Longer isn't always better. The number of nursing home residents 65+ has grown five time larger, as a percent of the population, today vs. 1960. Since 54% of nursing homes are reported as understaffed and with the average time spent by staff with residents per day is a whopping 42 minutes this stat isn't all roses. I'm not saying it's all thorns either.
> OECD statistics are that annual hours worked per American employee have
> fallen from 2,033 hrs in 1960 to 1,817 hrs in 2003.
> http://www.ggdc.net/dseries/Data/hours/OECDH05I.xls (Heartfield)
Mining, manufacturing, and construction all work more hours per week
today than in 1964. Retal and FIRE work much less and pull the average
down. At least according to the Monthly Labor review from July 31 2000.
Most of the reduction in retail is to avoid offering benefits too. Which
part of this stat are we supposed to cheer?
>
> In 1947 Americans spent 23.8 per cent of their income on food, a figure that
> has fallen steadily to just ten per cent in 2001.
> http://www.facster.com/Food_Consumption_Per_Capita_and_Food_Expenditures_(1929_to_2001)_z17786.aspx
(Heartfield)
While I may disagree with the food choices made by millions of people there is no arguing food is much less expensive today than it has been.
> Joanna writes
>
> > It is also a fact that after the free market
> > was introduced, life expectancy in the FSU plumetted by a good ten
> > years,
>
> 'High death rate for men predates Soviet demise'
> http://www.prb.org/Template.cfm?Section=PRB&template=/ContentManagement/ContentDisplay.cfm&ContentID=4774
> by John Haaga (Population Today, April 2000)
>
> 'During the 1960s, though, life expectancy in the United States rose
> rapidly, while life expect-ancy in the Russian republic faltered and began
> to decline. The gap between East and West in life expectancy, like the gap
> in economic performance, grew steadily wider.' (Heartfield)
The decline was nothing like the tremendous plummit that followed the break-up of the SU and you know it. It declined slightly in the late '60's and through the 70's, regained a bit and then began falling off just a few years before the break-up which then accelerated it dramatically. To pretend the decline, which began just a few years before the actual breakup, was unrelated to the entire fucked up "readjustment" is BS. During almost the entire period of the 80's it was gaining.
John Thornton