LIFE IS GOOD

The year 1929 was bad by any standards. Many fortunes that by now would be coating the silver spoons of a third generation vanished. It was tragic, sure, but the reports of people ending their seemingly worthless lives with bone-crushing belly flops on the sidewalks of Wall Street were exaggerated, according to John Kenneth Galbraith in his 1955 book “The Great Crash, 1929.” The most popular method was gas. And yes, some desperate souls sat at mahogany desks with their bank notes scattered atop and put bullets through their brains. But it wasn't as if one October, 74 years ago, people suddenly and collectively offed themselves. That took years. The suicide rate climbed slowly but steadily before leveling off in 1934. This historical phenomenon came to mind last week when someone posed the question, “Where is Joe Nacchio?” I started thinking about worthlessness and, stream of consciousness being what it is, about the whole telecom/dot-com collapse. Then I thought: Given the fortunes that slipped through people's fingers in this young century, why did we not have a similar wave of deadly decampment, or at least some yellow journalism suggesting such? Could it be that our social development has advanced to where we no longer measure our true worth by the size of our bank accounts? Hardly. Could it be that people didn't have their fortunes long enough to become spellbound? Possibly. But I see something more encouraging at work: Deep down, they all truly believe they can do it again. And as long as they keep trying, life is good.