Post by a425coupleIt is sad when people chose suicide.
Interesting to me, that the suicide rate for England & Wales
is about the same as it is for the US.
Sadly, many in the US use guns, so US has a high
number of gun deaths (well over half of gun deaths in US
are suicides).
And 60% of U.S. homicides are committed with a gun.
Post by a425coupleSo, with less guns, the English find other ways.
The U.K. has fewer guns than the U.S., and its suicide rate is about 2/3
of ours.
Post by a425coupleInteresting that they are generally 'neater'.
36% by hanging,
26% by drug related poisoning.
A painful economic recession, rising unemployment and biting "austerity"
measures may have already driven more than 1,000 people in Britain to
commit suicide, according to a study published on Wednesday.
A study published last July, also by Stuckler, found that across Europe,
suicide rates rose sharply from 2007 to 2009 as the financial crisis
drove unemployment up and squeezed incomes.
The number of unemployed men rose on average across Britain by 25.6
percent each year from 2008 to 2010, a rise associated with a yearly
increase in male suicides of 3.6 percent.
The countries worst hit by severe economic downturns, such as Greece and
Ireland, saw the most dramatic increases in suicides.
-------
[A] 49-year-old former security guard, a 60-year-old businessman in
Milan, and a 64-year-old bricklayer in Salerno are casualties of the
debt crisis that has pushed Italy¹s economy to the brink over the past
year and put considerable strain on most Italians, especially those who
own or work for small businesses. At least 34 people have killed
themselves citing economic reasons since the start of the year,
according to the Italian Association of Small Businesses.
-----
Dimitris Christoulas, 77, shot himself in the head on Wednesday after
declaring that financial troubles pushed him over the edge. A suicide
note said the retired pharmacist preferred to die than scavenge for food.
Anger was directed as much at politicians as it was at the austerity
medicine prescribed by foreign lenders in return for aid to lift the
country out of its worst economic crisis since the Second World War.
"Those who should have committed suicide -- who should have committed
suicide a long time ago -- are the politicians who knowingly decided to
bring this country and its people to this state of affairs," said Panos
Kammenos, a conservative lawmaker who recently set up the Independent
Greeks anti-austerity party.
Meanwhile, an Italian man shot himself dead on Wednesday because his
company was going bust, following a wave of economy-related suicides in
the country which one opposition politician blamed on Prime Minister
Mario Monti's reforms.
A day earlier, a 78-year-old woman in Sicily jumped to her death because
her monthly pension payments had been reduced. On Monday, a
picture-frame maker hanged himself because of economic difficulties.
And last week, two men set themselves on fire in northern Italy due to
financial woes. Both survived, one with severe burns.
<http://worldnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2012/08/15/13289934-1000-suicides-lin
ked-to-hard-economic-times-in-britain?lite>
Post by a425coupleCertainly 'neater' than in Japan, which has twice the
rate as USA & UK, and although almost totally gunless,
goes quite often messy.
Some scholars looking for structural and social causes behind Japan¹s
suicide problem have argued that there is a close correlation between
unemployment and suicide rates. In fact, during the financial crisis of
1997 and 1998, suicides increased around 35%, a change that would seem
to support the idea that there is a strong correlation between economic
conditions and suicides in Japan.
------
Rather than quietly taking her life at home as many South Koreans do,
the woman staged her death as a final act of public protest against a
society she said had abandoned her. She drank pesticide overnight in
front of her city hall after officials stopped her welfare checks,
saying they were no longer obligated to support her now that her
son-in-law had found work.
³How can you do this to me?² read the suicide note that the police said
they had found in a purse next to her body. ³A law should serve the
people, but it didn¹t protect me.²
The epidemic is the counterpoint to the nation¹s runaway economic
success, which has worn away at the Confucian social contract that
formed the bedrock of Korean culture for centuries.
[S]uicides among people 65 or older ballooned to 4,378 in 2010, from
1,161 in 2000. The number of suicides among other adults and teenagers
also surged, though those deaths are generally attributed to the stress
of living in a highly competitive society rather than the changes in the
family structure that are driving the elderly to despair.
[A]s South Korea¹s hard-charging younger generations joined an exodus
from farms to cities in recent decades, or simply found themselves
working harder in the hypercompetitive environment that helped drive the
nation¹s economic miracle, their parents were often left behind. Many
elderly people now live out their final years poor, in rural areas with
the melancholy feel of ghost towns.
<http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/17/world/asia/in-korea-changes-in-society
-and-family-dynamics-drive-rise-in-elderly-suicides.html?pagewanted=1>
It's the Economics, Stupid.
Post by a425coupleHow do they do that?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suicide_in_Japan
"Methods of committing suicide (in Japan)
Common methods of suicide are jumping in front of trains, leaping
off high places, hanging, or overdosing on medication. Rail companies
will charge the families of those who commit suicide a fee depending
on the severity of disrupted traffic.
A newer method, gaining in popularity partly due to publicity from
Internet suicide websites, is to use household products to make the
poisonous gas hydrogen sulfide. In 2007, only 29 suicides used this gas,
but in a span from January to September 2008, 867 suicides resulted
from gas poisoning. This method is particularly problematic, as
there is high risk of hurting others in the process. After a man who
attempted suicide in 2008 by swallowing pesticides was hospitalized,
50 people in the hospital were sickened by the toxic fumes."
--
Welcome to the New America.
or
E Pluribus Unum
Next time vote Green Party