MSNBC on "desperate acts" of ruined financiers: "Suicide does not discriminate"

[Amerigo Vespucci]

A cross, flowers and candles mark the place in Blaubeuren-Weiler, Germany, where entrepreneur Adolf Merckle committed suicide Jan. 5. Merckle owned companies such as Ratiopharm and HeidelbergCement but faced financial ruin, disgrace and possibly prison. Daniel Maurer / AP file

The black hole of hopelessness can be overwhelming. A man who lost $1.4 billion to Bernie Madoff sits down in his Manhattan office and carefully writes a series of suicide letters to family and friends, then swallows a fatal dose of pills and conscientiously places a wastebasket under his bleeding arm, after slicing it with a box cutter.

Others are mind-boggling in their brazenness. A financier accused of stealing from his investors boards his private plane alone, sends a fake distress call over Alabama saying his windshield has shattered and he is bleeding profusely, then parachutes from the still-moving Piper Malibu, which is later found in a Florida swamp with no signs of blood or an imploded windshield.

In January alone, three cases surfaced. German billionaire investor Adolf Merckle, who lost a fortune in shorted Volkswagen stock, threw himself under a commuter train. Patrick Rocca, an Irish property investor who lost millions when the real estate market bottomed out, waited until his wife took their children to school before he shot himself in the head. Outside Chicago, real estate mogul Steven L. Good was found dead in his Jaguar, apparently from a self-inflicted gunshot wound.

"Suicide does not discriminate on the basis of social status," said psychologist Alden Cass, who treats financial traders. "The ego of the successful person ... is not used to failure, not used to being wrong. They're perfectionists. They don't allow for the gray in life. They don't allow for second place. When that is taken away, they're stripped of everything they know."

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/29195955/

[Leftist Agitator]

1. If only all of these rich assholes had done themselves in years ago...

Then perhaps the rest of the world would not find itself in such a fantastically dire situation.

Cry me a fucking river.

Oh, and rich kids?

YOU'RE NEXT IF YOU FOLLOW THE PATH OF YOUR FATHERS. BE WARNED.

I'm done pretending that any of these oligarchs or their offspring are deserving of a single tear.

THEY ARE OUR ENEMY.

[whoneedstickets]

2. Maybe that peanut guy will follow this lead...

Defrauding people out of their life savings seems trivial compared to willingly poisoning them with your products. Has the peanut guy no shame...

[Two Americas]

3. poor people

Poor people face "financial ruin, disgrace and possibly prison" everyday.