Why financiers commit suicide
Some theories on why losing a few million can prompt taking your life
What happens when financiers lose it all?
(AP Photo/Eugene Hoshiko)
These tough economic times “appear to be leading to more suicides by rich people,” said Yael Abouhalkah in the Kansas City Star online. Recent cases include German billionaire Adolf Merckle, Chicago real estate executive Steven Good, and fund manager Thierry Magon de La Villehuchet. “It’s not an upbeat topic," but we should try to understand what losing everything does to someone with "massive wealth and prestige," because there are more losses to come.
Suicide can be seen many ways—“as honorable, cowardly, sad, tragic,” said Michael Lewis in Bloomberg. But some financial types seem to be under the “strange assumption” that it’s “a form of ‘taking responsibility.’” Well, “there’s no noticeable decline in the sum total of responsibility in need of taking” when a financier kills himself, and his clients and creditors are no better off.
I’d blame cowardice and a skewed idea of what poverty is, said Patrick Edaburn in The Moderate Voice. Take Merckle—he was worth as much as $10 billion last year, and while his apparently-suicide-prompting losses “did appear to be substantial,” he would still be a millionaire if he lost 99.99 percent of his wealth. Killing yourself over that is “ridiculous.”
Mental health experts say Merckle threw himself in front of a train due to “deep feelings of shame rather than material losses,” said Erik Kirschbaum in Reuters. For Merckle and others on the “lengthening list of high-profile investors around the world to take their own lives,” losing face and losing honor was worse than losing a fortune.
Maybe, but historically, a rise in suicides during financial crises is more “urban legend” than fact, said Loren Coleman in The Copycat Effect. And it’s “highly doubtful” that we’ll see “an increase in actual suicides ‘caused’ by or in the wake of the Great Crash of 2008.” But “look for a dramatic spike in reporting on every stockbroker and bankrupt CEO who dies by suicide.”
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6 Comments
Posted by Ron Mulvaney, Friday, January 9, 2009, 12:18 pm Surprise -- even multi-millionaires commit suicide when they lose some of their "multi's." But what about the thousands of unemployed who do so who can't find jobs? Not a word from our super sleuths in the media unless these suicides also take down a bunch of people with them, such as the Santa Claus attired Bruce Jeffrey Pardo who first killed his ex-wife and nine of her family before killing himself this Christmas eve. That story has been out there for 35 years, but the media has been asleep at the switch (see dequav.com).
Posted by Michael J. Gorman, Saturday, January 10, 2009, 3:24 pm As a John Jay College professor once said: Homicide and suicide are opposite sides of the same coin. Following this logic, Bernie Madoff is dead man walking.
Posted by Joan, Sunday, January 11, 2009, 6:43 pm That is some cold stuff, Mr. Mulvaney. You are a class warrior to the core I see. Actually, I think suicide involves a severe level of selfishness, which is something that affects the rich and the poor.
Posted by Michael E., Monday, January 12, 2009, 12:45 am Since when is it class warfare to tell the truth, Joan? Thousands of people without wealth kill themselves from feelings of financial despair and it is never reported by the media. A few millionaire/billionaires commit suicide and it makes all the papers. Both are sad stories but it is interesting to note that even in death, wealth buys you attention and better press.
Posted by Joan, Monday, January 12, 2009, 8:12 am I think we can all agree that money can be important whether we like that fact or not, and while being a mill/billionare is also more RARE and therefore more of a story, it is also puzzling that someone who seems to have everything would kill themselves. Do those two facts override any emotion or are you sticking with your first thoughts?
Posted by Michael E., Monday, January 12, 2009, 1:08 pm I would be a sociopath (or a liar) if I were to say that I could "override my emotions" regarding a story of suicide, regardless who it is about. Pain is pain. You can be rich or you can be poor and still be in despair. My point is that we obsess about the problems of the rich, the famous and the attractive. I suppose it is just "human nature", but it is a regrettable part of our psyches. It seems that it would be a better world if we could pay more attention and have more compassion for the poor and less powerful. As mentioned before, the rich have despair like anyone, but also have more tools to relieve it. The poor do not.
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