Yeah, I feel so bad for his family. Also, it is so bad that any human being would have to suffer so much that taking their own life is less pain.
at least he didnt take his familys life also
I’m not going to judge him. I feel sad for him; I feel worse for his family. But people can find themselves in situations that they feel they can never recover from, and they feel so much shame and despair that they feel the only way out is something like that. Some of them feel that doing this may even redeem themselves - liberate others of having to care for them Some people accuse them of being cowards, but I think that - whether it is a good or bad idea to do it - it still takes a kind of courage to carry through with something like that. I am sad that for him it came to that, though.
I call bull crap on never able to recover, wallstreet is the land of second chances. You look at the founders of ltcm and other blown up funds, as long as you didn’t break the law, you can always come back. If you can’t think logically under stress, you shouldn’t be trading hundreds of millions. And no, I don’t know what it’s like to lose 100mm, but I my current total account balance is $7.49 so I know what it is to have nothing so yeah, I feel I can tell these people to suck it up.
i mean, if ur not pursued by the loan sharks and mafia… it ISN"T the worst that can happen to you. I know, in my home country of Taiwan, that gangstas and mafia would literally drive a man to burn his whole family alive (including neighbors too). That is sad facts of life.
they have gangsters in Taiwan?
Jesse Livemore took his own life at 62 and was tired of losing and making fortunes at that old age.
I heard that (aka: wiki/google) his wife was quote a widowmaker: “…all four of her previous husbands had committed suicide.” - Richard Smitten (September 14, 2001). Jesse Livermore: The World’s Greatest Stock Trader, p. 250.
she killed him 
On March 28, 1933, Livermore married the 38 year old Harriet Metz Noble in Geneva, Illinois; there was no honeymoon. It was Harriet’s fifth marriage, and all four of her previous husbands had committed suicide.[7].
I guess that would fall under operational risk? The risk that your wife kills you, and therefore you lose your life and your entire portfolio. I’m not sure this type of risk may be modeled by a normal distribution.
pacmandefense Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > at least he didnt take his familys life also Unlike this guy unfortunately: http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1848422,00.html
bchadwick Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > I’m not going to judge him. I feel sad for him; I > feel worse for his family. But people can find > themselves in situations that they feel they can > never recover from, and they feel so much shame > and despair that they feel the only way out is > something like that. Some of them feel that doing > this may even redeem themselves - liberate others > of having to care for them > > Some people accuse them of being cowards, but I > think that - whether it is a good or bad idea to > do it - it still takes a kind of courage to carry > through with something like that. > > I am sad that for him it came to that, though. So I got $10 says bchadwick has a copy of Durkheim on his bookshelf…
JoeyDVivre Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > So I got $10 says bchadwick has a copy of Durkheim > on his bookshelf… Heh heh, right between Dreman’s “Contrarian Investing Strategies” and Elder’s “Come into my Trading Room.”
JoeyDVivre Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > bchadwick Wrote: > -------------------------------------------------- > ----- > > I’m not going to judge him. I feel sad for him; > I > > feel worse for his family. But people can find > > themselves in situations that they feel they > can > > never recover from, and they feel so much shame > > and despair that they feel the only way out is > > something like that. Some of them feel that > doing > > this may even redeem themselves - liberate > others > > of having to care for them > > > > Some people accuse them of being cowards, but I > > think that - whether it is a good or bad idea > to > > do it - it still takes a kind of courage to > carry > > through with something like that. > > > > I am sad that for him it came to that, though. > > So I got $10 says bchadwick has a copy of Durkheim > on his bookshelf… Under Durkeim’s framework, I disagree with Bchad. This one seems more egoistic than altruistic. He killed himself because he felt like a failure after losing a lot of dough. As an experienced financial professional, he still had plenty of earnings potential and his family is not better off without him.
I wasn’t claiming he was actually being altruistic. I was just saying that I can understand how one might get to a place like that. I’ve had dark times in my life and while I didn’t do what he did, I can understand why it might feel like an option. While he might not be altruistic, he might have felt that what he was doing had an altruistic element. He had lost respect for himself, saw no way to get it back ever (this is where his logic may have failed), and may have felt that his everyone around him would be tainted by shame to be associated with him. Despair is not necessarily logical, even if it has it’s own kind of logic.
I think suicide if done right is the easier choice. For example, a gun shot to the head will kill you instantly unless you miss (how could you miss). I would tend to think that something like a lethal injection would be the easiest way to go out. But I dont know whether you feel pain when your heart stops. Living on and accpeting mistakes and accepting punishment is much harder. So yeah of the two choices - death or punishment - the people with less guts choose the former.
sublimity Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Money can’t buy happiness, but the lack of money > can bring severe sadness. I’ll drink to that.
needhelp Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > I think suicide if done right is the easier > choice. For example, a gun shot to the head will > kill you instantly unless you miss (how could you > miss). I would tend to think that something like a > lethal injection would be the easiest way to go > out. But I dont know whether you feel pain when > your heart stops. > It depends what you inject yourself with. If you inject yourself with KCl you will definitely die and it will definitely hurt when your heart stops. If you inject yourself with pentobarbital, you will just fall asleep and die painlessly. > Living on and accpeting mistakes and accepting > punishment is much harder. > > So yeah of the two choices - death or punishment - > the people with less guts choose the former.
Interesting CNN article on rise of suicides in recent years. Middle aged men are now the highest risk group (used to be the over-65 crowd). Another statistic I remember from elsewhere is that the number of suicides in the US is approximately 2x the number of homicides. http://www.cnn.com/2008/HEALTH/10/21/Healthmag.suicide.increase/index.html