Disappointed in the truth about the Great Depression.

I woke up this morning, turned on the financial news, and got to pondering why we weren't hearing any stories of financial wizards throwing themselves out of the 25th story windows.

Well did some research, and I guess they never really did, it was just considered good press at the time to hype the possibility, and make the lower classes feel less targetted. Maybe that's what we need today...a little more press about the downtrodded and destitute upper classes.

Hard to swallow that the working man is taking it on the chin while the Gatsbyites are still partying in their exotic playgrounds.

http://www.straightdope.com/columns...rash-did-investors-really-jump-out-of-windows

 

I did see a story on one of the business stations about the wealthy selling off their jewelry and art collections, stuff that isn't visible to their neighbors and friends. Can't say that it made me feel warm and fuzzy, afterall they were still heating and cooling their homes and having steak for dinner.

 

im sure someone or two flung themselves out a window,just not by the hundreds.
ive heard sometime after the great depression they changed the codes to require windows not open and be made of shatter proof glass. i would think that and the fact that americans have become weak and gutless has a lot to do with it.. .

remember the same class of folks are being let go today as back then. the CEO's were not jumping out windows/committing suicide,traders were.im sure there are suicides occurring now as well.

 

Maybe we can push Henry Paulson and Richard Fuld out a window... just to improve morale.

 

Good sleuthing gum-shoe!

That is pretty interesting thanks for the info.

 

This guy shot him self on the trading floor.
“A stock exchange trader has shot himself in the chest on the trading floor of Sao Paulo’s” http://www.strangenewstoday.com/?p=671

In Sao Paulo I bet people who hire investors are a lot of drug dealers I wonder if the guy though we was going to get tortured and killed after work. lol

 

My mother, who is 85 and grew up during the depression/ ww2 (she was 18 when Pearl Harbor happened) was commenting about suicides last week. She remembered that people threw themselves out windows, but they aren't this time. If the actual suicides are true or not, I am not going to break her bubble, but she did have an interesting comment: She said they probably aren't committing suicide because they feel no shame for losing other people's money.

 

Nice insight. My folks are gone so I can't ask them but I remember them talking about it. And also remember my first boss in the seventies telling me she still received a five dollar check every year for the money that was in her savings at the time the bank closed. She didn't feel she'd ever live long enough to get it all back, and she probably didn't she died in the late eighties. It was her college money in the bank. She'd worked for ten years after high school to pay for it. She ended up having to work her way through school. Took her twice as long. But she ended up with a Masters in Library Science anyway.

 

My Father often spoke of growing up in The depression in Jersey City, NJ.

It was a horse-drawn world.

His Father was lucky he got a job with Jersey City Municipal Goverment.

Each New Years Day; my Dad, acompanied my Grandfather to City Hall where he shook the hand of Mayor Frank Hauge in gratitude for the position.

At that time Jersey City politicians could deliver the electoral votes of New Jersey to The Democratic ticket. President Rosevelt responded with gratitude and patronage. They built Margaret Hauge Hospital where my Aunt worked, and tended to Mayor Frank Hauge when he was sick.

Mayor Hauge had a big summer house at the Jersey Shore in Deal, NJ. He was questioned by news reporters about how he could afford such a luxurious residence on a civil servants salary. He replied: Good investments! People in Jersey City did not begrudge him his vacation house, he won re-election easily.


They gained no satisfaction from the misfortunes of anybody else. My Father had a gift to appreciate and respect others. To him the thought of gaining satisfaction from someone jumping out a window would be appaling. For him, life was about his children, preparing them for a future, instilling values, his material condition was not uppermost on his mind. He had no space for jealousy and schadenfreude to more successful people.

 

Materials science has improved substantially since 1929, double glazed laminated toughened safety glass, which is strong enough to be used as an integral structural component of some skyscrapers, is impenetrable to even the most heaviest of brokers.

 

Well I do tend to gain a little satisfaction from seeing those responsible for the worsening plight of others pay for their transgretions. If they never do, then where is there justice?

It seems your father benefitted from the misuse of political power. I am sorry that I can't take sympathy with the fact that your father genuflected to Hauge.

 

It appears instead of actually jumping out of windows, today they fake their own deaths, and still retain their assets.

http://www.cnn.com/2009/US/01/13/pilot.assets/index.html?eref=rss_topstories

Perhaps he wasn't talking about biological blood, but rather his investments.

 

We will be able to tell our grandkids lots of stories by the time this is over. I think a lot more people will be disappearing when people start asking for their money.

I was reading about this guy to day.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7834924.stm

I wonder if he has a yacht docked at a Caribbean island?