A moral dilemma

[Just Jim]

So what would make the rich and powerful commit suicide in large numbers?

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/3250661/posts

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[jbett98]

Money don't buy you happiness is my guess.

 

[Glock Jock]

Or they feel responsible for what is coming. Many bankers committed suicide leading up to the 1929 collapse.

 

[Classic]

Bloomberg......................

 

[SHPD_Retired]

Rich and powerful does not always equate to happy. I know many people who are, what most of us would consider poor, and they are very happy. They are not pressured by society to continually make more and more and then most of them are somewhat spiritual, be it Christian or any other religion. Being content with what you are and what you have are greater things to strive for than just to make more money.

 

[Medic!]

Money is the root of all evil! And so is poverty.

 

[ZA_Survivalist]

Money would buy my happiness.
What a shame, a permenent solution to a temporary problem.. Suicide is never the answer if your health is good.

If my entire family were to die nearly at once.. That would be the only thing I could see sending me into a deep depression.. And even then.. I don't think I could off myself..
Id probably become a vagrant though.. Nothing to lose at that point.

 

[Monica Cowles]

Money is the root of all evil! And so is poverty.

Erm...actually, the "LOVE" of money is the root of all evil... 1 Timothy 6:10

 

[308]

Money is the root of all evil! And so is poverty.

Actually it's "The LOVE of money..." if one were to quote it correctly.

 

[308]

Jinx on Me....thanks Monica

 

[albin25]

Happiness isn't something anyone can own...so it can't be purchased.

You can however rent some of it for a while...just don't forget that it can lose all it's value without regular payments of adversity and challenge. Maybe that's why so many people that seem to have it "all", end it "all"...

...They get too far behind in their rent.


Now, as far as this thread and there being a moral dilemma...
Reading about Uber-rich Bankers dying in numbers is kind of like hearing that your mother-in-law drove your new car off a cliff.....definitely mixed emotions.

(PC disclaimer; unless you actually liked your mother-in-law and she really did drive off a cliff, then sorry for your loss)

 

[Glock Jock]

Perhaps money can't buy you happiness, but it's certainly a good down payment!

 

[CoastRange57]

It does not mater how much money you have, if you are laying in a hospital bed with a fing vent tube in your throat, and your family standing in a semi circle around you, you could have 20 bazillion dollars and it would not change a thing.

My multi millionaire bro in law works 7 days a week, 12 or more hours per day. He knows nothing else anymore. He worked yesterday because he could not afford to take the day off, so he says ... sick mfer.

I went steelhead fishing.

 

[Just Jim]

I guess I am just cynical when I read the rich and powerful are killing themselves. Makes me wonder what the feel guilty about enough to kill themselves. It's just really odd for so many to do that.

Of the people I have known to have committed suicide, none were well off and a couple had lost everything. It just seems odd the rich and famous choose that way out.

 

[mjbskwim]

Was it really suicide?. What money does buy is greed.
And professionals that can make murder look like suicide
Or coroners that will determine it was suicide
4 recent deaths over there? Yeah
And I am not cynical ,I just sound like it

 

[teflon6string]

Just speculating here...

I had no idea how many films Robin Williams had acted in until the ubiquitous news blast after his suicide. No idea! 50 I think.

So let's say he averaged a measly $10k in annual royalties from each one. I don't know about most of you guys and gals, but I'd be pretty damned comfy making half a mil every year. And he was doing a hell of a lot better than that.

But to a success-addict in showbiz, universally recognized and adored, a handful of lukewarm movie reviews can equate (from the rarified perspective of a fine mansion on a hillside somewhere near fantasyland) to personal failure. Irrelevant. Obsolete. Disgraced. Worse - forgetable.

Just play along and set the decades-long complications of substance abuse(s) aside.

Now transpose movie stardom to ultra-sucess in any business, politics, medicine, technology, music, sports, whatever... A gigantic ego is an integral component of globally recognized stardom in any arena. Perhaps a bit more so than for the guy who loses his $40k job because he bumped another bus leaving the garage one morning? Or the $120k sales exec who lost a major account?

Maybe a LOT more. The rich and powerful live in a separate reality that most of us cannot relate to no matter how hard we try.

 

[CoastRange57]

The rich and powerful live in a separate reality that most of us cannot relate to no matter how hard we try.

Exactly. Most people of normal means and lifestyle are trying to understand these issues from their perspective of getting up and going to work 5 or more days per week, busting their as@* for a paycheck and hoping MOnday morning dos not bring that "company meeting" with the layoff slips handed out.

The uber rich are lost in a world of wealth and expectation that do not include such worry. You can even see the ads on TV for financial planning that they will manage your wealth, so you can have the big home, college for the kids, get that second home sooner and have the same lifestyle or better in retirement than you do now. Great if everybody has 100K jobs.

No different than trying to understand how shi@bag criminals think and act. Most people have no concept or understanding of that, so trying to relate to it is impossible.

 

[Just Jim]

No different than trying to understand how shi@bag criminals think and act. Most people have no concept or understanding of that, so trying to relate to it is impossible.

I think there are big differences in the bad choices criminals made to become criminals than bankers made to become bankers.

 

[CoastRange57]

Your analogy with criminals and bankers in the same context is interesting. Not much difference in my opinion.

 

[Just Jim]

Your analogy with criminals and bankers in the same context is interesting. Not much difference in my opinion.

True, in some respects there are a lot of bankers that are criminal. Bankers had to be educated to get into the position to commit the crime while your average criminal doesn't have a good education. So where do the morals come from that makes a person good or bad, certianly if you look at all the educated in government you can see they were not given a moral education.

So it's a moral dilemma, why is it with all that education did give them they still choose self destruction?