Following the stock market crash of 1929, there were plenty of rumors of bankers and the 1% of the time committing suicide by jumping out of windows on Wall Street. Never happened. Fast forward to the modern economic crisis and there are real stories of real people - regular people, not the 1% - who are committing suicide. In March, a Greek retiree shot and killed himself in a public square in Athens and now more reports of suicide are being reported, out of a country that is not known for suicide. And still no justice with the bankers? Why does everyone else have to pay the price for the crimes of the banks?
On Monday, a 38-year-old geology lecturer hanged himself from a lamp post in Athens and on the same day a 35-year-old priest jumped to his death off his balcony in northern Greece. On Wednesday, a 23-year-old student shot himself in the head. In a country that has had one of the lowest suicide rates in the world, a surge in the number of suicides in the wake of an economic crisis has shocked and gripped the Mediterranean nation - and its media - before a May 6 election. The especially grisly death of pharmacist Dimitris Christoulas, who shot himself in the head on a central Athens square because of poverty brought on by the crisis that has put millions out of work, was by far the most dramatic.
