
Series of bizarre deaths in the financial world this week - jasey
http://business.financialpost.com/2014/01/31/chief-economists-apparent-suicide-is-the-latest-in-a-series-of-bizarre-deaths-in-the-financial-world-this-week/
======
tptacek
* Chief Economist at Russell, suicide, after problems at work

* A retired Deutche risk manager, suicide

* An MD at Tata Motors, suicide

* An IT manager at JPMC in London, apparent suicide

* An unnamed marketing professional at Swiss Re, cause unknown

This is more like numerology than a "series of deaths in the financial world".
The "financial world" employs many hundreds of thousands of people. especially
when generalized to include commercial, retail, and investment banks, asset
management firms, the entire insurance industry, hedge funds, market data
firms, and analysts. Also, apparently, the automotive industry.

Moreover, these are people with wildly different jobs and levels of seniority.

You can probably generate similar patterns every year, if you look carefully
and track, say, IT executives and marketing managers alongside the Chief
Economists. If you Google some of the names in this article, you'll see that
the news coverage for them frequently does exactly that.

This seems pretty silly. What am I missing?

~~~
r0h1n
The only thing that stands out, for me, is suicide. For instance Tata Motors
CEO Karl Slym committed suicide after an argument with his wife [0]. He was
heading a $35 billion company, and from what I can see, was facing no
fraud/bankruptcy/arrest either.

Makes you wonder what can turn someone at those levels so despondent enough to
end it all?

[0]
[http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/thailand/1060...](http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/thailand/10600321/Tata-
Motors-boss-Karl-Slym-rowed-with-wife-before-apparent-suicide.html)

~~~
tptacek
I don't understand what Tata Motors has to do with the financial industry.

~~~
bertil
Like most car companies now, it's mainly a financial service (to offer
financing options to pay for the car) that subsidises a car-making operation.

~~~
nl
I'm pretty sure that isn't the case.

US car companies seem to operate under this model, but in the rest of the
world the financing income is seen as a useful supplement to income from
selling cars.

For example, Tata's increase in profitability last year is attributed to
increases sales of Jaguar and Landrover cars[1], not profits from financial
services.

[1] [http://www.industryweek.com/finance/tata-motors-profit-
soars...](http://www.industryweek.com/finance/tata-motors-profit-
soars-71-quarter)

~~~
bertil
I know it is the case for both French car companies and Volvo -- meaning the
influence of financiers over the company decisions is stronger than any
engineer: CEO track, risk assessement is about liability not engineering
excellence. Most Japanese and Korean companies are better seen as a
conglomerates (zaibatsu). I've heard similar stories for US companies, but I
don't personally know anyone working for them. It is indeed not the case for
German brands, were the engineering excellence still matters. Tata is a large
group that works far beyond cars: they handle personal finance,
pharmaceuticals, etc. Your link is specifically about the car company, Tata
Motors.

~~~
nl
The OP isn't talking about profit vs loss financial management, they are
referring to the practice of US manufactures of offering finance packages to
purchase a car.

These finance packages are quite lucrative in the US market, and for many US
manufacturers are more profitable than manufacturing.

(The suicide referred to was an executive of Tata Motors)

------
joe_the_user
What would be useful would be a tool to determine how really unusual is some
series of events X. Obviously, you'd have to keep in mind that every day some
number of "highly unlikely" events occurs [1].

Not to dismiss this series of bizarre death but rather, just feeling
frustrated that I can say neither "Woah, something's going on" nor "nothing to
see here folks, move along".

[1]
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Birthday_problem](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Birthday_problem)

~~~
tptacek
Suicide incidence per 100,000 people in the US is ~21 people annually. JPMC
and Citigroup alone employe over 500,000 people. This story cites something
like 6 deaths, in wildly different roles, including that of a retiree.

------
bertil
Since 2007, most bankers have described their situation as significantly more
worrying and stressful. I’m estimating the number of senior executives in that
industry at 50,000 people. Suicide rate for stressed 50-somethings is around
15 per 100,000. That means on average one every three weeks.

That would make a week with seven deaths seem suspicious, but let's consider
the Bernouilli distribution, considering there has been roughly 700 weeks
since 2007: ( (1-( 1-(15/100000/52))^50000 * (15/100000/52))^7 ) ^700 )

Yeah, that's unlikely.

~~~
tptacek
These aren't all bankers, they aren't all senior executives, they aren't all
50, the entire financial industry employs over 1,000,000 people, and you've
understated the suicide rate (you may only be counting the male stat).

The article also doesn't count seven financial industry suicides in a week. It
counts 3 (in that week, and in the [insanely broad] finance industry), and an
auto executive.

~~~
bertil
With your numbers, it indeed become reasonably likely - thanks for that. I'm
always confused by how titles can be inflated in the financial services.

My point was more: when it comes to conspiracy, stay away from story-telling,
and do the math. That forces you to focus on assumption, such as the actual
size for the group considered.

------
jjoe
Was just now researching this (procrast:on). Here's an incomplete list:

1) Tata's managing director Karl Slym

2) Swiss Re's Tim Dickenson communications director

3) Russell Investments’ chief economist Mike Dueker

4) Deutsche Bank's William Broeksmit to become chief risk officer (didn't
materialize)

5) Zurich Insurance Group's finance chief Pierre Wauthier

------
confluence
More like a bunch of people died in a bunch of different jobs this week, so
lets make some faulty correlations on a small sample size.

------
john2x
Sounds very much like in a movie. Very eerie.

~~~
dmlorenzetti
I don't know. They're casting a pretty wide net in their definition of
"financial worker." Basically if you helped run a business, or worked at a
bank, they were willing to count your death.

Without knowing the baseline population they're willing to consider in
assembling their count, it's hard to say, but this might very easily be
explained as a stochastic process that happens to be hitting a peak. It might
even be the case that this sort of death rate happens all the time among the
vast pool of "financial workers," but the Financial Post just happened to
notice it this week.

------
sneak
If anything in this life is certain, if history has taught us anything...

