Where Have All the Bankers Gone?

A popular myth persists that there were wholesale suicides after the 1929 Great Crash. Centre-left economic historian, JK Galbraith, skewered this theory when he analyzed the statistics in the wake of the Wall Street Crash, which preceded the great depression.

Nearly a century later, a remarkable uptick in banker suicides has raised questions with at least 6 suspicious deaths in recent weeks. Two men jumped from the top of JP Morgan skyscrapers alone (one each in London and Hong Kong).

[...]

Pending toxicology reports on a third JPMorgan death, and even if we dismiss the death of a Tata motors MD in Thailand, a remarkable number of dubious deaths/suicides have occurred in recent weeks, alongside some unexplained disappearances.

  RT

Hate to see them go.

And about that myth - wholesale suicides?  Hey, six in a few weeks seems like a pretty big deal. 

There are many things wrong with contemporary finance which need fixing (especially those dubious links with government), but the premature demise of fellow humans is not something to celebrate here.

Well, excuuuuuuuuse me.  Who's celebrating?  I just don't feel all that sorry.

Ultimately, all banks have a surfeit of candidates at the top and many talented personnel are squeezed out. Stress driving insecurity builds alongside a gradual realization that outside the (perversely) competitive but cosseting investment bank environment, many managers simply cannot envisage coping. In a world where the taper terror and a decade of dismal government have led us to the brink of ongoing crisis, it is easy to see why sadly, some are driven to take their lives.

Okay. So where does that leave the unexplained disappearances? Did those bankers take the money and run?  Were they "removed" from the possibility of spilling the beans?

However, with the euro crisis festering, emerging markets in chaos and no clear understanding of western economic resilience to tapering...one thing ought to be clear: Bankers have never been more insecure.

Gee, I feel bad for them.

Yet another dark cloud is looming over global banks as officials examine their behavior in the massive foreign exchange market, threatening to deal a new blow to earnings and reputations.

Regulators in the U.S., Europe and Asia are in the early stages of investigating whether traders at the world's top banks manipulated foreign exchange benchmarks to profit at the expense of their clients.

Goldman Sachs (GS, Fortune 500), Citigroup (C, Fortune 500), JP Morgan (JPM, Fortune 500), Deutsche Bank (DB), Barclays (BCS), Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS), UBS (UBS) and HSBC (HBCYF) are among the firms in their sights.

  Money, Nov. 2013

More than 20 traders across Wall Street have either been put on leave, suspended or fired since the foreign exchange investigations were formally announced in October.

  Reuters, Feb 5, 2014

And what are they keeping from us this time? All that’s gone before could well have just been the beginning cracks.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.