Mother Jones has a very good piece, Desperate Times and Desperate Measures .

One thing Mother Jones is pointing out...the main stream media rarely tally up the suicides of regular folk, or the increase in extreme violence and this implies hypocrisy in American culture. Millionaire suicides over financial distress hit the headlines....but the thousands who are in quiet desperation never get a mention...unless they take along with them at least 3.

An unknown but rising number of less wealthy but distinctly well-off workers in the financial field have also killed themselves as a result of the economic crisis—with less press coverage. Take, for instance, a 51-year-old former analyst at Bear Stearns. Learning that he would be laid off after JPMorgan Chase took over his failed employer, he "threw himself out of the window" of his 29th-floor apartment in Fort Lee, New Jersey. Or consider the 52-year-old commercial real estate broker from suburban Chicago who "took his life in a wildlife preserve" just "a month after he publicly worried over a challenging market," or the 50-year-old "managing partner at Leeward Investments" from San Carlos, California, who got wiped out "in the markets" and "suffocated himself to death."

Real economic policy affects real people. And when someone cannot pay for a roof over their head, get health care or even food to eat...all else is meaningless.

When people talk about offshore outsourcing or insourcing.....there is a very real American losing a very real career. Whoosh, all of their needs, the need for financial stability, a sense of purpose, their livelihood, don't even get a token condolences prattles, never mind government policy to stop this practice of using workers like disposable diapers.