Casualties of the current economy...

Man you're just on a tear tonight aren't you

X3.  Taking out five others, including your own three children, is wacked.

This happened in a gated community in LA.  Sure we dont know the situation here, but you can probably guess this is a selfish desire to not subject himself and his family to cutting back their lifestyle to mix with the common folk.  Maybe this guy was in over his head from the start and now that things are hitting the fan in the economy, yeah, there is gonna be struggle.  This is an act of cowardice and selfishness and to say otherwise is a slap in the face to the people that do have the courage to gut it out to support their families in good and bad and underscores the need for people to look at what is important in these times. 

From the article: "Moore did not specify what financial trouble the man had been in. He noted that the family did not own the home."

Sounds like he *was* the common folk attempting to live above means...

Although its obvious,

That is very messed up.  Unfortunately, some people do not know how to manage in a time of crisis.  Kill yourself, don't kill the family (ok don't kill yourself, seek help!).

THis is a process of natural selection.   

1.  The world is over-populated. 

2.  Survival of the fittest - those who chose to die understand that they are not "fit" to survive in such economic situation.  (they are pretty messed up to choose this path in the first place)

Therefore this economic crisis is doing the world a favor. 

There's got be a special place in Hell for people who choose to kill others (especially children) along with taking their own lives.

Given red italics are usually sarcastic, I'll overlook that here.  Just because a family doesn't own the home they live in, in a nice neighborhood, doesn't mean they are living above their means.

We happen to live a small subdivision (albeit not gated, although there are many homes for rent in the one down the street!) and we don't own the home we live in, nor are we living above our means.  We just are not in a position to buy a house right now.  And by that I mean, I just got my MBA which may lead me to taking a job somewhere else and we're saving up for a 20% down payment on something when the housing market finally gets near the bottom (which it is not yet).  

Moral - Renting a home (which I assume by the fact of not owning), doesn't mean you are living outside your means.

Man that is so 1990's.  Where have you been?  The thing to do is, apparently, go out and find a bank to give you a flakey sub-prime loan on the most expensive house you can find, preferably one where you can't afford to buy enough furniture to fill it up.  Then, get a little behind on the payments,  cry about how unfair it all is, and *PRESTO*, the fed will bail you out. 

The bailout details are a little sketchy still, but once your bank sells the fed your mortgage that you can't afford, they'll come to you with offers of reduction in principal, settling on a nice fixed rate, etc.  In the meantime, you can thumb your noses at all us dumb folk who played by the rules, bought a house we could afford, and continue to make the payments every month because our contract says to.

Please note, this isn't actually directed at kmanus or anyone else in COJ, I'm just venting a little about the financial crisis.  Made the mistake of peeking at my (rapidly shrinking) 401k this morning. 

The moral isnt necessarily true in that someone can choose to rent a place outside of their budget just as easily as they can (or hopefully could) buy a place outside of their cash flow.  The moral is that folks should understand their financial situation and work within parameters that will not get them in over their heads financially.  There is a lot of speculation as to what exactly go this guy in trouble.  Heck, at the root of it maybe he was a gambler and owed some bookies cash.  Who knows.  Whatever it was, financial distress of some sort made him think this was the only way out.  However, to blame this on the underlying economy vs a whole basket of underlying 'other's is pretty ridiculous methinks.  Kudos to you for keeping things reasonable for your household budget BTW.  We would be in a much better place as a nation if folks acted as responsibly.