The Bernard Madoff tragedy just got more tragic: The Associated Press reports that the founder of a Manhattan hedge fund that invested with Mr. Madoff has been found dead in his office. A French newspaper has reported that the cause of death was suicide.

The news of Rene-Thierry Magon de la Villehuchet's death, and the Madoff connection is making headlines today. He was 65-years-old and married without children. A founder of the Access International Advisors fund, he had reportedly plowed $2.1 billion into Madoff's scheme.

A friend told AFP that for Villehuchet, "Access (International Advisors) was his whole life, and Madoff was a manager in whom he had complete trust. I lunched with him two weeks ago and he said, how lucky it was that Madoff was the only manager still doing well at the moment."

Suicide and fraud have been linked in past scandals as well. Shortly after the collapse of Enron, former high-level executive Cliff Baxter shot himself and left a note for his wife that read "Carol, I am so sorry for this. I feel I just can't go on. I have always tried to do the right thing but where there was once great pride now it's gone. I love you and the children so much. I just can't be any good to you or myself. The pain is overwhelming. Please try to forgive me. Cliff"

This post is part of our Ads Gone Bad series. Share your thoughts and memories of this ad in the comments, and be sure to check out our other posts on marketing gone wrong.

No doubt you've heard the expression, "You're setting a bad example." Perhaps the most interesting application of the concept that I've ever witnessed was the strict scolding received by General Motors Corp. (NYSE: GM) in regard to a $5 million television ad . In that television advertisement, which was intended to promote GM's quality obsession, a cute but ill-fated assembly line robot imagines itself committing suicide by jumping from a bridge after making a slight error.

WHDH, the Boston NBC affiliate, reports that a woman committed suicide because she thought that her mortgage lender was on the verge of foreclosing on her house. There are questions about whether she knew the mortgage company had granted her an extension. But those questions were not resolved before she took her life.

The Patriot Ledger reported that she faxed a suicide note to her mortgage lender. It excerpted her fax: "By the time you foreclose on my house I'll be dead." It also indicated that a suicide note found next to the body urged the woman's husband and son to "take the insurance money and pay for the house."

The woman and the mortgage company did not communicate clearly. The Patriot Ledger noted that the woman had asked the mortgage company for an extension and been granted one. Yet interested buyers showed up at the property expecting an auction while her body was still inside. It also interviewed a neighbor who said that her husband, a plumber, had replaced the backyard deck on the couple's home so he must have had some money.

I was invited to comment on an article in the New York Times about Jim Cramer and his apparent inability to fully grasp why so many of us don't like him. The piece serves to give grand exposure to one of the main reasons that I myself don't like him. Come with me now on a short tour of words.

The first word I'd like to address is "torpedo". That is the word which Cramer used to define wealth building as a hedge fund manager. It works like this: Find a stock which is heavily overweight with little support, and sell it short. Organize you buddies to your way of thinking, then short more shares to send the longs scampering. Then move in your bears and suck up your bets.

Next, let's move to Jim's claim that his television show has, "allowed me to express my innate insanity, in all its glory, to everyone who might be interested." That's a fine statement for any individual who is willing to stand by it but Cramer also stated, "there seems to be a market for this kind of idiocy." So he flaunts his ability to act like a goon but then comes back to indicate that it really does go against his grain.

Then the man issues a statement as poignant as, "I remain completely and utterly repulsive to myself... I'm an arrogant jerk." Be that as it may, someone really should send that man for some counseling. If I'm not mistaken, that statement (or something similar) is warned about within the first three chapters of the psychology text book How To Recognize Suicide Bait . Add an additional quip such as "I wake up in a pool of self-loathing", and we have reason to remove the garage door and to take all sharp objects from the house. If I recall my law enforcement schooling, isn't "self loathing" that stuff they make serial killers out of?

Now if Cramer was to read this, and I'm near certain he won't, he'd probably come up with some meandering explanation that I've taken his statements out of context and that his words weren't meant as literal. Therein lies the single biggest reason why I cannot stand Jim Cramer. He has proven to me in plain fact and by his own text that you simply cannot trust one word that comes out of his mouth. Yeah, he's rich all right, but at what cost?

The New York Times ran an interesting piece about TV commercials that involve suicide, a theme that is cropping up with some frequency. Washington Mutual recently pulled an ad that showed bankers standing at the top of a building as if about to jump, and General Motors Corporation (NYSE:GM) and Volkswagen AG (FRA:VOW) also are discontinuing ads dealing with suicide.

I hardly consider myself a prude, but I just don't understand how any advertising executive could think it's okay to talk about something like suicide in a commercial, even if it is in the name of comedy. And the theme of suicide is not the only trend emerging in ads that some find disturbing. An ad for a candy bar was pulled after complaints from gay rights groups that it perpetuated stereotypes.

My message to the ad execs: we don't need advertisers pushing the envelope as far as taste. Advertising that is offensive has no place on television, especially when it can run during any show and be seen by anyone of any age.

A robot working at General Motors Corp. (NYSE: GM) makes a mistake, gets fired and commits suicide. No, wait, the robot wakes up and realizes it was only having a bad dream. Not funny, says the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention.

Like the Snickers male-on-male kissing ad that I blogged about Tuesday, the GM robot committing suicide ad is getting a lot of negative criticism. Unlike the Snickers ad, which was pulled by the Mars company after the negative feedback, General Motors says it has "no plans" to drop the spot and plans on airing it again during the Feb. 25 Academy Awards broadcast.

To me, the only thing worse than having an ad that is received so poorly is not having the good sense to pull it fast enough. GM likely spent over $2 million for the backlash they are facing now -- including former Energy secretary Donald Hodel saying that anyone who loses someone to suicide in the near future should consider suing GM. So why exactly would GM pay more to put this same ad on the Oscar stage?

Looking at this another way, I think this sort of thing is likely to drive down the price of advertising at the Super Bowl, which is often criticized as being a waste of money for larger, established corporations.