Thus far, we’ve only really heard one side of the AIG bonus story – the side being advanced by the ignorant or malicious lawmakers who have very effectively demonized the employees who received so-called bonuses for their work last year.
Now, one of those employees has written an open letter to AIG’s CEO that was reprinted in today’s New York Times. It gives quite a different perspective on the story. Here’s an excerpt, but I highly recommend that you read the whole thing.
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.
The more I learn about this story, the angrier I get. There is no excuse for how Congress nor the President have acted and, right now, the only difference between Washington and a third-world banana republic is that the latter has only one head thug. We have an entire city full of them and it’s high time we yanked them up by the scruffs of their necks and told them to knock it off.
Little Miss Attila sums the situation up almost perfectly (via Jeff Goldstein):
I think some in the administration/legislature just dug out old Nazi propaganda, crossed out “Jews,” and added “people in the financial sector whom we dislike.”
William Jacobsen is glad to see this pushback, as am I. It’s good to see that our government couldn’t extort everyone in AIG into silence. I’m sorry that Mr. DeSantis has decided to give the money he earned because of our government’s criminal thuggery but I’m glad that he left us with a very clear picture of how he got to that point.
There is still time for Congress and the President to make this right. A public apology would be a very good start.
(via memeorandum)
Tags: AIG, Congress, Corruption, Government Bailouts
It scares the crap out of me that the full force of our government has been brought to bear on law abiding citizens and intimidated them into exhibiting acceptable behavior. Just how far is it from where we find ourselves today to re-education camps. For the good of the country, of course. To make the taxpayers “whole.”
I hope no one is still indulging in the fantastical thinking that says it could never happen here.
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