CNBC Reports That Adolf Merckle Committed Suicide.

The German press is reporting that Adolf Merckle, who has been described as Germany's Warren Buffett, died when hit by a train. CNBC reported that Merckle committed suicide. He had lost a lot of money in a short squeeze on Volkswagen stock, but had reportedly obtained a bridge loan to shore up his investment company.

Somehow, Edwin Arlington Robinson's poem comes to mind:

Richard Cory


Whenever Richard Cory went downtown
We people on the pavement looked at him:
He was a gentleman from sole to crown,
Clean favored, and imperially slim,

And he was always quietly arrayed.
And he was always human when he talked,
But still he fluttered pulses when he said,
“Good morning,” and he glittered when he walked

And he was rich-- yes, richer than a king,
And admirably schooled in every grade:
In fine, we thought that he was everything
To make us wish that we were in his place.

So on we worked, and waited for the light,
And went without the meat, and cursed the bread;
And Richard Cory, one calm summer night,
Went home and put a bullet through his head.

Edwin Arlington Robinson (1897)



Source: volokh.com