Does The Trail Of Dead Bankers Lead Somewhere?

What are we to make of this sudden rash of banker suicides? Does this trail of dead bankers lead somewhere? Or could it be just a coincidence that so many bankers have died in such close proximity? I will be perfectly honest and admit that I do not know what is going on. But there are some common themes that seem to link at least some of these deaths together. First of all, most of these men were in good health and in their prime working years. Secondly, most of these "suicides" seem to have come out of nowhere and were a total surprise to their families. Thirdly, three of the dead bankers worked for JP Morgan. Fourthly, several of these individuals were either involved in foreign exchange trading or the trading of derivatives in some way. So when "a foreign exchange trader" jumped to his death from the top of JP Morgan's Hong Kong headquarters this morning, that definitely raised my eyebrows. These dead bankers are starting to pile up, and something definitely stinks about this whole thing.

I have to thank you for putting into perspective what I’ve been feeling lately. The scale of the problems in the financial markets brought upon me this puckering in the pit of my stomach that was familiar, but at the same time, coupled with a dread so thick that I did not recognize it as it was occurring to me.

It is that feeling of diminishment in the face of something so large the mind struggles to put it in perspective. When this occurs in nature, fear is a common companion, but the awe is what distinguishes it from its opposite here.

Jon Corzine used $1.6B in customer deposits, knew he was doing it, and walked away scot-free. He ruined MF Global, a century-old company, in the process. I struggled to get my head around that for months.

Floating above the Gulf Stream on a swim call somewhere off of Bermuda, I put on a scuba mask and looked down. There was no bottom - just a China blue abyss. It was like being suspended in air above the earth in space and not being able to see the ground.

The awe and fear struck so hard it caused me to hyperventilate. It is one of the best feelings I’ve ever had. It took minutes for me to put my head down to look into the abyss and achieve a forcibly steady breathing pattern.

Another number that struck me a few years back was the amount of CDO paper out there - somewhere in the neighborhood of $64T, which compared to over twice the planet’s GDP. It’s a number so large you know there is no way to unwind it. That number was a 2010 number. Who knows what happened to it, but I suspect its only one unfathomable number.

Maybe some folks bet the wrong way at JPM and there are folks trying to keep the biggest domino in the world from falling first and crushing every other domino in the planet in the first second of it falling?

The stories have gotten a lot of news coverage. And it is the case that suicide is “contagious”, in that a suicide will tend to increase the number of subsequent suicides within the same population.

So as an example, if there is a suicide by a child in a school system, the schools now take quick action to offer counseling, because they know there is an increased chance that other students will think about committing suicide.

This leads to reports about a “rash of suicides”.

http://nypost.com/2014/02/18/jpmorgan-bankers-suicide-is-3rd-mysterious-death-for-company/

http://www.foxbusiness.com/industries/2014/02/20/concerns-over-recent-banker-deaths-mount/

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2014/jan/29/two-top-level-us-bankers-commit-suicide-london/

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2547684/TWO-senior-American-bankers-working-London-commit-suicide-just-two-days-one-jumped-500ft-death-JP-Morgan-skyscraper.html

http://www.nytimes.com/1863/02/01/news/suicide-wealthy-banker-st-nicholas-hotel-coroner-s-inquest-alleged-cause-act.html

OK, the last one is from 1863.....

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