More AIG: This is long, so I've separated it into chapters

(I've gone off schedule, posting these AIG things. But... some stories need to be posted when still au courant!)

Chapter One: The Newest News!

Oh my gosh, this AIG thing... it's like a great soap opera! The latest (in the NY Times): "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."

"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." (Read here, it's worth it.)

It's whiny sounding, but the dude does give more detail into what's going on. And I get the dude's point that Liddy reassured these peeps they would get these bonuses. And I get his point that not everyone in that department was responsible for the shit that went down. On the other hand... he probably could have defended himself a little, without all the details that will now make us mock him too. For example: "Just for the record, not all of us in the department were ALSO the ones who did The Shit! Yo! Just sayin'!" (Oh wait... it's only middle class liberal pseudo hippies like me who use Self Aware Hip Hop References. This commentor says it better.)

But when you start trying to tell us how hard off you will be now... come on... what sort of lifestyle are you leading that requires this level of income just to get through the week? This is the part where I feel like Wall Street Peeples are massively out of touch. They could lower their standard of living even to, say, West Island Middle Class... and they'd have enough to live on for how long? They could have all hit early retirement before any of this went down, if they cared to live like the Commoners. (Barring the things the you need to spend money on in order to work in certain circles... the suits... the business lunches... but I'm sure that's a small %.)


Chapter Two: Comments by NYT Readers!

When you're done, read some of the 917 comments. You can sort them by Editor's Picks, or Readers' Picks etc. Here are the highest "I agree with!" readers' comments:

"I wonder if he is aware that across the country, workers making less than one-tenth of his bonus in annual salary are agreeing to pay cuts, reductions in hours, and withdrawal of promised perks in order to save their coworkers' jobs."

"I'm sorry to say that your email reveals less about why you deserve your bonus and the moral rightness of your argument than the sense of entitlement that has blinded you to your company's practices and your role in benefiting from them."

[This is my fave:]
"The company where I was a janitor went out of business. It wasn't my fault, I kept the floor clean. The taxpayers should be paying my salary."

[And for a different, but still popular opinion...]
"Dear AIG I quit" is a brilliant letter. If the publicity-seeking Attorney's General, who shot their mouths off for their own political gain, had only taken the time to comprehend the facts, they would not have fed the out-of-control frenzy that emanated from the American public which, taken as a whole, is poorly educted, won't read and learn or understand, and can be played like a banjo by those who would seek to smear the current administration. Bravo Mr. DeSantis."

...And Editor's Choice:

"Hint: If your company accepts tens of billions of dollars from taxpayers, consider your bonus renegotiated."

"If the shipping department screws up and costs the company money, then the warehouse guys are not getting a raise. If the doctor makes a mistake and causes a huge lawsuit for the hospital, then raises for nurses and janitors goes down the drain. In this economic climate, how can you expect otherwise?
Wow - you got over $700K for one year of work? Couldn't you have lived on a half of that? Do you realize how lucky you are to even make half as much?"

"So he was shamed into an epiphany. Well at least he had one."

Chapter Three: The Mature Comments!

Seems someone had to Be the Adult and make reasonable points, reasonably expressed...

Adult 1
"Instead of positioning yourself as a victim of the consequences, you might (collectively) have predicted the government and public reaction to your pay structure, and suggested more equitable and sustainable pay in October.

"Rather than quitting and charitably donating what you believe was fairly earned, you might be continuing to provide invaluable services to AIG, and more importantly, to the national and international economic recovery. Your industry desperately needs people with your ability to work constructively within a compromised system and devise practical solutions.
More importantly, it needs people like you who can factor in the actual social and political variables in our country without capitulating to fear and threat."

Adult 2
"When you say that last fall many of you stayed at A.I.G. precisely because you were told that your contracts would be honored, can you understand that some of us wish that many of you would have stayed on simply because of your sense of pride in your work, and because of your sense of duty and patriotism?

"Please understand: I do not question your patriotism, nor do I condone the wanton attacks on your profession. I have no doubt that the situation was mishandled, in part because we are all panicked a little, and in part because politicians are politicians.
But, Mr. DeSantis you are not like the plumber who should be paid for his work because it was the electrician's fault that the house burned down. It's a lot more like we've got bombs dropping on our heads and many of us are getting killed, or living in bomb shelters. The lines at soup kitchens are growing, we've got ghost towns where people have had to abandon their homes, we've got an entire generation of people who don't know if they will ever get jobs, because they are not quite as brilliant and hard working as you and I are. That in itself is not a crime, and people don't deserve to be homeless just because they are ordinary folks. Last time the world financial situation resembled the present one, the world went so crazy that millions of people were murdered in a war that engulfed the world!

"You should not be vilified because you are working in the financial world, but nor should you behave as if all that's happened was that one house burned down. Our entire world is in danger of burning down. Come and join the rest of us in asking what you can do for your country and for your fellow human beings..."


Chapter Four: The Adults Get Me Thinking...

I appreciate the Adults, because I believe those are the people who can actually reach the intended audience. If this DeSantis is reading the NYT comments (who wouldn't be??) he's only going to feel defensive over the ones that amuse us the most. But the people who give polite, patient, reasoned answers might actually mean something to him.

I think what Adult 2 said is what little Tommy Friedman was trying to say. I don't think he was defending Rich Folk, so much as pointing out a possibly more effective way of facing the bonus scandal. When Obama was running for Prez, a lot of what people liked about him was that he inspired, and made many people *want to be better people.* I heard that over and over. So if anyone could have said something inspiring, yet subtly shaming, and gotten away with it, it would have been him. ...Whereas my initial approach of calling AIG folk Unsexy Vampires... maybe less effective.

It reminds me of that old experiment, where students who were treated as smart and gifted excelled pretty much for the rest of their lives, versus students who were told they were slow. If you call on people to be Heroes! by working for little pay to restore AIG (see the next comment), then maybe you'll evoke their better natures. Rather than putting them in a position of defending themselves from being crooks.

Maybe I'm being unrealistic. Well... optimists are less in touch with reality, but we stay afloat longer because of it. (The rats!) ;-) I know I'm channelling Joseph Campbell here:

"Solo was a very practical guy, at least as he thought of himself, a materialist. But he was a compassionate human being at the same time and didn't know it. The adventure evoked a quality of his character that he hadn't known he possessed. ... Our life evokes our character. You find out more about yourself as you go on. That's why it's good to be able to put yourself in situations that will evoke your higher nature rather than your lower."

So... is it not possible that we can also put other people in situations that will evoke their higher nature? As opposed to the Wall Street atmosphere they're used to, that probably evokes lower natures on a daily basis.

A little more AIG

Here's a little of NYT columnist Thomas Friedman on AIG. Hmm I wonder if this is true. Well, the thing I have some confidence in is--Obama is probably the type who listens to Wise Counsel and learns from mistakes. As opposed to Bush.

Had Mr. Obama given A.I.G.’s American brokers a reputation to live up to, a great national mission to join, I’d bet anything we’d have gotten most of our money back voluntarily. Inspiring conduct has so much more of an impact than coercing it. And it would have elevated the president to where he belongs — above the angry gaggle in Congress.

“There is nothing more powerful than inspirational leadership that unleashes principled behavior for a great cause,” said Dov Seidman, the C.E.O. of LRN, which helps companies build ethical cultures, and the author of the book “How.” What makes a company or a government “sustainable,” he added, is not when it adds more coercive rules and regulations to control behaviors. “It is when its employees or citizens are propelled by values and principles to do the right things, no matter how difficult the situation,” said Seidman. “Laws tell you what you can do. Values inspire in you what you should do. It’s a leader’s job to inspire in us those values.”

Right now we have an absence of inspirational leadership.

AIG lolcat

Since Friend Paul suggested this phrase in comment to my last posting...

Millions are still millions

So the new commentary I've been seeing re. the AIG bonuses is that people are blowing it out of proportion. That is to say, that the millions in bonuses is very small, compared to the billions given in bailout money. So, like, "Hey it's only a small percentage of your bailout money... so chill!"

I feel like this massively misses the point, especially in light of the fact that the bonuses went to the division guilty in large part for the economic mess. To me, the scandal isn't that bailout money is going to bonuses, but that these people are getting bonuses at all.

First: What is the point of giving bonuses that aren't tied to performance? Oh I remember... to retain talent. Ah. If they're so durned talented... won't they show great results, and still earn performance-based bonuses?

Second: Even just one million dollars is totally obscene to the overwhelming majority of Americans who make Ordinary Incomes, pay taxes, and are being affected by this depression.

The income disparity between Wall Street Fat Cats and Ordinary Folk is obscene at the best of times... but for the WSFCs (who are in part TO BLAME) to still be taking home millions, when the OFs are losing their jobs and homes...

As Judge Judy would say: Don't piss on my leg and tell me it's raining.

AIG!!! The frontline is everywhere

I was going to post this story, about AIG giving out billion dollar bonuses to the very people who helped create the financial crisis. But today I see there's already been an update--Obama calling for the Teasury secretary to find any legal means of blocking them.

The government dude who argued, reluctantly, that the bonuses have to be paid out said it was for two reasons. First, that the bonuses were promised long ago, and were legally binding. Second, that they still have to retain talent, in order to make AIG profitable again (for the tax payers who now own it.) But question is... what talent?? These are the mf's who sold the derivatives in the first place!

These people really are living on another fucking planet. This is the reason why Brahm Stoker envisioned the aristocrat as bloodsucking, amoral and afraid of the light. And not to belittle those who died on Sep 11, but even Al-Queda didn't pull off something this destructive. And now... the poor little boys need their bonuses. ...So that their talent can be retained.

Rage Against the Machine: No Shelter
Because: I love the line "the frontline is everywhere"