In the last two months, there has been a rash of suicides and mysterious deaths sweeping the world of high finance.
JPMorgan has been hardest hit, with three untimely deaths in just the last few weeks, and last week Autumn Radtke (left), a 28-year-old CEO of First Meta, a small cyber-currency exchange, jumped to her death in Singapore.
Historically, suicide rates rise during times of financial stress and economic downturns. Now, though stocks are at or near all-time highs, for many Wall Street bankers these are times of setbacks and stress.
Today’s bankers are not a settled, comfortable bunch anymore. A day doesn’t go by where you don’t hear about more bank layoffs and branch closings.
Under Jamie Dimon’s leadership, JPMorgan has announced 17,000 job cuts through the end of this year, and that’s on top of all the cuts from the 2008-09 crisis.
If you’re a banker today, many who once looked up to you as a success now think you’re evil; maybe you’re even the type who caused the economy to crumble.
On top of that, you hear politicians from the president on down blaming “Wall Street and bankers” for the crisis, as if they were all the same, when in reality it was only five or six individuals very high up at places like Bear Stearns and Lehman Bros. who share responsibility.
Financially, many of today’s bankers, if not on unemployment, are making far less — as much as half or one-third less — than they did just four or five years ago. And that’s not easy for anyone, especially when you have a mortgage of your own, a family and a car or two.
For example, overall average compensation at JPMorgan was $122,653 in 2013. That amount is nothing to sneeze at, but it is still a lot less than the bankers were making before — often for a 60-to 80-hour work week.
When we lose a person like Autumn Radtke — who worked for Apple and directly for Richard Branson and became CEO of her own startup — from a 25-story apartment building because she can’t see the worth of living, the world loses.
And today many Wall Street bankers are in the midst of their own emotional and economic crises.