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SKEPTOID BLOG:

Why Are Bankers Killing Themselves in Droves?

by Mike Rothschild

March 3, 2014

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Donate The idea that “mysterious deaths” circle around major events or people is central to the mythology of conspiracy theories. From the Clintons and Barack Obama to the JFK assassination and 9/11 to whistleblowing journalists and UFO researchers, those with their eyes opened believe the Globalist Controllers have the power to kill anyone, anywhere and make it look like an accident or suicide.

So when a cluster of bankers and major players in the financial industry died within a few weeks 2014, it raised eyebrows. Even more bizarre is that many of them worked for JP Morgan, are of similar ages and died by either unknown or self-inflicted causes.

Nine “banksters” all dying mysteriously and all within the same short span of time. What’s going on here? Are loose ends being tied up? Were they about to go public about something terrible? Is another economic crash around the corner or something even worse, like a financial reset, foreign currency scandal or total economic collapse? Did these poor souls know things they weren’t supposed to?

When examining these so called “death lists” it’s important not to mistake coincidence for conspiracy. It’s also important to get past the click-bait headlines and “just asking questions” ethos of websites in need of ad revenue.

Sure, “nine bankers mysteriously dying in a month” sounds weird and creepy. But every death that occurs for reasons other than natural causes is inherently “mysterious” until the reasons for why it happened are determined. So is there something else that explain this string of deaths, other than “they were taken out by the Powers That Be?”

Let’s take a look at the lists, and then we can go from there. In the last month, three JP Morgan employees died, all with different positions and in different cities. They are:

• Gabriel Magee, 39, vice president, corporate and investment bank technology, London, January 28, jumped off a building
• Ryan Henry Crane, 37, executive director, New York, February 3, unknown causes
• Li Junjie, 33, finance, Hong Kong, February 18, jumped off a building

Other sources then add a number of names to the list, anywhere between six and nine bankers who dies under “mysterious circumstances.” This is the list that’s most commonly being used on sites trying to make a connection between the deaths:

• David Bird, 55, Wall Street Journal writer covering OPEC, New Jersey, January 11, went missing on walk
• Tim Dickenson, age unknown, Communications director at Swiss Re AG, London, January 21, unknown causes
• William Broeksmit, 58, former senior risk manager at Deutsche Bank, London, January 26, suicide by hanging
• Karl Slym, 51, managing director of Tata Motors, Bangkok, January 27, death by jumping out window
• Mike Dueker, 50, chief economist at Russell Investments, Washington State, January 31, death by falling
• Richard Talley, 57, founder of American Title Services, Denver, February 4, shot himself with nail gun
• James Stuart, Jr., 70, Former National Bank of Commerce CEO, Scottsdale, February 19, unknown causes

Even just a cursory glance at the list turns the “nine dead banksters” narrative into a shambles. Two of the names, Bird and Slym, had nothing to do with banks or banking, working in journalism and the automotive industry. Two of the others, Broeksmit and Stuart, were retired and no longer working in the financial sector. Stuart was also 70, and it’s reasonable to think he passed away of natural causes (a cause of death hasn’t been released for several people on the “list.”)

Further, Dickenson worked in communications and presumably wasn’t involved with financial operations. Talley hadn’t worked in finance in decades, and his company was under investigation by Colorado state insurance regulators at the time of his death because of missing escrow funds. And while theorists point to Talley’s gruesome manner of suicide as some kind of clue that he was “taken out,” self-shooting by nail gun is actually not uncommon.

So through the smallest bit of research, our list of “nine dead bankers” has actually become “four dead bankers.” And believe it or not, this is simply not an unusually high number of deaths in the field of finance, even given the similar cause and short period of time.

JP Morgan is a huge company, employing over 250,000 people around the world. Three suicides over three weeks by those who work there is, sadly, a perfectly reasonable expectation given the size of the company, the stress and pressure of working with vast amounts of other people’s money and the long hours many upper-tier finance employees work. There’s no indication that the three knew each other, were involved in the same work or had any connection beyond working in the same massive corporation. The fact that they were all “bankers” is not even accurate, given that Magee actually worked in IT.

Furthermore, we know suicides are contagious, so to speak. For a variety of psychological and social factors, one high profile death often leads to copycat suicides. There’s no reason to think this wouldn’t be as true in the financial sector as it in in schools.

The suicides did send a shiver through banking centers, but not because of a vast conspiracy or the threat of Illuminati hoods tying up loose ends. It was a reminder of the fear that many finance employees live under. Fear of making a mistake, fear of losing their jobs, fear of making a bad deal or investment. It brought home the incredible scrutiny many live with, given the financial crisis, the massive amount of new regulations they deal with and their need to justify high salaries. And in the vicious, kill or be killed world of Wall Street, asking for help with the stress of your job can be seen as a sign that you don’t want it, or worse, that you can’t hack it.

People who are overworked, under intense pressure and feel unable to get help often take desperate actions. And sometimes, they take the most desperate action of all: taking their own life.

And that’s the real tragedy here. Not a non-existent economic collapse, FOREX scandal or Globalist Controller takeover. It’s the widowed wives and orphaned children. It’s the friends and colleagues who will never know why these suicides happened or what they could have done to prevent them. Yes, shockingly, even "banksters" have people who love them - and those people are left behind if they commit suicide.

In short, the “mystery” that surrounds this string of deaths is the same mystery that surrounds any death, especially one that’s self-inflicted.

by Mike Rothschild

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