NEW YORK - IN THE abyss of financial ruin, faced with sure disgrace and possibly prison, some of the newly scandalised rich have taken desperate measures in these despairing times.

The black hole of hopelessness can be overwhelming. A man who lost US$1.4 billion (S$2.11 billion) to Bernie Madoff sits down in his Manhattan office and carefully writes a series of suicide letters to family and friends, then swallows a fatal dose of pills and conscientiously places a wastebasket under his bleeding arm, after slicing it with a box cutter.

Running and hiding RUNNING and hiding is an entirely different reaction. Those who fake their deaths are 'people with sociopathic and narcissistic tendencies,' psychologist Alden Cass says. 'They believe they're smarter than everyone else. They think they're untouchable. They don't believe they have to abide by the rules.' In hindsight, Marcus Schrenker's plan to disappear doesn't appear particularly smart. The 38-year-old Indiana businessman, accused of betraying investors by not telling them about hundreds of thousands in fund fees - and facing a US$533,000 legal judgment - bailed out of his plane, authorities say, two days after losing his court case. ... more

Others are mind-boggling in their brazenness. A financier accused of stealing from his investors boards his private plane alone, sends a fake distress call over Alabama saying his windshield has shattered and he is bleeding profusely, then parachutes from the still-moving Piper Malibu, which is later found in a Florida swamp with no signs of blood or an imploded windshield.

In the past year, there have been more than 10 such incidents, from points across the country and beyond, executed by men whose finances disintegrated, sometimes into greed and possible thievery - with the same dizzying speed of the roller-coaster global market.

In January alone, three cases surfaced. German billionaire investor Adolf Merckle, who lost a fortune in shorted Volkswagen stock, threw himself under a commuter train.

Patrick Rocca, an Irish property investor who lost millions when the real estate market bottomed out, waited until his wife took their children to school before he shot himself in the head. Outside Chicago, real estate mogul Steven L. Good was found dead in his Jaguar, apparently from a self-inflicted gunshot wound.

'Suicide does not discriminate on the basis of social status,' said psychologist Alden Cass, who treats financial traders. 'The ego of the successful person... is not used to failure, not used to being wrong. They're perfectionists. They don't allow for the gray in life. They don't allow for second place. When that is taken away, they're stripped of everything they know.'

Three days before Christmas, after writing his farewell notes, Rene-Thierry Magon de la Villehuchet killed himself in his 22nd-floor office in Midtown. He'd lost his entire savings, and his clients' money, to Madoff's alleged Ponzi scheme, which may have swallowed $50 billion from investments made by the very rich and the pension plans of everyday people.

The 65-year-old Frenchman, an aristocrat and professional investor, was deeply shamed and depressed, friends and family said. He felt he had ruined the lives of his clients, many of whom were friends. His brother, Bertrand, called his brother's suicide an honorable act. 'At first he thought he'd be able to get the moneyback,' Bertrand said in a Paris phone interview with The Associated Press after his brother's death. 'Gradually he realized he wouldn't be able to. He trusted Madoff completely.'

The black dog of depression gnaws at these men. 'They see no answers,' said Mr Cass. 'There is no hope. There is no way out.'

Disgraced or desperate fatcats have a long history in this country. Public lore has stockbrokers falling like rain after the 1929 stock market crash - though the prevalence of such suicides has long been argued.

But Winston Churchill, visiting New York City at the time, wrote of awakening the day after Black Tuesday to a noisy crowd outside the Savoy-Plaza Hotel. 'Under my very window a gentleman cast himself down fifteen storeys and was dashed to pieces, causing a wild commotion and the arrival of the fire brigade.'

In 1933, as the Great Depression peaked, and 25 per cent of the work force had no jobs, the suicide rate of Americans rose from 14 to 17 per 100,000 - the highest in history.

Wall Street trader Jesse Livermore was nicknamed 'Boy Wonder' for his outrageous market antics. In 1907, he made US$3 million by short-selling the market as it crashed. In 1929, he made US$100 million doing the same thing. He owned a series of mansions around the world, each with a full, permanent staff, and possessed a steel-hulled ship for overseas trips.

Mr Livermore told anyone who'd listen to follow his Wall Street strategy: increase your position as the market moves in your direction, and quickly cut your losses. But he often failed to heed his own advice. He lost two fortunes, accumulated a third, and lost that, too. In 1940, in the bar of the Sherry-Netherland Hotel in New York City, he shot himself to death, leaving US$365,000 in debts and a rambling, 8-page suicide note to his second wife. 'I am a failure. I am a failure. I am a failure,' it said. -- AP