In today’s New York Times Op-Ed, Jake DeSantis, an executive VP of the AIG’s Financial products unit wrote a resignation letter to the chief executive of the company. In it, he defends his work as a financial products salesman and deserving of his bonus with the argument that he wasn’t ‘involved – or responsible for- the credit default swap transactions that have hamstrung AIG…’ Ok Mr. DeSantis, you may have not been involved in that part of your branch, but that’s not the only thing that brought the company down. The entire ideology of selling financial products is a failure and at the end of the day, the entire Financial Products branch of AIG failed. It wasn’t just being involved in default swaps, or insuring bad risky mortgages that were clearly doomed for default if the market were to collapse with the theory of if the economy went into a full-blown depression, the counter-parties would be wiped out, and therefore would hardly be in a position to demand payment anyway. But the larger problem was that they were using peoples 401(k) and life insurance policies as collateral to gamble on these bad assets. So maybe Mr. DeSanti’s sold life insurance or was an investor for people’s 401(k), at the end of the day those floor level ‘workers’ knew of what was happening with the money in the backroom. Above that, the company technically isn’t a private entity anymore. Once the US Government took over all contracts are void until AIG regains itself as the largest share holder. The argument that one made a company ‘x’ amount of dollars is ridiculous if that money now no longer exists in the books and was part of the imaginary assets value that disappeared into thin air. It’s betting with monopoly money but wanting to cash out in real money.
I am honestly shocked that there was public cry over this. I don’t know if it comes from living in NYC, or from knowing people in the financial Industry but I thought everyone knew that financiers received big checks end of the year. Huuuuge checks. I remember thinking I can buy a car with that amount, or a house, or a few for that matter, and this was when Clinton was still in office.
What I’m trying to get at is, I thought everyone was aware of the American Lotto mentality. I thought it was the way of life everyone agreed upon. I’m was more shocked with the public outrage then with the bonuses itself. For years people chose to live blissful in their ignorance and now that the lack of knowledge has proven detrimental to their survival, for some, it might be too late. Nobody know a day’s wants to be lawyers, doctors, engineers, or scientists, that’s to much learning and may take to long. They want to be actors or entertainers or work on Wall Street. They want make the most money out of doing the least possible REAL work. Not that being a singer doesn’t take hard work in the endurance sense, but endurance is hardly working. I’m sure a miner or someone who works in agriculture picking fruits in the fields under the hot sun and works 80 hrs/wk would love to rather jet set from city to city singing and dancing while getting their make up and hair done over ‘real’ work any day. It’
