Perhaps our appetite for all forms of risk taking, not just the economic variety, is suppressed during difficult times. Regarding the numbers about suicide I think Woody Allen gets it: "Where I grew up... in Brooklyn, nobody committed suicide... you know, everyone was too unhappy." And - "I was in analysis. I was suicidal. As a matter of fact, I would have killed myself, but I was in analysis with a strict Freudian and if you kill yourself they make you pay for the sessions you miss." I recall another, though I can't find the quote, that I think really hits the mark. It went something like: My mother wanted to kill herself but she was too busy trying to keep us fed and clothed to get around to it.