Did bailout banker kill himself?

David Kellerman, the 41-year-old career Freddie Mac accountant who became the government-backed mortgage company's acting chief financial officer when his predecessor quit, was found dead, an apparent suicide, by his wife this morning at their suburban Washington, DC home. Washington Post story here.

Freddie Mac has had a tough time finding people to run the place since it had to be bailed out by the government after years of resisting reform. As the Post reports, "Freddie Mac's government-appointed chief executive, David Moffett, quit last month after squabbling with the regulator about its tight grip on company affairs. His temporary replacement is John A. Koskinen, who had been serving as Freddie Mac's chairman. No permanent successor has been named."

Something to remember next time we get angry about how much the people trying to run troubled companies are paid. They have awful responsibilities: thousands of workers, millions of clients, billions of dollars. And mostly they're cleaning up after bosses who are long gone.

I called U.S. Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, who famously said last month that financial executives who can't bring themselves to apologize should "resign or go commit suicide."  Wanted his reaction. No reply so far.

Rudyard Kipling: "More men are killed by overwork than the importance of this world justifies."