Not all bad at AIG
You know, I'd like to sympathize with this guy, I really would. Some years back I knew a number of people at AIGFP and I don't recall them all having the stench of sulfur on them.
But I don't recall the NYTimes publishing any letters from auto workers forced to renegotiate their contracts, or retired auto workers wondering if the health care and pension promises they were given are now only as good as the paper they were written on.
And while not everyone at AIGFP was actively working to destroy the world's economy, there was always a sense there that something was not quite right. The money was beyond all proportion. I mean, was there some indication the place was crazy when the head guy had the marble tile in the mens room ripped out 'cause he just didn't like the color? Or when they rushed to populate the world's largest privately owned fish tank, only to have to repopulate it when the first round of fish died in water that hadn't been properly stabilized because the company's officers demanded it? Or maybe he might have noticed that Joe Cassano intimidated everyone who questioned him, including the chief legal counsel? And did it occur to him to wonder why the guys marketing the deals were pretty clearly running a casino on deals they didn't even understand? Or even when, as he put it, "most of those responsible" for the CDSs fled the company last fall?
And the pity party that he was "lied to" by AIG management. Well, please. Who now hasn't been lied to by AIG management?
Remember, without a U.S. taxpayer bailout of $180 billion, AIG would have gone bankrupt and its employees would have been standing at the very end of the creditors' line. Mr. DeSantis would never have received his "retention bonus" of the three quarters of a million dollars he now so graciously plans to donate to "organizations that are helping people who are suffering from the global downturn." You know, the "downturn" that his firm helped create even as his division continued to turn in big profits, year after year. He reaped huge amounts of money in the ten plus years he worked at AIGFP, all the while ignoring where all the money was coming from.
I don't hold him personnally responsible, and this isn't about anger, but I certainly ain't feeling sorry for the guy or impressed by his moral upstandishness in quiting the company now.
UPDATE: Roy runs down the sympathetic reaction to the plight of poor Mr. DeSantis and how his departure means that Liberty is Lost.
But I don't recall the NYTimes publishing any letters from auto workers forced to renegotiate their contracts, or retired auto workers wondering if the health care and pension promises they were given are now only as good as the paper they were written on.
And while not everyone at AIGFP was actively working to destroy the world's economy, there was always a sense there that something was not quite right. The money was beyond all proportion. I mean, was there some indication the place was crazy when the head guy had the marble tile in the mens room ripped out 'cause he just didn't like the color? Or when they rushed to populate the world's largest privately owned fish tank, only to have to repopulate it when the first round of fish died in water that hadn't been properly stabilized because the company's officers demanded it? Or maybe he might have noticed that Joe Cassano intimidated everyone who questioned him, including the chief legal counsel? And did it occur to him to wonder why the guys marketing the deals were pretty clearly running a casino on deals they didn't even understand? Or even when, as he put it, "most of those responsible" for the CDSs fled the company last fall?
And the pity party that he was "lied to" by AIG management. Well, please. Who now hasn't been lied to by AIG management?
Remember, without a U.S. taxpayer bailout of $180 billion, AIG would have gone bankrupt and its employees would have been standing at the very end of the creditors' line. Mr. DeSantis would never have received his "retention bonus" of the three quarters of a million dollars he now so graciously plans to donate to "organizations that are helping people who are suffering from the global downturn." You know, the "downturn" that his firm helped create even as his division continued to turn in big profits, year after year. He reaped huge amounts of money in the ten plus years he worked at AIGFP, all the while ignoring where all the money was coming from.
I don't hold him personnally responsible, and this isn't about anger, but I certainly ain't feeling sorry for the guy or impressed by his moral upstandishness in quiting the company now.
UPDATE: Roy runs down the sympathetic reaction to the plight of poor Mr. DeSantis and how his departure means that Liberty is Lost.
Labels: AIG, pity parties
posted by John at 9:01 AM
1 Comments:
I with Mr DeSantis the best in finding a new job. Can't really think of anyone who would want to hire him after he made a public figure of himself over the fact that the company has been working for went practically belly up and he didn't get his contracted payments..
Take care,
Elli
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