Paying a Heavy Price

At Financial Armageddon, I spend a lot of time writing about the numbers that define one of the worst financial crises this century. But as I've noted on more than one occasion, the fallout involves more than just red ink. Ordinary Americans, including many who had nothing whatsoever to do with what has taken place over the past three years, are paying a very heavy price for the mistakes and bad behavior of others. The following reports detail some of the damage:

"Recession's Mental Toll" (Wall Street Journal)

The recession and continuing high unemployment are taking a psychological toll on individuals.

The number and urgency of calls to employee-assistance programs have risen substantially over the past couple of years, providers say. In particular, there's been a startling increase in the number of calls regarding violence, psychosis and dementia in the workplace, including calls about suicidal and homicidal threats, program directors say.

"All of a sudden the economy tanked and we have had a big jump in the number of calls, and the variety of calls is very different from what we saw a couple of years ago," says Charles Lattarulo, clinical director of Harris Rothenberg International, a provider of employee and employer assistance programs.

Employee assistance programs offer workers and their families access to counselors via a toll-free telephone number or in some cases a Web site. Often, counselors are available 24 hours a day, seven days a week to help employees in an emergency.

A 400% Jump
Mr. Lattarulo says the number of calls to Harris Rothenberg's programs rose every month in 2009 from the previous year, sometimes by as much as 40%. There was a jump of 400% or more some months in manager referrals for suicidal, homicidal, or otherwise dangerous employees.

At provider ComPsych, calls about financial problems outnumbered calls for relationship issues for the first time last year, a spokeswoman says.

Financial pressures -- home foreclosures, bankruptcies and prolonged spousal unemployment -- are straining marital and family life, and contributing to behavioral problems in children and teenagers, Mr. Lattarulo says.

And a new concern: Depleted retirement funds are forcing many older employees to stay in the workplace longer, despite health problems or cognitive impairments. "For the first time ever, we are having multiple calls [from managers] because of people in the workplace with dementia," Mr. Lattarulo says.

"Recession's Wrath Hits More than Pocketbook" (News-Herald)

The recession's shadows show themselves in vacant storefronts, severance packages and home foreclosures, but its remnants also appear in less visible ways.

As unemployment continues to rise and health insurance is lost, the wear and tear of tension and stress have done a number on many people's minds and bodies, local health officials say.

"I'm seeing a whole trend of that in my private practice," said Farid Sabet, the chief clinical officer for the Lake County Alcohol Drug Addiction and Mental Health Services Board, who also has a private practice in Beachwood.

"With the recession and economic problems, I have seen a surge in mental health issues. At some level, people are postponing getting care longer and longer, some have lost insurance, some are more worried about losing their jobs or their insurance has gotten downgraded, so by the time they get help, it's more of an acute or distressing problem."

Sabet said his colleagues have expressed similar observations, particularly mild hypertension that turns into something physical, such as a stroke, or people who were stable before and receiving counseling or antidepressants, but are postponing those things and ending up in a crisis situation.

"I (also) feel people are so much worried about losing a job, they're putting up with more hostile work environments. People are putting up with situations that are much more hostile and difficult to manage and so as a result of that, people are showing manifestations of stress, learned helplessness, that basically no matter what you do you're going to be in a bad situation and it's out of your control to make the situation change," Sabet said.

"More at Harvard Try to Drink Away Woes" (Boston Herald)

The troubled economy is driving more Harvard University students to drink as they worry about job prospects and their parents’ ability to pay for tuition.

Undergraduates seeking treatment for alcohol-related illnesses at the school’s University Health Services is expected to increase for the second consecutive year, Harvard’s Office of Alcohol and Other Drug Services told the Harvard Crimson. About 200 students will have needed to get help by the end of the spring term - a 43 percent rise compared to two years ago.

The Ivy League school is not alone in seeing an uptick in alcohol-related troubles. The recession, which has seen the Bay State’s unemployment rate soar to nearly 10 percent, has taken its toll on many families.

“Since the economy crashed more than a year ago, we’re seeing a significant rise in alcoholism and homelessness,” said Jonathan Scott, executive director of Victory Programs, which operates treatment centers in Boston. “A job loss or the inability to find one could lead someone to use alcohol and drugs in a way they might never have before.”

"At Closing Plant, Ordeal Included Heart Attacks" (New York Times)

The first to have a heart attack was George Kull Jr., 56, a millwright who worked for three decades at the steel mills in Lackawanna, N.Y. Three weeks after learning that his plant was closing, he suddenly collapsed at home.

Less than two hours later, he was pronounced dead.

A few weeks after that, a co-worker, Bob Smith, 42, a forklift operator with four young children, started having chest pains. He learned at the doctor’s office that he was having a heart attack. Surgeons inserted three stents, saving his life.

Less than a month later, Don Turner, 55, a crane operator who had started at the mills as a teenager, was found by his wife, Darlene, slumped on a love seat, stricken by a fatal heart attack.

It is impossible to say exactly why these men, all in relatively good health, had heart attacks within weeks of one another. But interviews with friends and relatives of Mr. Kull and Mr. Turner, and with Mr. Smith, suggest that the trauma of losing their jobs might have played a role.

“He was really, really worried,” George Kull III said of his father. “With his age, he didn’t know where he would get another job, or if he would get another job.”

A growing body of research suggests that layoffs can have profound health consequences. One 2006 study by a group of epidemiologists at Yale found that layoffs more than doubled the risk of heart attack and stroke among older workers. Another paper, published last year by Kate W. Strully, a sociology professor at the State University of New York at Albany, found that a person who lost a job had an 83 percent greater chance of developing a stress-related health problem, like diabetes, arthritis or psychiatric issues.

In perhaps the most sobering finding, a study published last year found that layoffs can affect life expectancy. The paper, by Till von Wachter, a Columbia University economist, and Daniel G. Sullivan, director of research at the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, examined death records and earnings data in Pennsylvania during the recession of the early 1980s and concluded that death rates among high-seniority male workers jumped by 50 percent to 100 percent in the year after a job loss, depending on the worker’s age. Even 20 years later, deaths were 10 percent to 15 percent higher. That meant a worker who lost his job at age 40 had his life expectancy cut by a year to a year and half.

"Recession and Depression" (Crain's Cleveland Business)

The recession has magnified mental stress among employees in just about any industry, as job insecurities become intertwined with personal stresses such as finances and family problems.

“There are so many forces coming at an employee,” said Janet Schiavoni, manager of account services at Ease@Work, a Cleveland-based nonprofit employee assistance program. “In better times, people tend to work better together, but with the threat of layoffs, people tend to go into self-preservation mode.”

The nonprofit, which looks at management referrals as a barometer of employees' mental health, said that while the number of management referrals and consultations remained about the same between 2008 and 2009 — from 472 to 468 — the number of hours counselors dedicated to each case rose from the average of three or four to between six and eight.

"As Economy Falters, Meth Labs Grow" (Fox Chicago)

One of the toughest battles in the war on drugs is the one against methamphetamine.

These days, the recession is making it harder for police to win this fight.

From foreclosures to unemployment, this has been a record-breaking recession.

But as the economy continues to cave, there's at one least one record Illinois didn't know it might break. The number of meth labs being seized is reaching new proportions.

In the Pekin area, what was once called the 'meth capital' of the state, police have seen a 48 percent increase over the past year.

What some meth response teams have noticed is drug dealers need to make a buck. Compared to crack, heroine, and other, more expensive narcotics that many people can no longer afford, meth is easy to make and even easier to sell.

A recovering meth addict told Fox Chicago News a drug dealer can make about a thousand dollars selling a few grams of meth on the street, sometimes for as much as 240 dollars. She also said it costs as little as 100 dollars to buy all the supplies. She adds, "its a lot easier to do than like try to go out and try to find a job."

Comments

[Blurtman]

So should we try investment bankers for murder?

[Luke]

words don't do this existential experience any justice.

[Angryfutureexpat]

Blurtman raises an interesting and worthwhile proposal, though most of the blame belongs to prolific serial killer Alan Greenspan.

[NowWhat]

The economy has really affected my mental state after 1 yr of a relevant job. I would say you are right on the money here. But I am survivor and I try to keep moving forward.

[Small Town Gal]

". . . The best lack all conviction while the worst are full of passionate intensity. Surely some Revelation is at hand; surely the second coming is at hand.. . . . .

And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?"

Yeats wrote that in 1919. I find myself thinking it a lot lately.

[Blurtman]

Were Greenspan's actions motivated by greed and a thirst for self-enrichment regardless of the cost to society?

[NowWhat]

Get over it Greenspan is not running the show.

[Rocky]

Ordinary Americans voters voted for George W. Bush in the tens of millions, twice. They also put the Republicans in charge of Congress for over a decade. They are no more blameless in this catastrophe than were the ordinary Germans who voted for the Nazi party in the early 1930's, or who volunteered for the Gestapo. Did these ordinary Americans vote for Bush because he promised to cut the taxes on dividend income and capital gains? Most ordinary Americans simply didn't own enough stock for the these tax cuts to make much of a difference. But many voters WERE interested in "defending marriage" and restricting access to legal abortions. Well, now the butcher's bill has come due. Get used to it.

[NowWhat]

Bush not Running the Show either.

[Rocky]

Bush's effect on the country will be felt for many years to come. 65 years after collapse of Nazi Germany, German taxpayers are still paying to prop up the economy of the former East Germany.

[angryfutureexpat]

"Get over it Greenspan is not running the show."

I'd like to get over it, but the unsustainable debt load remains. As does the deflationary depression.