Suicide Rates

Suicide rates are higher in countries with larger governments.

Look at this map from wikipedia. Generally the red countries with the higher suicide rates are the ones with larger governments and/or histories assocaited with Communism.

France, Germany, Cuba, Japan, China, Russia.

The suicide rate gets higher the further into Scandanavia and easter Europe you go.

Ireland has lower taxes and their rate is a bit lower than ours. Georgia -which has embraced heavy capitalist reforms- has a lower suicide rate than the US or Ireland.

There are a couple exceptions: Venezuala being one of them. The statistics for Venezuala are fairly old (2002). I think it predates a lot of the effects from Chavez' regime.

One thing that concerns me is that governments around the world are only getting larger, and the suicide rates keep going up. I've heard this also applies to the world in general.