My Company Wrecked The Global Economy

And all I got was this lousy tee-shirt.

The NYT publishes this angry letter from an alien life form:

March 25, 2009
Op-Ed Contributor
Dear A.I.G., I Quit!

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 genuinely feel for Mr. DeSantis, but I also have to wonder from what solar system he originally hails that he has come to this moment in history so deaf to the tone and tenor of our country and our times.

Or was he perhaps raised in captivity in the Context-Oblivious wing of some life-sized Habitrail cultural petting zoo, shielded from the unhappy knowledge that millions of people in this country are worked like rented mules by carnivorous employers every day for wages that wouldn't cover the interest on his bonus. Unaware that year in and year out, boom or bust, in every season since forever and through no fault of their own, tens of thousands of the working poor -- who toil at incredibly hard jobs for shitty pay -- are summarily kicked to the curb without a second thought because their employers made bad decisions, or got unlucky, or could get someone cheaper, or wanted someone prettier or younger or more sexually compliant, or just didn't like the way they parted their hair that day.

And now, thanks in no small measure to the incompetence, greed and predations of companies like AIG, every day they are joined in the unemployment line by their blue- and white-collar brother and sisters. 2.6 million in 2008 and growing; the worst anyone has seen since WWII.

Well whatever the reason, let me welcome you to Earth, Mr. DeSantis!

The charter of our little League of Unfairly Unemployed Gentlemen (and Gentlewomen) is apparently unknown to you, so as a part of your new-member orientation, we ask that you buy yourself a case of beer and spend a long weekend familiarizing yourself with some of our organization’s history and philosophy by listening to virtually every fucking song ever done by Bob Seeger,

Bob Dylan
Pete Seeger
Bruce Springsteen
Johnny Cash
Aretha Franklin
Dire Straights
Crosby, Stills & Nash
Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young
The Pretenders
Eurythmics
Pink Floyd
Marvin Gaye
John Lennon
The Rolling Stones
Ray Charles
Elvis Costello
Frank Zappa and The Mothers Of Invention
Bruce Cockburn
Jimmy Reed
Queen
Tom Waits
CCR
and several thousand others.

Or, in the words of Drew Carey:

“Oh, you hate your job? Why didn't you say so? There's a support group for that. It's called EVERYBODY, and they meet at the bar.”

(UPDATE: Digby applies her mighty hammer to the subject here.)