The Real Story Behind the General Motors Shutting Down U.S. Factories: Redistributing Income From Working People to the Rich

On November 26, 2018, General Motors announced it was laying off 14,000 employees and shutting four factories in the US, one in Canada, one in South Korea, and two in undisclosed areas. Quite naturally, the US corporate news media announced GM was doing this to reduce sedan production because they were not all that profitable. Actually, GM cut 14,000 workers because of its falling share price.

GM had earned tens of billions of dollars the last few years. In 2016, after taxes, the automaker earned a global net income of $9.43 billion, a 2.6% decline from the $9.68 billion it earned in 2015. As recently as October 31 of 2018, barely two months ago, GM announced “third-quarter 2018 earnings results reflecting profitability in all core operating segments. Strong results in North America were driven by all-new full-size trucks, and crossovers. GM China equity income and GM Financial EBT were third-quarter records.” Click here for the source of information.

What the corporate news media is not reporting is that GM is opening new factories in Mexico, where it will produce the Blazer. GM also continues to invest heavily in China. So, US jobs are being exported once again. (Click here for more information.)

In the US, this means most of, if not all, 3,600 factory workers will be out of a job, though some workers could be transferred to other plants. At its operations in Oshawa, Canada, GM employs currently about 2,500 hourly workers and 300 salaried workers; and they’ll be gone. The US and Canada’s losses will be Mexico’s and the wealthy’s gain.

Shutting the eight factories will cost three-plus billion dollars. General Motors has to borrow the money because it has spent $13.9 billion in cash on share buybacks over the past four years while earning record profits now and then. Despite the buybacks, the price of GM shares has fallen quite a bit.

GM’s share price was over $47 in October 2017. Then the share price began to fall in spite of the billions of dollars of share buybacks with the Trump tax cuts, which should have jacked up its share price since buying $13.9 billion worth of GM shares took quite a bit of them off the market. Yet the price continued to plummet until barely above $30 in October 2018.

Notice GM did not use the billions of dollars it saved with the Trump tax cuts to purchase new plant and equipment or to upgrade its US facilities, although it is creating new jobs in Mexico and China with the tax cuts. Instead, the tax money went to prop up its share price, but to no avail. In the end, in order to attract rich investors into buying GM shares, the automaker had to lay off thousands of employees and export jobs to Mexico. The Trump tax cuts, which were focused on corporations and the rich, quite naturally, as expected, were middle-class job killers.

Since GM announced its reductions of employees, its share price has gone up to 37.95 as of November 30th, 2018. The rich are getting richer by producing nothing since the old wages and benefits earned by those GM employees who worked for a living and are now out of jobs are going straight into the pockets of the affluent via higher share prices, rising dividends, and surging corporate earnings.

That is not what the corporate news media wants you to know.

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What The Billionaires and Their Corporate Media Don’t Want You to Know: Trump, the Tariffs, Wall Street and the Billionaires Who Control Both Major Political Parties

The rich and Wall Street executives have been quaking in their boots recently. Their Ponzi Schemes and bubbles known as the financial markets are in danger of collapsing. And it’s all because of President Donald Trump.

Trump is threatening to levy taxes on products made in China and exported to the USA. These taxes are called tariffs, and here’s what the corporate news media doesn’t want you to know. By doing this, Trump is also threatening to deflate the recent stock market bubble, which is the same thing as saying Trump is threatening to decrease by significant margins the income and wealth of the billionaires who control both major political parties in the United States.

Tariffs are taxes on goods being imported into the USA from foreign nations. US corporations export into the USA tens of billions of products manufactured in China, Vietnam, Mexico and other third world nations. Increased tariffs mean US corporations will need to raise the prices of their Chinese and other third world products, or lower their profit margins.

The profits of corporations are the primary component determining the prices of shares. When profits drop, especially in the long term, share prices fall. So the share price of say, Home Depot could fall from $176 a share to $14 a share. If you own millions of shares you lose quite a lot of money. This is why the threat of tariffs in steel and aluminum has roiled the US financial markets as of late. A lot of paper wealth is going to evaporate as stock prices drop should the tariffs be enacted. Dividends may decline, as well.

Tens of millions of US jobs have been exported from the US to China, Vietnam, India, Pakistan, Mexico, Honduras and elsewhere over the last twenty-five years. This has been done in order to jack up corporate profits by significantly reducing US labor and environmental costs. The difference between the old higher US wages and benefits and the new lower wages without benefits has gone straight into the already fat wallets and bank accounts of the superrich. They have used their ill-gotten gains to bid up the prices of corporate shares, gold, housing, commodities futures, and other investments.

President Trump’s threat to use tariffs against China and other nations means fewer dollars will go into the pockets of the rich if the tariffs are enacted. It also means potentially massive losses in the stock and maybe even bond markets.

Some corporations may even be inclined to export their jobs in China back to the United States if the tariffs are enacted. The middle class will benefit with additional jobs should this come about. In other words, the tariffs could redistribute income from the rich back into the pockets of the 99 percent, and this is something the billionaires will not allow their corporate media outlets to tell you. The proposed tariffs are limited, and therefore will not have much of an impact, but they will have some positive benefits to the US 99 percent.

Currently, six men own more wealth than the bottom 50 percent of the world’s people (See https://johnhively.wordpress.com/2017/02/23/six-men-own-more-wealth-than-the-bottom-50-percent-of-human-kind/). In the USA, the 1 percent own more wealth than the bottom 90 percent for the first time in US history (See https://johnhively.wordpress.com/2017/12/03/in-the-united-states-the-1-percent-now-own-more-wealth-than-the-bottom-90-percent-for-the-first-time-in-us-history/). In the United States, the 1 percent steal as much as 35 percent of the income produced in the USA every year, up from 8 percent in 1979.

Trump’s tariffs will likely put tiny brakes on the continuously growing inequality of wealth and income produced by free trade agreements. Those brakes will likely only slow down the growing income and wealth inequality rather than halting or reversing them. But the tariffs would be a beginning to reversing the massive income and wealth inequality which the rich have successfully conspired to produce over the last thirty-seven years.

A few other things are in order. The USA has the fifteen to twenty largest trade deficits in world history. That means the US imports more goods than it exports. Our largest trade deficit is not with China, as the media claims. In reality, the largest US trade deficit is with US corporations that have exported tens of millions of US jobs overseas. The purpose of exporting tens of millions of US jobs has been to redistribute trillions of dollars from US workers to the rich, avoid US pollution controls (thereby increasing profits),  and avoid US health and safety regulations.

What American Presidents Have To Say About Tariffs:

“America’s growth and future depend on trade. But we would insist on trade that is fair and free. We are always willing to be trade partners but never trade patsies”. President John F. Kennedy.

“Protection, which guards and develops our industries, is a cardinal policy of the Republican Party. The measure of protection should always at least equal the difference in the cost of production at home and abroad.” President Theodore Roosevelt

“A wise tariff protects American industries and manufacture. It encourages growth and enterprise among our own people. It opens our mines, it erects our machine shops, our furnaces and factories”.
President William Mckinley

It Was Good Enough For Kennedy, Roosevelt & McKinley. Why Isn’t It For Congress?

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Happy Labor Day! But Here Is Some Sobering Information

For the past several years, US job growth has been weaker on a monthly average than when Jimmy Carter was US president. There’s a reason for this and a lot has to do with US corporations exporting jobs. Click here for that story. This brings us to former President Obama.

As a United States senator, Barack Obama demanded President George W. Bush do something to counter Chinese currency manipulation. As president, Obama mentioned Chinese currency manipulation one time. Then some politically powerful billionaires likely placed their arms over Obama’s shoulder and probably said something like, “Don’t mention that again, or we’ll take you behind the wood shed.”

Notice President Trump railed against Chinese currency manipulation as a candidate and hasn’t said a word about it as president. It’s likely some of his fellow billionaires threatened to take him behind the woodshed too if he ever mentioned the issue again.

This is because millions of US jobs have been exported to China; and US corporations have created millions of jobs over there rather than here thanks to President Bill Clinton and President George W. Bush, both of whom gave China “most favored nation trade status,” and which allowed US corporations to export US jobs and create jobs in China rather than here.

When China manipulates its currency vis-a-vis the US dollar, it increases the profit margins of US corporations manufacturing in China and exporting to the US, while simultaneously decreasing the profit margins of companies manufacturing in the US and exporting their goods to China. This is why all those Nike, Dell, Apple, Treetop, Campbell’s Soups, and thousands of other things are made nowadays in China and exported to the US rather than in the United States. See the-trans-pacific-partnership-the-op-ed-the-liberal-and-conservative-corporate-media-doesnt-want-you-to-see–JohnHively.wordpress.com

This is one of the reasons why income and wealth inequality has grown so great during the last thirty-five years. In the US, the top 1 percent own more wealth nowadays than the 90 percent lowest Americans, and that gap is growing.

The Federal Reserve Bank and the US Treasury could easily counter Chinese currency manipulation, but those organizations work for the billionaires and not for the rest of us. In the meantime, the US economy weakens over the long haul. That’s because workers wages now represent a smaller portion of US gross domestic product since 1947. That’s because when jobs are exported the difference between the old higher US wages and benefits and the new lower foreign wages with no benefits goes straight into the fat wallets of the billionaires via higher corporate profits, rising dividends, and surging share prices. Trade agreements, nice scams huh?

This is precisely why the rich are now stealing about 37 percent of all income produced in the United States, compared to 8 percent when Carter was president in 1980. This is why job growth was greater under Carter on a per monthly basis than nowadays even though the US economy was only about 40 percent the size of today’s US economy, and the population was only 60 percent the size of today’s US population.

This is something to reflect on when some Wall Street US Senator like Ron Wyden says we need more trade agreements to create more jobs. When Wyden, or Wall Street Senator Mitch McConnell says crap like this, you know it’s a lie.

 

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Trumpland: Government Corruption in a Nutshell: Environmental Protection Agency Director Scott Pruitt is the Most Pro-Pollution Direction in EPA History

How things have changed! Back in the 1960’s, Rachel Carson’s book Silent Spring warned about the human health dangers caused by insecticides. Industrial pollution ensured that US lakes and rivers caught fire. In 1970, conservative Republican US President Richard Nixon signed the legislation creating the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). The EPA’s job was to clean up the pollution. The result is that much of that US industrial pollution has been exported to China, India and elsewhere.

US business leaders have long chafed under the chains of the EPA. The more pollution these folks are allowed to create, the more profits their corporations earn, the higher corporate share and bond prices rise. So big business has conspired to takeover the EPA, so as to bend the rules to their favor.

Scott Pruitt, a loyal servant of the profit needs of big oil now heads the EPA. President Franklin Roosevelt once said that businessmen had made certain that government had become an appendage of their profit making before he took office. Pruitt is now in position to ensure the EPA does not do its job in the USA. So expect human health considerations to be shunt aside in favor of the profit desires of big oil and Koch Industries, because as Attorney General of Oklahoma, that is precisely how he defined his job, as you can see from the video above.

Most of the politicians governing the US today are among the most corrupt in world history, and that includes US corporate apparatchiks, such as Mitch McConnell and Ron Wyden.

Think about this. Nixon is considered to have been one of the most corrupt president’s in US history. He was a man who’s crimes were considered so great that he was forced to resign from his office. Yet he ignored the advice and bribes of his corporate sponsors to create the EPA. And the crimes he committed pale in comparison to President Bush lying us into war, or to embroil us in the Iran-Contra scandal.

Something has gone terribly wrong with the USA since Nixon. Crimes are committed by people in high office, and there is no concern for punishment, because the criminals are in charge of the white house, the senate, the US house of representatives, and the US supreme court. There’s no one to answer to for ones crimes in government nowadays. The US government is rotten through the core with corruption.

Yet, there is an economic hurricane just around the corner. When that hits, we’ll be able to clean house, like FDR did in 1933. Get ready.

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Is the United States Government Last in the World at Protecting US jobs?

‘America’s Biggest Export, Our Jobs!!’

The US government is attacking US jobs. This is why jobs are the number one export product of the USA.

The US government refuses to end tax subsidies for corporations that export American jobs. Meanwhile, the US government has refused to grant subsidies to US corporations that create jobs in the USA. Congress continues to support the E-Packets commerce program. This is traitorous because this program forces US taxpayers to pay the shipping costs for businesses in China to export there stuff to the USA. Think Nike, Microsoft, Campbell’s Soups and thousands of other US corporations. This subsidizes the profits of US corporations who have exported jobs. It also boosts share prices.

Congress could require that all government agencies and departments buy only things Made in the USA, but it doesn’t.

Congress could also match all tariffs and special fees charged by China and other nations against US made products, but it doesn’t.

It is possible the US government ranks last in the world when it comes to protecting US jobs.

When It Comes To Protecting American Jobs.

Tell Congress To Stop Fooling Around.

Contact Congress
https://www.usa.gov/elected-officials

Congressional Switchboard.
202 224-3121

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What People Believe About Free Trade Agreements, Jobs and Other Things

A new poll by the Pew Research Center show that 80 percent of US citizens believe that trade agreements have cost the United States jobs. According to the poll:

“The public sees threats to jobs coming from several directions: Eight-in-ten adults say increased outsourcing of jobs to other countries hurts American workers, and roughly the same share (77%) say having more foreign-made products sold in the U.S. has been harmful. Significant shares also cite increased use of contract or temporary workers (57%) and declines in union membership (49%) as trends that are hurting, rather than helping, workers. At the same time, global markets for U.S.-made products are seen as helpful for workers by 68% of adults. And seven-in-ten say the rise of the internet and email has been a net positive.”

The poll suggests the US public is not fooled by these trade scams that redistribute income from working folks to the rich. And they’re spot on.

According an Economic Policy Institute Study shows that over 2 million US jobs were exported to the eleven nations participating in the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) in 2015. That doesn’t count China, since it is not a part of the as of yet not approved TPP.

The U.S. trade deficit with China was $365.7 billion in 2015, or about double what it was with the TPP nations. This is a new record, up slightly from last year’s record of $343 billion. Counting the trade deficit with China suggests US companies exported at least 4 million more jobs in 2015, for a total of over 6 million jobs in 2015.

At least one study suggested US corporations have exported 26 million jobs since 2000. The EPI study for jobs loss in 2015 coupled with the US trade deficit with China suggests this is very likely, and perhaps even understates the job loss numbers.

That’s why Americans have wised up to these income redistribution scams falsely marketed as trade agreements. They may not know the exact number of jobs lost, but given that the current economic expansion is the weakest since the Great Depression, most people can see and feel that something has gone terribly wrong with the US economy.

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Bernie Sanders and the Nearly $1 Trillion of Lost Taxes the Corporate Propaganda Machine Doesn’t Want You to Know About

The corporate news media does not operate independently, especially of the influence of its advertisers, and its editors, and that is why they prefer to keep you ignorant of certain facts. For example, when China manipulates its currency, this increases the profits of US corporations manufacturing there, and exporting those products to the USA. See https://johnhively.wordpress.com/2016/02/12/the-trans-pacific-partnership-the-op-ed-the-liberal-and-conservative-corporate-media-doesnt-want-you-to-see/

That’s precisely why US government and Federal Reserve officials castigate the Chinese government for doing this, but then do absolutely nothing to counteract it. To do so would cut into the profits of Nike, Microsoft, Dell, Campbell’s Soups, and thousands of other US corporations making stuff in China for export to the USA. This would make thousands of CEO’s and rich investors angry enough to cut off campaign contributions to Republican and Democratic Parties and their politicians. It would also send stock prices tumbling big time. Sweet lobbying jobs after politicians leave office would end. Corporate paid vacations called fact finding missions would disappear for politicians, as would money under the table, and those sweet speeches at $200,000+ a pop would vanish.

The Oregon Democratic Primary is coming up in a couple weeks, and Bernie Sanders is leading in the polls here. Quite naturally, the Oregonian newspaper is blitzing its readers with anti-Sanders messages in the form of editorials and news stories. The editors are doing everything they can to shift the election to the Wall Street candidate.

There has not been one positive or even neutral story about Sanders in the newspaper in the last two months, which is most likely a symptom of why the Oregonian has been suffering from a continuously declining readership. The newspaper is just a ghost of what it once was because more and more Oregon citizens realize the newspaper is mostly propaganda for the 1 percent along with occasional legitimate news stories.

Over thirty-five million jobs have been exported from the United States over the last twenty-five years. The Oregonian editors, along with all other corporate news outlets, have been careful to not report this loss of jobs and the tax dollars that once came with them when they were still here. The tax dollars lost equal nearly a trillion dollars a year.

Everything that Bernie wants to finance; free college tuition, medicare for all, and more, would be easily financed if those jobs were still here, rather than in China, Vietnam and elsewhere.

Bernie Sanders is against those disastrous trade policies which have paved the legal road for exporting jobs overseas, and which has paved the legal road for creating jobs over there, instead of over here. So, quite naturally, the editors of the Oregonian are for them, and against Bernie. It would be in the interest of the vast majority of US citizens to put an end to these international income and political power redistribution scams, falsely marketed by the Oregonian editors and other supporters as international trade agreements.

But it would not be in the interests of the Oregonian advertisers and their rich investors to put an end to them. It also would force the Oregonian editors to be responsible and objective journalists. However, challenging cherished beliefs with critical thinking, logic, and facts is among the last thing many people want to do. That’s precisely why the Oregonian editors support the Wall Street candidate; Hillary Rodham Clinton.

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Exporting jobs is the fuel that causes the stock markets and corporate profits to surge at record levels, And Hillary Supports This Economic Plan

In 2012, in a town hall in India, then US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said,

“Outsourcing jobs is part of our economic relationship with India. I think there are advantages with it that have certainly benefited many parts of our country (the USA), and there are disadvantages that goes toward the need to improve the work skills of our own people (those who lose their jobs), and create a better economic environment. It’s like anything. It’s got pluses and minuses.”

What Clinton didn’t say is who benefits and who loses when she supports exporting jobs. Let’s get something straight, nearly thirty million US jobs were exported from the US from 1990 to 2010. Millions more have been exported since. Notice in the graph below how the exporting of US jobs increased with NAFTA, which Clinton supported. Hillary has also supported the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP), until she came under intense criticism as a presidential candidate. No doubt, she still supports it because Wall Street does, and she is Wall Street’s candidate.

The United States is in the seventh and likely final year of an economic boom. The statistics are staggering about what exporting jobs have brought about here.

1. Income inequality perhaps never experienced in US history.
2. The 99 percent has gone from earning 92 percent of all income produced in the USA in 1980 to 63 percent today.
3. 48 million people on food stamps, which is nearly one out of six Americans.
4. A middle class that has shrunk from 61 to 49 percent of US adults from 1970 to 2016.
5. Wages that have declined in real terms for 36 years.
6. A rising homeless population.
7. Wealth inequality never experienced in US history.
8. The worst economic expansion in terms of wage growth and jobs growth since the Great Depression.
9. Slower job growth than under President Jimmy Carter, back when the population was 65 percent of today, and the Gross Domestic Product was 45 percent the size of today.
10. A tax base that is shrinking every year as the jobs are being exported, and this has brought about higher college costs, shrinking social safety nets (such as social security), decrepit public infrastructure, and many more negative things.
11. A massive trade deficit the United States has with US corporations manufacturing abroad and then exporting those products to the USA.

Obviously, exporting jobs is not a winning formula for the vast majority of US citizens, but Mrs. Clinton thinks so. The rich, of course, benefit from exporting jobs.

When jobs are exported (and let’s face it, jobs are the number export product of the United States), the difference between the old higher US wages and the new lower wages in China, Vietnam and elsewhere, go straight into the pockets of the super rich via higher corporate earnings, rising share prices, and surging dividends.

So the good things about exporting jobs that Hillary spoke about in the video are that exporting jobs is the fuel that causes the stock markets and corporate profits to surge at record levels. Clinton doesn’t seem to give a rat’s ass about the massive collateral damage to the 99 percent, much of which is listed above.

That’s why every geographic area of the United States outside of the old confederacy is Bernie Sanders country, and why he will win the Democratic nomination.

That why Bernie Sanders whipped Hillary Clinton badly in Kansas and Nebraska on Saturday, March 5. He won by 68 percent of the vote in Kansas, and 55 percent in Nebraska. Hillary, as expected, took 70 percent of the vote in Louisiana.

Clinton has yet to prove she can win decisively outside of the southeast. She appears to be nothing more than an over-hyped regional candidate. True, Clinton edged out Bernie in Iowa, Nevada, and Massachusetts, but outside of the South, it is Sanders who has dominated the Democratic primaries.

Not counting the super delegates, most, of which, have declared for Clinton, Hillary leads in delegates 659 to 455. However, most of the Southern states have voted in the Democratic primary (save for Florida) and the rest of the nation appears to be Sanders country.

Sure most of the super delegates temporarily support Clinton, but if she loses the popular vote in the primaries, which is highly likely, the super delegates are not bound to Clinton. They will switch to Sanders, or experience the end of the Democratic Party by sticking with Hillary.

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New Study: Walmart is Responsible for the Exporting of 400,000 US Jobs Alone

Wall Street Senator Ron Wyden is one of the great weapons the rich use in their war against the middle class in the US senate. Walmart is a good case in point. Wyden has voted time and time again to export US jobs and redistribute income from the 99 to the 1 percent. The difference between the old higher US wages and the new lower foreign wages goes straight into the pockets of the rich via higher corporate profits, rising share prices, and surging dividends. The job losers might get a bit of unemployment insurance, if they’re lucky.

In reality, Wall Street Senator Ron Wyden stole the American dream from millions of US citizens by supporting international income redistribution scams, falsely marketed as international trade agreements.

Chinese imports made by US manufacturers entering through Wal-Mart in 2013 likely totaled at least $49.1 billion and the combined effect of imports from and exports to China conducted through Wal-Mart likely accounted for 15.3 percent of the growth of the total U.S. goods trade deficit with China between 2001 and 2013. Virtually all of those goods are made in China by companies that formerly used to manufacture in the USA, thanks to Wyden.

The Wal-Mart-based trade deficit with those US companies manufacturing in China alone eliminated or displaced over 400,000 U.S. jobs between 2001 and 2013.

The manufacturing sector and its workers have been hardest hit by the growth of Wyden’s Walmart imports. Wal-Mart’s increased trade deficit with China between 2001 and 2013 eliminated 314,500 manufacturing jobs, 75.7 percent of the jobs lost from Wal-Mart’s trade deficit. These job losses are particularly destructive because jobs in the manufacturing sector pay higher wages and provide better benefits than most other industries, especially for workers with less than a college education.
Wal-Mart has announced plans to create opportunities for American manufacturing by “investing in American jobs.” To date, very few actual U.S. jobs have been created by this program, and since 2001, the growing Wal-Mart trade deficit with US corporations manufacturing in

China has displaced more than 100 U.S. jobs for every actual or promised job created through this program.

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A New Study Shows that Redistributing Income to the Rich Kills Middle Class White Males

The 1 percent now steal over 37 percent of total US income, up from 8 percent in 1980. They’ve been stealing their income by corrupting both major political parties, which control the federal and state, as well as most local governments. Wall Street Senators, such as Mitch McConnell and Ron Wyden, are notorious for pushing legislation that redistributes income from the 99 to the 1 percent.

This government created inequality has created an economy spiraling toward third world status, with only 50 percent of US adults considered middle class, down from 61 percent in 1970. Another by-product of this is that people are dying younger, but not if you are rich. A new study by Angus Deaton and Anne Case show the mortality rate for white males, ages 45 to 55, is increasing.

The author’s lay the blame straight at income inequality pursued by senator’s like McConnell and Wyden. So why only white males of this age? Why not white or Hispanic women? Why not younger white males? The answer is expectations.

White males of this age group could always count on getting decent jobs, such as in manufacturing, from the 1970s through the 1990s. They had jobs, and then millions of those jobs were exported, leaving millions of people in debt, and unable to find a suitable job replacement. This has led to financial and emotional distress, increasing suicides, alcohol use, drug use, eating excessively, and other methods of self-perceived alleviation.

Note below, that mortality rates for white males in this age group declined from 1979-1998. These three decades witnessed extraordinary job growth, which meant opportunity. The guys in the 45-54 age range were in their physical prime. While the rich were getting richer, their share of income rising from 8 to roughly 15 percent of the total national income, real wages, or the illusion thereof, rose for a few years of the late 1980s, and the late 1990s. Now those jobs and opportunities have declined in numbers.

The authors write:

Midlife increases in suicides and drug poisonings have been previously noted. However, that these upward trends were persistent and large enough to drive up midlife mortality has, to our knowledge, been overlooked. If the white mortality rate for ages 45−54 had held at their 1998 value, 96,000 deaths would have been avoided from 1999–2013, 7,000 in 2013 alone. If it had continued to decline at its previous (1979‒1998) rate, half a million deaths would have been avoided in the period 1999‒2013, comparable to lives lost in the US AIDS epidemic through mid-2015. Concurrent declines in self-reported health, mental health, and ability to work, increased reports of pain, and deteriorating measures of liver function all point to increasing midlife distress.

Click here for the full study.

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