Taibbi Dissects Dear AIG, I Quit Letter
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.
Tags: AIG, Taibbi, The Economy
DeSantis is going Galt! Good riddance!
Taibbi brings up some good points in his response. I think that the banksters and AIG in general are victims of their own cleverness. They’ve basically been avoiding higher taxes by paying lower salaries and making a bulk of their pay in “bonuses.” Now they understand that their “bonus” is really their salary, but most of us, the unwashed masses, knows that “bonus” means “extra.” Plus, the banksters have been applauding for years when autoworkers and steelworkers have their promised benefits (pension, healthcare) broken “for the good of the company.” I find what’s happening now a bit of karma.
ya know, i felt a bit of sympathy for DiSantis when i first read the letter. I felt that maybe we had gone a bit far in our rich blood lust. But, as with many things, the National Affairs section and staff of RS has shown me the way…. it raises another question i’ve been asking myself a lot over the past 2 years… What Would Hunter Think?
Even if DeSantis didn’t know, he is still working for an organization (at least part of it) that is functionally dead. As soon as it pays out to its counterparties, what will be left? Dead and bankrupt organizations don’t behave as if nothing happened. There are people gone, employment contracts renegotiated, a general going to the mattresses to either survive to the other side of it all or to go down trying. If the government can make demands to renogitate contracts with not just the UAW, but also bond holders for car companies, I see not issue whatsoever with doing this for bank execs.
Also — see David Rees on death threats. His incomparable Iraq cartoon inspired some really scary shit directed his way from the usual suspects.
Let’s run with the idea that some of you are a bit confused…
That, or you’ve never
actually read “Atlas
Shrugged.”
The bad guys in the book
were the crooked,
incompetent and corrupt
CEO’s and politicians.
The good guys in the
book were honest and
ethical, even rational, and
expected a fair day’s pay
for a fair day’s work. *They also paid their employees a fair day’s wage for a fair day’s work.) Inthe book, no
matter what the good guys did, no matter how hard they tried, they couldn’t get a fair day’s pay for a fair day’s work, so they ‘took their ball and went home.’ Which is entirely rational. If the other guy
isn’t going to play fair, let alone play nice, you have no rational reason to play with him, no matter the game. Think of it as escaping from an abusive relationship.
That’s the book in a
nutshell.
Got it?
If you don’t get it, please
read – or re-read – the
book.
It’s simple. It’s easy.
I dare say that you would
be “Going Galt” under
similar circumstances in
your own professional lives.