A third of Americans now show signs of clinical anxiety or depression

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Re:A third of Americans now show signs of clinical anxiety o... by ryanwaggoner on Wednesday May 27, 2020 @04:51PM (#23329807)

What a perfect encapsulation of the individualism that drives the special American breed of blame-the-victim mentality. It allows society to erode the well-being of huge swaths of the population while simultaneously making them feel ashamed of their inability to triumph over the ruthless machine grinding them into the dirt.

Yes, we need personal responsibility, but maybe we could also stop making it harder for people to eke out a decent living. Maybe then we could rightfully claim the title of "the land of opportunity". As of now, we rank lower than dozens of other industrialized countries in terms of social mobility and economic equality.

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Re:A third of Americans now show signs of clinical anxiety o... by thelean12 on Wednesday May 27, 2020 @08:46PM (#23332037)

While the person you're responding to has a horrible tone, I've sort of grown to agree with the general sentiment.

Most of the problems I've seen people face can be solved on their own, or could have been prevented on their own.

Pandemic made you lose your job? Absolutely not your fault. Massive injury or illness wipe out your savings and leave you in debt? Absolutely not your fault. These are things we can and should be improving.

But it's really hard for me to feel bad about people who end up with a massive amount of school loans. There are plenty of state school options available. Work moderately hard in high school and you'll get a massive discount on college, too. Would it be great if it were free? Absolutely. But it isn't. And that shouldn't be an excuse for ending up with a massive loan afterwards.

Job sucks? So many people I meet aren't even trying to apply to new jobs. It was like pulling teeth trying to get my sister to apply to just a few jobs a week (when I applied to a dozen a day when I was starting out).

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Re:A third of Americans now show signs of clinical anxiety o... by ryanwaggoner on Thursday May 28, 2020 @11:43AM (#23338606)

But it's really hard for me to feel bad about people who end up with a massive amount of school loans. There are plenty of state school options available. Work moderately hard in high school and you'll get a massive discount on college, too. Would it be great if it were free? Absolutely. But it isn't. And that shouldn't be an excuse for ending up with a massive loan afterwards.

I hear you, and you're absolutely right. So many people with massive student loans would be better off had they made better decisions. But why didn't they? Why has student loan debt massively exploded to $1.6 trillion? To me it seems obvious that there are systemic incentives and disincentives at play that are actively making it more difficult for people to make good decisions in these areas, not a sudden rash of people being born or raised with inferior character or intellect to the generations that came before.

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Re:A third of Americans now show signs of clinical anxiety o... by thelean12 on Thursday May 28, 2020 @01:13PM (#23339803)

I'm not sure. Maybe lack of funding for high schools and below? Maybe peer pressure? Probably a combination of a few reasons.

I don't think there's a fundamental lack of ability for high schoolers to understand long term financial consequences.

Making college free would certainly "fix" this issue, and would be great for non-financial reasons, but it seems like a bandaid to the whole financial intelligence thing that will just push the issues down the line. It's not like once you become an adult you automatically become more financially intelligent (see: 2008, massive car loans, etc). I truly believe better or more focused high school education would help a ton.

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Re:A third of Americans now show signs of clinical anxiety o... by ryanwaggoner on Thursday May 28, 2020 @02:59PM (#23341013)

I feel like you're making my point for me. Whatever the reason, it seems pretty clear that we as a society have made it more difficult for these kids to make good decisions, maybe just by virtue of the lack of education on how to do so. Chalking their collective indebtedness up to a lack of personal responsibility and a moral failing on their part is just lazy.

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