[BigBadWulf]

With all the BS from the President, Congress and the Main Stream Media, here's a perspective I bet you haven't heard.
Originally found here:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/25/op...pagewanted=all


The following is a letter sent on Tuesday by Jake DeSantis, an
executive vice president of the American International Group’s
financial products unit, to Edward M. Liddy, the chief executive of
A.I.G.

DEAR Mr. Liddy,

It is with deep regret that I submit my notice of resignation from
A.I.G. Financial Products. I hope you take the time to read this
entire letter. Before describing the details of my decision, I want to
offer some context:

I am proud of everything I have done for the commodity and equity
divisions of A.I.G.-F.P. I was in no way involved in — or responsible
for — the credit default swap transactions that have hamstrung A.I.G.
Nor were more than a handful of the 400 current employees of
A.I.G.-F.P. Most of those responsible have left the company and have
conspicuously escaped the public outrage.

After 12 months of hard work dismantling the company — during which
A.I.G. reassured us many times we would be rewarded in March 2009 — we
in the financial products unit have been betrayed by A.I.G. and are
being unfairly persecuted by elected officials. In response to this, I
will now leave the company and donate my entire post-tax retention
payment to those suffering from the global economic downturn. My
intent is to keep none of the money myself.

I take this action after 11 years of dedicated, honorable service to
A.I.G. I can no longer effectively perform my duties in this
dysfunctional environment, nor am I being paid to do so. Like you, I
was asked to work for an annual salary of $1, and I agreed out of a
sense of duty to the company and to the public officials who have come
to its aid. Having now been let down by both, I can no longer justify
spending 10, 12, 14 hours a day away from my family for the benefit of
those who have let me down.

You and I have never met or spoken to each other, so I’d like to tell
you about myself. I was raised by schoolteachers working multiple jobs
in a world of closing steel mills. My hard work earned me acceptance
to M.I.T., and the institute’s generous financial aid enabled me to
attend. I had fulfilled my American dream.

I started at this company in 1998 as an equity trader, became the head
of equity and commodity trading and, a couple of years before A.I.G.’s
meltdown last September, was named the head of business development
for commodities. Over this period the equity and commodity units were
consistently profitable — in most years generating net profits of well
over $100 million. Most recently, during the dismantling of
A.I.G.-F.P., I was an integral player in the pending sale of its
well-regarded commodity index business to UBS. As you know, business
unit sales like this are crucial to A.I.G.’s effort to repay the
American taxpayer.

The profitability of the businesses with which I was associated
clearly supported my compensation. I never received any pay resulting
from the credit default swaps that are now losing so much money. I
did, however, like many others here, lose a significant portion of my
life savings in the form of deferred compensation invested in the
capital of A.I.G.-F.P. because of those losses. In this way I have
personally suffered from this controversial activity — directly as
well as indirectly with the rest of the taxpayers.

I have the utmost respect for the civic duty that you are now
performing at A.I.G. You are as blameless for these credit default
swap losses as I am. You answered your country’s call and you are
taking a tremendous beating for it.

But you also are aware that most of the employees of your financial
products unit had nothing to do with the large losses. And I am
disappointed and frustrated over your lack of support for us. I and
many others in the unit feel betrayed that you failed to stand up for
us in the face of untrue and unfair accusations from certain members
of Congress last Wednesday and from the press over our retention
payments, and that you didn’t defend us against the baseless and
reckless comments made by the attorneys general of New York and
Connecticut.

My guess is that in October, when you learned of these retention
contracts, you realized that the employees of the financial products
unit needed some incentive to stay and that the contracts, being both
ethical and useful, should be left to stand. That’s probably why
A.I.G. management assured us on three occasions during that month that
the company would “live up to its commitment” to honor the contract
guarantees.

That may be why you decided to accelerate by three months more than a
quarter of the amounts due under the contracts. That action signified
to us your support, and was hardly something that one would do if he
truly found the contracts “distasteful.”

That may also be why you authorized the balance of the payments on
March 13.

At no time during the past six months that you have been leading
A.I.G. did you ask us to revise, renegotiate or break these contracts
— until several hours before your appearance last week before
Congress.

I think your initial decision to honor the contracts was both ethical
and financially astute, but it seems to have been politically unwise.
It’s now apparent that you either misunderstood the agreements that
you had made — tacit or otherwise — with the Federal Reserve, the
Treasury, various members of Congress and Attorney General Andrew
Cuomo of New York, or were not strong enough to withstand the shifting
political winds.

You’ve now asked the current employees of A.I.G.-F.P. to repay these
earnings. As you can imagine, there has been a tremendous amount of
serious thought and heated discussion about how we should respond to
this breach of trust.

As most of us have done nothing wrong, guilt is not a motivation to
surrender our earnings. We have worked 12 long months under these
contracts and now deserve to be paid as promised. None of us should be
cheated of our payments any more than a plumber should be cheated
after he has fixed the pipes but a careless electrician causes a fire
that burns down the house.

Many of the employees have, in the past six months, turned down job
offers from more stable employers, based on A.I.G.’s assurances that
the contracts would be honored. They are now angry about having been
misled by A.I.G.’s promises and are not inclined to return the money
as a favor to you.

The only real motivation that anyone at A.I.G.-F.P. now has is fear.
Mr. Cuomo has threatened to “name and shame,” and his counterpart in
Connecticut, Richard Blumenthal, has made similar threats — even
though attorneys general are supposed to stand for due process, to
conduct trials in courts and not the press.

So what am I to do? There’s no easy answer. I know that because of
hard work I have benefited more than most during the economic boom and
have saved enough that my family is unlikely to suffer devastating
losses during the current bust. Some might argue that members of my
profession have been overpaid, and I wouldn’t disagree.

That is why I have decided to donate 100 percent of the effective
after-tax proceeds of my retention payment directly to organizations
that are helping people who are suffering from the global downturn.
This is not a tax-deduction gimmick; I simply believe that I at least
deserve to dictate how my earnings are spent, and do not want to see
them disappear back into the obscurity of A.I.G.’s or the federal
government’s budget. Our earnings have caused such a distraction for
so many from the more pressing issues our country faces, and I would
like to see my share of it benefit those truly in need.

On March 16 I received a payment from A.I.G. amounting to $742,006.40,
after taxes. In light of the uncertainty over the ultimate taxation
and legal status of this payment, the actual amount I donate may be
less — in fact, it may end up being far less if the recent House bill
raising the tax on the retention payments to 90 percent stands. Once
all the money is donated, you will immediately receive a list of all
recipients.

This choice is right for me. I wish others at A.I.G.-F.P. luck finding
peace with their difficult decision, and only hope their judgment is
not clouded by fear.

Mr. Liddy, I wish you success in your commitment to return the money
extended by the American government, and luck with the continued
unwinding of the company’s diverse businesses — especially those
remaining credit default swaps. I’ll continue over the short term to
help make sure no balls are dropped, but after what’s happened this
past week I can’t remain much longer — there is too much bad blood.
I’m not sure how you will greet my resignation, but at least Attorney
General Blumenthal should be relieved that I’ll leave under my own
power and will not need to be “shoved out the door.”

Sincerely,

Jake DeSantis"

[cretz42#WN]

i had heard about that. is he really donating all his bonuses?

[BigBadWulf]

Time will tell. Seems a lot more honest than any of the politicians or coverage.

[cretz42#WN]

yea lets hope. as for coverage or politicians, ill go with Colbert, sometimes stewart. im pretty sure thats where i heard about this story. as for the presidency thus far, i could get wayy into that, but thats another story.

[BigBadWulf]

IDK about getting my news from Comedy Central, but it's at least as good as any of the 3 major outlets.
As far as a political discussion, we can take that here:
http://forums.crackberry.com/f36/obama-nobama-169273/

[sito]

I need a portion of his donation. I am broke. Damit ! I need 10k. I am not asking for millions.

[cretz42#WN]

Both colbert and stewart are unbiased, that's why I watch them. You can't get that on any other network, plus its good to get a laugh out of politics. Sito I hear you man, college has make me a broke man.

Posted from my CrackBerry at wapforums.crackberry.com

[Fence]

Time will tell. Seems a lot more honest than any of the politicians or coverage.

The keyword in your above post is: "seems".

Also; you've directed another poster to take any "political discussion" to the 'Obama or Nobama' thread...does the ultimate premise of this thread not stem from political discussion?

Don't pick and choose as so.

[BigBadWulf]

Sorry fence. Your lips are moving, but I can't hear what your saying. Your on my ignore list.

[Fence]

Sorry fence. Your lips are moving, but I can't hear what your saying. Your on my ignore list.

No need to say sorry. Why? Because your responses such as the one above will be spared from further adding post counts to threads because of your need to reply to my posts.

Thus; less scrolling involved for me; and less for you...saves time and energy. Now that is what I call efficiency.

Posted from my CrackBerry at wapforums.crackberry.com

[cretz42#WN]

No need to say sorry. Why? Because your responses such as the one above will be spared from further adding post counts to threads because of your need to reply to my posts.

Thus; less scrolling involved for me; and less for you...saves time and energy. Now that is what I call efficiency.

Posted from my CrackBerry at wapforums.crackberry.com

dude you're the one who came out of nowhere into this thread for whatever reason, since your first post made no sense. this thread is about a man who can do some good out of a horrible situation, and wolf was asking to take any presidential debates elsewhere to not completely destroy this thread. just so you know, this story actually stemmed from a LACK of political discussion between congress and the pres on the stimulus bill, but again, thats another story.

[exelant]

I do have mixed emotions about the bonuses. Sure those who worked for a year at one dollar, and had no blame in AIG's crash should be paid. But I do find it interesting that despite their criticizm of the administration's allowing payment of the bonuses, the right has steadfastly opposed any interference in executive pay at the troubled banks the Bush administration approved funds for - the first trillion we gave them. Oh, I mean 750 billion.

Posted from my CrackBerry at wapforums.crackberry.com

[BigBadWulf]

I disagreed with any bailout, as if you couldn't tell. Our current esteemed Treasury Secretary was the one who constructed the contracts for compensation (not bonus) that the AIG people should be getting. This fained outrage is an insult to our intelligence. Since when do we not honor contracts in this country, regardless of whether we agree with them or not. Also, the BO administration has people who are being compensated in like manner for their services prior to joining the admin. They are not under scrutiny, nor are they being asked to give back their money. The total $ from the bailouts going to US citizens with these compensation packages is less than 1/2 of 1% of the total $. A rather insignificant portion IMO.