Cristiano

A former Wall Street trader who was found guilty of purposely torching his house died in the courtroom in a suspected suicide. He drank from a bottle and then suffered a seizure and died.

Michael Marin, Ex-Wall Street Trader, Dies In Courtroom After Conviction

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Richie Waves

The thread title broke my brain a bit

Polo

Not knowing anything other than what's in the report, my first two reactions are: pity for the man and any family he leaves, and a suspicion that our current real estate/banking laws/foreclosure system is implicated.

From the reports this particular individual had been making some very bad decisions all along. Even so, a system that leads so many* to think suicide (or arson) is their best option is a system in need of change.


*excerpt from the HuffPo piece:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/0...ording_Minimum

Evola

I don't see how this Marin guy compares to the other examples HuffPo gives in it's article. It sounds like the guy was living large and well beyond his means, as opposed to the other two, one of whom had their interest rates raised by the bank and the other didn't even own their own home, article states she was being evicted from her apartment, probably lower-middle class at best. Marin was a victim of his own greed, not that of Wells Fargo or Bank of America or Goldman Sachs or JP Morgan or Morgan Stanley or whomever else.


One of the other cases HuffPo compares this guy to sounds like outright fraud on the part of Wells Fargo

Void

I rather agree with Polo in the sense that "living large" or not, this may have been how he viewed the situation... he took a desperate act to save his way of life, and then decided he was better dead that suffering in jail.... I understand the reasoning regardless of whether I agree it's valid.

I'm not sure that makes it an institutional problem though, at least not in his case.... others, yeah I can see it.

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bladyblue

Only white collar criminals with expensive lawyers are privileged enough to bring their own water bottles and various pills into a court hearing where they are being sentenced to go to jail for nearly two decades.

The guy exploited his sense of privilege all the way to his grave. He will probably insist that Satan install air conditioning once he reaches Hell.

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Evola

I'm somewhat sympathetic as far as he was lured in and eaten by the system he was playing, presuming that was the case(not knowing his background), doesn't sound like he was a major player or policy maker or anything, probably just a day trader or rough equivalent..but yeah sorry, not worth the MSM's sob stories either.

Polo

Ideally the institutions (banking/mortgage/real estate) should be governed by rules that protect consumers from "bank errors" with regard to payments(as with the Rousseau case Evola cited), from hidden fees, from substantive changes in terms made with little notice, from foreclosures on properties the bank doesn't even hold a mortgage on, from the use of false or deceptive affidavits, and so on. Of course no reasonable person would expect that reform would let people live beyond their means or game the system.

I guess what one could say, in defense of the idea that the Marin case reflects the institutional problems, is that he was offered mortgages that he wouldn't have been offered under the old system of regulations on that industry (on multiple houses; with a balloon payment of $2.3 million upcoming). That shouldn't happen.