Suicides [in Venezuela] are rapidly rising across this once-wealthy nation, but particularly in mountainous Merida, where they are hitting levels never seen. The Venezuelan Violence Observatory, a nongovernmental organization, estimates that the state’s suicide rate was more than 19 per 100,000 in 2017. Only 12 nations have a rate so high.
Such deaths are becoming ordinary in a population plagued by hyperinflation, hunger and mass emigration. Xiomara Betancourt, a neurologist who heads mental-health services at Corposalud Merida, the public health system, blamed scarcities of antidepressant and anti-anxiety medicine and loneliness as loved ones leave.
Venezuela's rulers will be okay. They get first call on dwindling resources.
Remember, capitalism doesn't cause greed--people cause greed. And an economic system designed to cripple economic growth in favor of redistributing resources is well designed for greedy socialist autocrats to make sure they are redistributed to them.
