.

I hope that fact isn't causing you to want to kill yourself.  That would be scary.

[bsjkki]

5 minutes ago, Islander said:

The thread has drifted completely off topic. Just my thought.

You are not wrong. I started this thread last October so it's a bit old...it's always interesting when old threads get restarted. 

[Islander]

13 minutes ago, Ahab said:

I hope that fact isn't causing you to want to kill yourself.  That would be scary.

Well, on the remote possibility that such a thought would cross my mind, that would be a turn onto the topic of the thread. What do your know!!! 

[The Nehor]

5 hours ago, rongo said:

I don't get this sentiment (and you're not alone, by any means). My parents have served two couples missions in Eastern Europe, and they only have Social Security (no pensions or retirement savings). It is definitely possible to serve couples missions without a "retirement account," provided the house is paid for or you have someone living in and making your house payment.*

I also don't get the obsession with having a fat retirement account so that you can live the dream in retirement (an obsession most have today, driven by financial planners). My family is a single income family of six (Arizona teacher's income, to boot), so my retirement prospects are bleak by most people's standards. But we don't see it that way at all, and when I look at my parents (again, only on Social Security), they have a good retired life. Maybe people need to manage their wants/needs cost/benefit and opportunity cost analysis better? I think a lot of people think that retirement without extensive travel or costly leisure pursuits (not just leisure suits --- pun intended ) is a fate worse than death. I'm looking forward to retirement (in, like, 25 years), but not only if I can live my retirement dream and travel a lot.

*We've stumbled into couples mission house-sitting as a sort of cottage industry. I say stumbled, because we've never sought it out --- we've been asked and then it snowballed from there. In our previous ward, we lived in an enormous house while a couple served in Malaysia for two years, and then have house-sat for my parents while they served their mission. They got home Tuesday, and we have been asked by another couple in that same previous ward to live in their house and make their house payment while they serve in Portugal. Then, our current RS president (a widow) has us lined up to live in her house while she serves a mission when they get back. This has enabled us to live for ca. eight years well below market rate for housing, simply because we can be trusted to make payments and take good care of the house and property (a big incentive is not having to put your things in storage). There is actually a big "market" for this, as this is a major thing that holds a lot of people back from serving a mission (what do we do with our house and things?), and in many cases, they **do not** want kids or grandkids living there. 

If I cannot sit on a golden throne with a dozen ivory back scratchers within reach what is the point of retiring?

[Meadowchik]

On 3/12/2020 at 2:41 PM, smac97 said:

Yes.

See, e.g., here: [Enormous video link redacted]

See also:

• The Data Is Clear: Free Markets Reduce Poverty
• 5 Statistics Showing How Capitalism Solves Poverty
• Extreme Poverty Rates Plummet Under Capitalism
• Economic Freedom Enables Great Escape From Poverty
• Inequality, Poverty, “The Free Market” and Capitalism: the story of a wonderful success
• Free markets lead to prosperity

To be sure, the government has a role to play in all of this.  The above video suggests five main ingredients in the success of free market capitalism in moving people out of poverty:

• Globalization - "Globalization means the ever-increasing ability to move goods, people, and ideas from one distant location to another."
• Free Trade - "Free trade is open access to markets and people from all over the world with few, if any, barriers."
• Property Rights - "Property rights is ensuring that what belongs to you can’t be taken away on a whim by the state."
• The Rule of Law - "The rule of law safeguards contracts, assuring that they will be respected and lived up to whether the deal is made in Peru or Poland."
• Entrepreneurship - "{E}ntrepreneurship is the creativity of free people to dream up new products that we never knew we wanted or needed."

Note that the role of government here is not to own the means of production, or to enact confiscatory/punitive measures against those who create wealth, or to pick and choose "winners" and "losers" in the economy.  Rather, the role of the government is, or should be, to mostly "grease the skids," to allow individuals and groups freedom to find ways to make money, to preserve the rule of law, to protect property rights, and so on.

I think "income inequality" is a rhetorical gimmick intended

• to foment animosity and resentments between different segments of society;
• to buy votes ("Vote for me and I'll fight 'income inequality!'") so that a self-selected few - who feign concern for "the poor" as a pretext - can accumulate power and control for themselves;
• to justify increased amounts of governmental intrusion into and control over our lives;
• to punish politicial opponents and reward political allies; and
• to punish success.

I also think "corporate exploitation" can happen.  But in a free market, those feeling "exploited" can quit and go find a better job.  Or else start their own business.

Sure.

Not really.  The free market does a far better job at creating wealth.  The government absolutely stinks at it.

That can happen.  This is why I am befuddled at the notion that "more government" and "more regulation" and confiscatory/punitive measures (such as are intrinsic in the ideology of those who constantly emphasize "income inequality") will create more wealth and opportunity for individuals.

I don't know what "exploitation" means in this context.  Again, free market does a far better job at creating wealth.  The government absolutely stinks at it.

Our society is full to overflowing with "government intervention."  What makes us think that more interventionism will improve things?

I don't know what "effective balance" means in this context.  I suspect it means, well,  "more government" and "more regulation" and confiscatory/punitive measures.

I have a good friend who is very entrepreneurially-minded.  He has had a wide array of business ventures, almost all with substantial success.  However, he does not grow his businesses.  He keeps them small by design or, if they grow, he just sells his interest and starts over with something else.  He also keeps the number of employees he has to an absolute minimum (through automation, outsourcing, etc.).  He has explained to me that he does this because, in his view, providing employment opportunities is too big a headache.  Too much governmental intrustion/intervention.  Too much overhead and expense.  Too much risk.  Too many headaches.  Hiring people is just not worth it to him.  Thanks to governmental regulations.

Thanks,

-Smac

Yeesh, you sure love to take words and dismiss them as partisan agendas, don't you. And that is very ironic considering the sources you provide. Come on, thedailywire? That and the others range from partisan to very partisan. Methinks you are projecting a highly partisan viewpoint in a way that makes rational consideration of the real words "income inequality" impossible for you. It is not a mere partisan agenda, but it is a real measurement. And it can have very important implications. 

Capitalism does not inherently create wealth for everyone who engages in it. It can be manipulated for the gain of a relative few. And it has been around for a very, very long time. So that's why I would be skeptical of giving it too much credit on its own for the decrease of global poverty and extreme poverty. I would say that a government which provides stability and helps avoid exploitation contributes to the reduction of poverty, as does public education and access to healthcare. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FACK2knC08E This video focuses alot on population, but it does also examine other correlating factors which I find very informative.

Edited March 14, 2020 by Meadowchik