Swine flu?  Does it REALLY deserve melodramatic 24/7 coverage??

 hippiechick wrote: 
and when it calls, answer the phone and say,

 Zep wrote: 
I once heard someone describe suicide as an act of rage... because it's so cruel to those around you.  Very often those with SI (suicidal ideation) are more about themselves and wallowing.  Often those who kill themselves have weighed their personal pain against the pain they will cause their families, and they still choose to end their own pain because it is simply unbearable.

For me, I seem to have been born without the gene that makes a person upset and/or fearful of dying.  I am upset/fearful about discomfort, so it's not like I'm a daredevil.   But not fearing death means that suicide seems like a possible option when things are terribly painful.  EXCEPT that I have people who would hurt.  And I love them, and I do not want to ever intentionally cause them hurt.  I mean, even if I'm really really really really mad at my husband, I would never want him to hurt like that.  I suppose it's why the universe gave me kids... and two of them... as double insurance against knocking myself off, since I seem to lack the instincts that would otherwise protect me. 

Of course, there's no saying which of these scenarios matches the Freddie Mac guy... Except that there is not much doubt that someone was caused pain by his departure.

 hippiechick wrote: 
I used to think that suicide was selfish until I started to have a better understanding of mental illness.  People who are truly, deeply mentally ill and are in a pit of hopelessness are not thinking like most of us so we'll never know what they are experiencing.  I've known people who have committed suicide and never really changed the way I felt until a good friend of mine did.  His girlfriend, one of my best friends, came home with their 1-year-old daughter and found that he had hung himself.

Some people, probably a lot that we've heard about recently, could be on the edge and something traumatic is just enough to push them over when all along, everyone around them thought that they were OK.  I had a friend who is bipolar and was doing great...as a matter of fact, most of us didn't even know.  Then 911 happened and he went way beyond over the edge.  He was a different person who none of us had known before.  He was out of his mind, paranoid and had delusions of grandeur. 

These two events opened my eyes because I saw first-hand that my friends were not themselves and living in a completely different state of mind.  The second one got help, eventually, after many long, difficult months but now he is thriving and loving life.  I just wish the same could be said for the first one.  (OK, tearing up now).

I'm not by any means condoning suicide...these are just my thoughts.  I don't know what kind of person kills himself who isn't mentally ill but maybe they do exist and are being selfish and taking the easy way out.  But I don't know so I try not to judge.

 Zep wrote:

...and that is an interesting scenario...after a big expensive trial...paid for by taxpayers on both sides most likely...the person gets sentenced to ten years federal time...federal prison for non-violent white collar crime really is a walk in the park...no really!...some of 'em have little parks for the inmates to walk around in!...get to write a book conjugal visits take up a hobby have a little job...I wonder what percentage of the 'society' on the outside gets to live like that?...and around and around it goes...RESPECT!...

 

 phineas wrote:
 

Leeches are 'worms' with suckers on each end.

Perhaps a very apt description for people who take their livelihood from sucking commissions out of the financial transactions which they generate in the process of creating and manipulating markets for financial instruments, some of which are of dubious value.

I would like to ask people to refrain from making a judgment about people who commit suicide. That person is suffering very badly, in a way you could not imagine unless you have been there. I'ts not an easy decision, not a cheap way out, and the person prolly thinks he is doing his family a favor by saving them from his suffering, when, in actuality, he is passing that suffering onto his family for the rest of their lives and the lives of the children to follow.

 smokinsean wrote:
I should avoid speculating any further as I really know nothing about him. He might have left behind enough for his family to live on, but he himself is not around - and that's the take-away here: his life was about money, and maybe he lost sight of what really mattered.  I made the comment about sticking around as a caustic, sarcastic rejoinder.

He should be made to stand for any crimes he may have committed. The basis of criminal punishment is that society gains some benefit from seeing the guilty deprived of what we all take for granted. 

 Beaker wrote: 
Fucking leeches throughout the financial community.

See ya...

 smokinsean wrote: 
I just wanted to say that I heart you for using the word schadenfreude.  There's just something about that word (not the meaning) that I love.

 Zep wrote: 

...he chose his own fate and took his life in his own hands...literally...my statement is purely my opinion...I have never been overtly suicidal or had an immediate family member choose thier fate in such a selfish way so I wouldn't know the clarity OR gravity of the situation...the statements about courtesy to stick around and make amends somehow sound rather uninformed to me...again I don't think any grown man w/a family would come to this decision lightly...something tells me he will have financially looked after his family...and maybe that's why he offed himself as the business he was in did not look after thousands of families that trusted them with thier money and assets...

 Beaker wrote: 
Sorry you missed the concept of the post.

 phineas wrote: 
Remember the movie "Wall Street"? It's just pure greed. "Right livelihood" is a term that means that you make money, but it's in the interest of improving the world, not raping the economy so that you can do whatever rich people do with their money. Where is the morality?

A quote from an unidentified TARP wife:

I haven't even looked at spring clothes; God forbid someone catches me out in something new. Keeping up with fashion seems somehow decadent in this new era, like getting Botox injections or catered dinners... If I buy a present for someone, I have the package sent to their home. I don't want to be spotted climbing into a taxi, laden with Bergdorf Goodman shopping bags.

 phineas wrote: 
/rant on/
Bravo!  and as usual, Beaker's logic is wildly skewed....as I tell my students frequently: it's all about SCALE.  The earnings of one human and right to get ahead are not a valid comparison to the deliberate actions ( or "look the other way" INactions)  of someone who has been charged with such IMMENSE social and fiscal responsibility.   His actions affected THOUSANDS of people, and indeed our entire economy.  No doubt Beak's rebuttal will be some GOP ideology about "well if we had smaller gov't and completely unrestrained free markets this wouldn't have happened"....Oh, really?!?!  REALLY?!?!  Cause that's essentially what these financial institutions have had lo these past several years....free reign, unregulated largely for these "new financial instruments".  All in the name of "it's perfectly legal". 

 Ideology is just that, and not always practical for everyday life.  And certainly not when tainted by the very human foible of greed.  /end of rant/

All that said, my sympathies to his family, who will mourn their loved one, and endure the social stigma that his 16 long years at Freddie Mac wrought on his legacy.
So to make a long story short, I agree with you Phin...

 hippiechick wrote: 
"In the moment" is the kind of thing that's working for me when the hive gets too stirred up.
 
Sounds like you have good, adult relationships with your kids.

 cc_rider wrote: 
Yup. I've noted before that, over dinner and drinks, I've asked both this guy and his wife (also a financial type) the "what do you do for business?" thing and been given the response: "Oh, it's complicated — no one really knows what I do..hehehe...." Yeah, well now we know.  (edit: and what, you're saying I'm too stupid to understand? Try me. These people knew, in their hearts, that they were part of a big, expensive (to others) sham — I have no doubt about that.

I've got zero problem with wealth and earnings and them's that's got em. I've got a big problem with money for nothing, based on nothing.

 phineas wrote: 
Six years ago I went as far as writing letters to my kids. My daughter said to me "How would you feel if I killed myself?" and I said that I don't know how I would go on, and she said to me "That's how I would feel, so please don't do it." So, I always keep that in mind, even as it calls to me almost every single day.

In a book I'm reading on meditation, there's an exercise in compassion where you focus on someone who is in pain through no fault of their own. The next exercise is where you focus on someone whose suffering is due to their own beliefs/actions. The focus there is to support that person's ability to get insight into their situation so that their suffering can ease. I'm sure in our heart of hearts, we can all relate to these two kinds of suffering.

 smokinsean wrote: 
People don't choose their fates for societal crimes because that is for society to choose.

Suicide is a cheap way out. If you did something bad in this life, you should have the courtesy to stick around and make amends somehow.  Suicide just leaves everyone in limbo, with nowhere to go. 

I know nothing of what this guy did financially, but it can't compare to what he did to his wife this morning. 

 hippiechick wrote: 
Excellent point.
 
For me, the ultimate point of ever warding it off was to think of the 'selfishness' of it — leaving others to deal with whatever left after the act, leaving others behind... (if that makes sense)