Japan suicides climb as economy plumbs depths

[Coventina]

Source: Washington Post

TOKYO (Reuters) - Suicide is rising in Japan as the economic crisis bites, with more than 100 people a day taking their lives in April.

"It's the end of the financial year, so I think the effect of the economy is a trigger," said Yasuyuki Shimizu, head of Lifelink, a group that campaigns to prevent suicide. In a recession, the end of the financial year tends to spark bankruptcies and layoffs.

Japan's suicide rate is already one of the highest in the developed world, with about 24 cases per 100,000 population in recent years, compared with 11 in the United States.

The April figure was up 6 percent from the same month last year, police statistics showed on Wednesday.



Read more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/05/28/AR2009052800430.html

[xchrom]

1. recommend

[tomreedtoon]

2. They put all their faith in the system.

The system failed. Therefore they see themselves as failures.

The same principle works in America. Only when we see ourselves as failures, we don't kill ourselves quickly. We work for a back-breaking employer when we can get work, we accept less and less, we don't treat our illnesses because we can't afford it, and we die.

[truedelphi]

3. But the good news for some is that the man who helped engineer Japan's disastrous

Economic course is one Timothy Geithner, Obama's new buddy and second only to Bernanke in terms of charting our economic course.

Go Tim! Go!