I'm a white male with a high school diploma. I started a small manufacturing business in 1997 and played by all the rules. In 2003 when I could no longer sell at the prices required to stay in business I started getting the manufacturing done in Vietnam. Yes, we lost 5 blue collar jobs but created 8 well paying white collar jobs.

Now my customers can barely afford the current low prices! I think besides manufacturing moving offshore, low taxes on the rich prevented them from reinvesting in their business. The rich are leeching of the financial assets of the country instead of allocating them as would be necessary for the offshore manufacturing to work.

I am hoping this whole thing holds together long enough from me to sell out and retire. Even some of us who moved our manufacturing to Vietnam have big problems caused by serious corruption in politics. Btw, I have always voted Democratic but don't trust either party at this point.

The J-curve cause of suicide also applies to other things. Remember when some Republican pundit said white people needed to have more babies? Well, white people are having fewer babies because the previous generation of white people could afford to have them, while high poverty among black people and non-white immigrants has already inured them to the difficulty of raising kids while poor, so they're doing what they've always done. It's a difference of expectations, not a result of absolute circumstances.