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Re:Economics of suicide by neilk on Saturday August 15, 2009 @04:58PM (#765211)
Isn't the obvious conclusion that severely depressed people are working under their capacity? I don't see where he considered that.

Some commenters wonder why high income rat-racers don't attempt suicide, then learn to stop and smell the roses, and lose income. I doubt that this is common. Suicidal feelings are brought on by a sense of futility, not stress or overwork.

Re:Economics of suicide by mmt on Monday August 17, 2009 @09:27PM (#769535)
I wouldn't say that's the obvious conclusion, if only because it assumes that income is highly enough correlated with work effort.

It doesn't strike me that such a correlation, which I do believe exists, is obviously within 20%, for example.

Moreover, I would consider the situation of working at or very near capacity and yet still not producing to be a plausible, if not likely, source of feelings of futility.