I agree with the point made in the article. It always seemed to me that a financier killing themselves was more selfish and less serving than facing court or public ridicule. The suicide removes them from the situation and everyone else is left to pick up the pieces. At least by remaining alive, the person can do something, anything to help the situation.

*It does help to solve the looming over-population problem that is imminent with our limited amount of room and resources on this planet.

Sorry, just a bit of cynicism. You are correct, it only makes THEIR problems go away, and exacerbates our problems here on solid ground.

What about the most extreme villain we've seen so far, Sir Bernie? It's not obvious to me how his rotting in prison can do "something, anything to help the situation". And to the contrary, I would bet money that some of his victims would feel better (whether they would ever admit so publicly or not) knowing that he had taken his life as a sign of shame and contrition.

He would leave suffering family members and friends of course. But really, it's silly to say that none of his victims would take comfort in his suicide. They are human too. Not all of them have achieved Buddha-like states of mercy, forgiveness, and detachment. Most are probably in some gray area where part of them would feel relief and another part would feel sadness.

If any case could possibly justify a suicide due to financial loss/fraud, it would be the Madoff case. However, I personally feel that seeing him rot in prison (and his wife left penniless if there is any justice) would be better than him simply ending it all.

Since Madoff didn't kill himself Japanese-style, I'd like to see the state do it for him, Chinese-style: shoot him like a rabid dog, then send his wife a bill for the bullet.