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Yesterday a friend of ours killed himself. Four years ago he got furloughed at the age of 52. He's been looking for a job for four years. He worked for a year at a 7-11 but his knees were so bad that he had to quit the job. This man had a msters in chemical engineering but when he went for interviews he heard the following:

"We don't think you have the energy we need for this position."

"We're looking for a younger image for our company."

"You're unemployable. You shouldn't be wasting a company's time by applying for a position."

"You're over-qualified for this position."

"We like to get our people right out of college and train them our way."

These are all illegal..but try to prove it.

I was over his house last week and I could see that he was pretending to be upbeat. I could see that he was beat down and it would be hard to get back on his feet. His wife has a job were she makes about $25,000 a year and that was keeping them in food but little else.

I tried to help him when he told me that he was a drain on society. but I never thought he would kill himself.

I'm really down on Wall Street and the government right now so I won't comment on them. I know that any comments I make would be irrational. I just had to get this off of my chest.

Sorry for the loss of your friend and for the loss of a Husband to a wife.

Sorry for your loss. Too bad nobody saw this coming. Where the hell was his family?

There is too much to enjoy in daily life to let pride over a screwed up career end it all.

I almost died in a car accident last year. I lost over an inch from one leg and had multiple surgeries and spent some time in a wheel chair. The time at home with my family made me decide to scale down my business and move it to/work from home. I love it. Like a strange blessing of some kind. Or an early semi retirement. Life is too short to begin with. When you've got lemons, make lemonade.

brandon wrote:The time at home with my family made me decide to scale down my business and move it to/work from home. I love it. Like a strange blessing of some kind. Or an early semi retirement. Life is too short to begin with. When you've got lemons, make lemonade.

Starting my own business more than a decade ago was the best thing I ever did, other than getting married and having kids - and I wish I had the balls to do it earlier.

He must not have loved his wife or family much, or at all, to do that to her and them.

This will make the conservative heads here explode, but if the guy had to quit a job because of his knees, that sounds like a legitimate disability. And if he was your friend why didn't you try to help him when you saw that he was "beat down" and you knew it was going to be tough for him? Why didn't you help him a few years ago when he lost his job? And the years in between? Were you and your other friends too embarrassed to be around him because he worked at Seven Eleven? If this was enough to make this man kill himself, and no one caught it, it sounds like he was around some selfish, vain and materialistic people.

Truly a sad story.

Sorry for the loss, but where were his friends when he needed them? He and his family were forced to live on his wife's 25K a year, why didn't his friends and family help him out???? It's really hard to believe his Church wasn't providing him with some type of financial and counseling assistance. It sounds like a "lot of people" let that poor man down, plus he must have lived in the dredge of society to have so many businesses being so open about their unlawful reasons for not hiring him. Where I live those businesses wouldn't last a week if that was their practice. How do people there look at themselves in the mirror?

Snakeoil if I were you I'd get me and my family the hell away from that area, it sounds like the sewer of America occupied by animals not caring people.

I've been away from this site for a while and just read the comments.

Brandon...We helped him as much as we could. We tried to help him get a job but his age seemed to be a hindrence. We suggested going into teaching but even the local schools gave him that bullshit that he was too old (they put it very round-about though.) We included him in all our activities that we could and tried constantly to encourage him. It's very hard to step into someone's life without getting slammed for it.

Justme...I live in a state that is considered very good for business. This sort of age discrimination goes on everywhere. Years ago I was on a $750 million project and the company laid off the PM (probably 40 years experience) and hired a recent college graduate for half the money. It was a disaster but the company set the rate for that job. All of the interiewer responses are totally illegal...but just try to prove it when it's just you and the interviewer in the room. I know a local buinessman that regularly puts a blind ad for people in the newspaper "to see if there's anything out there better than what I have now." "If I find someone better I'll fire one of the ones I employ now." Believe me, it goes on all of the time everywhere in the country.

The world financial markets are in control and they are in the business of skimming, scamming, fraud, gambling, and otherwise extracting capital out of the economy and putting it into private pockets while do contributing to the economy.

Investors invest in new productivity. assets, employees, and operations, and technologies. Real financial markets provide capital for such investment. Sadly, that is but a tiny fraction in what is passed off as our modern financial markets.

A tiny fraction of our commodity markets are backed by actual production. The vast bulk is pure booking making, trading in futures that are created on book and have no connection to any asset other than the contractual obligation to deliver the asset (by purchasing it on the open markets at some later date). This creates INSTABILITY in the futures markets.

A tiny fraction of our derivative markets are backed by actual assets. The vast bulk is pure booking making, trading in fderivatives that are created on book and have no connection to any asset other than the contractual obligation to deliver the asset (by purchasing it on the open markets at some later date). This creates INSTABILITY in the derivatives markets.


Both are nothing more than gambling, book making. They should be honestly presented and regulated as gambling and not as financial markets and transactions. They should not be allowed to contractually connect themselves to the financial markets, require delivery and purchase of assets, futures, and derivatives on the open asset, real futures, and real derivatives markets. It's time that the tail NO LONGER wags the dog in our financial markets.

Unfortunately for our current financial markets and it's employees, there would be 98% less work if they were only engaged in actual finance of real investment. The good news is that the gambling industry is doing quite well and employes a shitload of wealthy people and more attempting to get wealthy. The brightest of their generation.

Unfortunately, these people contribute nothing to our society and any real productive economy that benefits the people.