While I agree that suicide is done by a lot of people who have prior mental illnesses I do think that these men like Merckle who are doing it now are just doing so because they don't want to face the music of their corruption. Instead they choose to opt out and make their families deal with the fall out of the problems. It's cowardly in my opinion and I don't think mental illness had anything to do with it.

Cindy...Ga.

The real tragedy is that this man committed suicide because of money. I'm quite sure people will make jokes about this but I think it would be in poor taste. So many suffer from mental illnesses; I wish more people could be serious about this subject. Many people do not understand how damaging and painful it is to the the families who have one of their own who suffers from a mental illness.

@Cindy:

Why do you say that Merckle was corrupt? Shorting stocks is not illegal.

Sad end to the businessman after a life of glory and achievements. How would of their despair? Indescribable and impossible to determine.

Suicide has always been a very delicate. In medicine, classically, was considered a cowardly attitude, of a weak person, that in front of life problems chose flee dramatically rather than confront them.
Honestly, who diagnosed the suicide this way that is a coward.

The proximity of someone who decides to blow life leaves all perplexed and asking if anything could have done to prevent such a insane gesture.
The pain of interminable dilemma for the friends and relatives: why not saw what was happening?? Has it produced any attempt to communication and we do not understand?

Today, medicine believes the suicide within a context quite different. We know that the brain works at the expense of a number of chemicals that are released to integrate the circuits of neurons called neurotransmitters, which have great importance in the act final of suicide.

There is a single answer because the path of suicide is the ambiguity. Life and death, are complementary, contradictory, repeating this movement endlessly.

It's common seeing people defend and encourage the suicide, but they do not consider most of the human drama of those living with suicide in the family or the suicide within itself. For such objections, we must say that it is necessary to draw society to take some responsibility with the suicides, which does not mean encouraging the action, but encourage discussion because the drama life-death is lived by us all, with our reflections loaded feelings.

I felt for Merkel, especially when the day after his suicide his companies were bailed out. It seemed so ironic and so senseless. If he had just waited another 24 hours.....he might still be alive.

I work at a psychiatric hospital. For the past year of foreclosures, we have had increased referrals for people who are pushed to the brink of suicide by financial stress. This isn't just about money. It's about people's self-image as successful persons. They can't tolerate the blow to their sense of self-worth after losing jobs and then their homes. Not all of them have been previously diagnosed with depression or another mental illness.

The scariest thing has been the increase in impulsive suicide attempts; patients brought to the ER after being found by family or friends after an overdose, cutting their wrists, or attempted hanging. Most of these are not planned - there is no note, or prior statements like "I just wish I could sleep forever."

Our financial crisis has turned into a mental health crisis and I am afraid that we may not have the nationwide capacity to help all those in need. Our hospital often is under census in the summer. This year it was filled to capacity. The crisis is compounded by the fact that state and federal deficits are leading to budget cuts in all but the most dire services for mental illness.

I fervently hope that the Obama administration will find a way to give people hope for a better tomorrow, or there will be more stories of people giving way to the ultimate act of despair.

It is unfortunate that Adolf Merckle committed suicide over financial losses due to the worldwide recession. I still can't beleive he would do it unless he was flat broke