George Harris KC Star Reader Advisory Panel 2008
Losses in financial markets appear to have been the stimulus for several suicides around the world by some of the world’s (perhaps formerly) wealthiest people.
For example, Adolf Merckle, a German ranked as the world's 94th richest person by Forbes, was found Monday night after an apparent suicide. There may be other reasons for the suicides, but financial losses appear to be a trigger.
People with more modest portfolios are also feeling depressed about their losses in the market. Retirement plans are being postponed and vacations canceled.
Of course, in some cases people are losing their homes, but many people feeling blue aren’t experiencing actual disruption but rather the perception that they are poorer than they used to be.
A friend asked me this week if I have felt anxious or depressed about the decline almost everyone with retirement accounts has seen in those accounts.
I said I’m not thrilled with the market decline, but the fact is that contributions placed in retirement accounts before 2001 are still intact. What has been lost is the gain we THOUGHT we had in the last five or six years.
Then my inner psychologist asks if I’m rationalizing things to avoid feeling depressed. And the answer is, who knows, but that’s better than feeling depressed...and maybe suicidal.
The title of one of my favorite books is “The Situation is Hopeless but Not Serious.” With a little humor, maybe we’ll all survive the financial downturn and ultimately prosper. If it takes some denial and rationalization, well, count me in for that, too!
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Harris - the media has a role too
Please tell you buddies that at the Star. I'm not saying they should report economic bad news with rose-colored glasses, but they can refrain from dooms-day reporting to sell papers. As you may be aware, sometimes people don't know how bad they have it, until someone constantly drives it home. In economic terms, where we have an economy dependent on the consumer, that becomes real important.