Matt Taibbi strikes again. (Go read it now.)
Are we supposed to believe that Jake DeSantis knew nothing about Joe Cassano’s CDS deals? If your boss and the top guys in your firm were all making a killing selling anything at all — whether it was rubber kayaks, generic Levitra or credit default swaps — you really wouldn’t bother to find out what that thing they were selling was? You’d really just mind your own business, sit at your cubicle and put your faith in the guys up top to fill you in if there was something you needed to know?
This would be a believable claim for an employee of some other wing of AIG, a company with well over 100,000 employees. But DeSantis works for tiny, 377-person AIGFP, a unit that had only two offices — one in London and one in Greenwich, Conn.
And we’re talking about financial professionals, the most shameless group of tirelessly envious gossips ever to walk the face of the earth. The likelihood that Cassano would pull in $280 million for himself, and his equally greedy, hopelessly jealous employees wouldn’t know not only exactly how he made that money but every last ugly detail about his life — from what skank he’s sleeping with to what side of his trousers he hangs on — is almost zero.
Taibbi’s point is valid. DeSantis’ Sgt. Schultz defense doesn’t hold water. As far as I can tell he’s either an idiot or a liar. Those are the only choices on the table, and Taibbi is correct… if DeSantis knew nothing then why retain him on the pretense of an expertize he claims not to have?
Also, there’s this: let’s just say, Jake, that you’re telling the truth, that you don’t know anything about this toxic portfolio. If that’s the case, then why the fuck does anyone need to retain you at an exorbitant salary to help unwind that very portfolio? If these transactions aren’t and never were your expertise, then where the hell is your value here?
Taibbi nails it. (Really, go read the whole thing) The Dear AIG letter could have been written much more succinctly: Dear AIG, you won’t have Jake DeSantis to kick around anymore. And P.S. you’ll miss me when I’m gone.
Jake DeSantis is a self-serving whiner who still doesn’t get it. There are real victims associated with this financial crisis, and he isn’t one of them. The fact that Jake sees himself as one, and demands sympathy for his plight, is the clearest example I’ve come across as to what went wrong in our economy. Frankly, it seems Mr. DeSantis’ parents spent too much time telling little Jake he’s special and not enough time stressing that some things are better left unsaid.