With foreclosures and overwhelming personal debt ravaging American society, I was surprised that I had not come across more about rising suicide rates. Apparently this is because few people want to know about it. "The Rising Body Count on Main Street: The Human Fallout from the Financial Crisis" By Nick Turse examines some of these stories that peek out behind the better-covered macro view.

I've personally experienced the depths of desperation evoked by rising debt. It is an ugly, dead-end feeling, hopeless and bottomless. It's not like I'm an extravagant spender. I'm childless and my vices are few: used books (not rare books), magazines, and used CDs (yes, I still buy music CDs; is my age showing?) I don't buy gadgets or console/computer games. My cell phone is 7 years old. So here are some excerpts from the article.

In February, when a sheriff's deputy went to serve an eviction notice on a home owner in Greeley, Colorado, he found the man had slashed his wrists and was lying in a pool of blood. Rushed to a nearby hospital, the man survived, while the Sheriff's office tried to downplay economic reasons for the incident, saying, according to the Denver Post, that "it wasn't linking the suicide attempt to the eviction because the man had known for a week that he was to be kicked out."

In March, Ocala, Florida resident Roland Gore killed his dog and his wife, set fire to his home which was in foreclosure, and then killed himself.

In April, Robert McGuinness, a 24-year-old process server, arrived at the Marion County, Florida doorstep of Frank W. Conrad. According to an article in the local Star Banner, the 82-year-old Conrad was reportedly "cordial" at first. When McGuinness produced the foreclosure notice, however, Conrad got angry and left the room. He returned with a .38 caliber pistol and announced, "You have two seconds to get off my property or you will go to the hospital." Marion County sheriff's deputies later arrested Conrad....

Pinellas Park, Florida resident Dallas Dwayne Carter was a 44-year-old disabled, single dad who lost his job, fell into debt, and was faced with eviction. "He always talked about needing help -- financially and help with the kids," neighbor Kevin Luster told the St. Petersburg Times. On July 19th, Carter apparently called the police to say he was armed and disturbed. When they arrived, Carter fired his pistol and rifle inside the apartment, before emerging and pointing his weapons at the officers on the scene. Police say they ordered him to drop them. When he didn't, they killed him in a 10-round fusillade.

On July 23d, about 90 minutes before her foreclosed Taunton, Massachusetts home was scheduled to be sold at auction, Carlene Balderrama faxed a letter to her mortgage company, letting them know that "by the time they foreclosed on the house today she'd be dead." She continued, "I hope you're more compassionate with my husband and son than you were with me." After that, she took a high-powered rifle and, according to the Boston Globe, shot herself. In an interview with the Associated Press, Balderrama's husband John said, "I had no clue." His wife handled the finances and had been intercepting letters from the mortgage company for months. "She put in her suicide note that it got overwhelming for her," he said. In the letter, she wrote, "take the [life] insurance money and pay for the house."

Labels: crisis, debt, finances

As a compare and contrast example: On Google News, there are currently 4,258 stories on the Minneapolis bridge collapse. Number of stories on the problems with voting machines in California and Florida, 253.

Not that I'm drawing a value judgment on the relative importance of the two. But I am.

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Listening to: "Sinners Inc." by Rob Zombie
via FoxyTunes

Labels: crisis, news, voting

At this sad juncture, would I be amiss or callus in recalling that investment in highway infrastructure maintenance has been considered inadequate since the 1980s? Dear old Pres Reagan espoused shrinking government and this included infrastructure. Warnings about the results (and specifically, bridge collapses) have regularly popped up over at least the last fifteen years, perhaps longer.

This Washington Post article references the current debate.

Addendum: Guilty for not providing supporting documentation for my claim about the longstanding neglect of our infrastructure, I was glad to come across the following from 2005:

Can you pinpoint when the U.S.’s infrastructure began to fall into decline?
The first report on the infrastructure that I remember was during the Reagan administration in the late 1980s. That’s the baseline for where we are. And by that time the decline had already started: we were not receiving the needed funding to replace worn-out and obsolete equipment.

(tip of the mouse to Agitprop.)

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Now playing: "When I'm Gone" by Ochs, Phil
via FoxyTunes

Labels: crisis, news