At this point I am not surprised by anything that President Obama does, or doesn’t do. But I do want to wait until after the first hundred days ,which by the way is a Napoleonic term that ended at Waterloo….not some gold standard that was created for FDR, before giving a real assessment of how far we’™ve come or how far we’™ve dropped.
But today was truly special in the amount of information that came out that really shows you where we are going.
First up was an article about 3000 people who were treated at a VA hospital who now need to be tested for AIDS because colonoscopy equipment was not properly sterilized between each use. That is the best definition of what socialized medicine will be like.
Then during ‘˜look over here, don’t look at the man behind the curtain’™ moments that have been coming from the AIG investigations. Once Liddy explained the ‘retention bonus’ system…the whole hearing should have been over…but the Dems just kept attacking like they didn’t even hear it….Liddy caved to them. One of the people set to get one of these bonuses that everybody’s all crazy over. Wrote a letter of resignation and here is.
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 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.
My guess is that in October, when you learned of these retention contracts, you realized that the employees of the financial products unit needed some incentive to stay and that the contracts, being both ethical and useful, should be left to stand. That’s probably why A.I.G. management assured us on three occasions during that month that the company would ‘œlive up to its commitment’ to honor the contract guarantees.
That may be why you decided to accelerate by three months more than a quarter of the amounts due under the contracts. That action signified to us your support, and was hardly something that one would do if he truly found the contracts ‘œdistasteful.’
That may also be why you authorized the balance of the payments on March 13.
At no time during the past six months that you have been leading A.I.G. did you ask us to revise, renegotiate or break these contracts – until several hours before your appearance last week before Congress.
I think your initial decision to honor the contracts was both ethical and financially astute, but it seems to have been politically unwise. It’s now apparent that you either misunderstood the agreements that you had made – tacit or otherwise – with the Federal Reserve, the Treasury, various members of Congress and Attorney General Andrew Cuomo of New York, or were not strong enough to withstand the shifting political winds.
You’™ve now asked the current employees of A.I.G.-F.P. to repay these earnings. As you can imagine, there has been a tremendous amount of serious thought and heated discussion about how we should respond to this breach of trust.
As most of us have done nothing wrong, guilt is not a motivation to surrender our earnings. We have worked 12 long months under these contracts and now deserve to be paid as promised. None of us should be cheated of our payments any more than a plumber should be cheated after he has fixed the pipes but a careless electrician causes a fire that burns down the house.
Many of the employees have, in the past six months, turned down job offers from more stable employers, based on A.I.G.’s assurances that the contracts would be honored. They are now angry about having been misled by A.I.G.’s promises and are not inclined to return the money as a favor to you.
The only real motivation that anyone at A.I.G.-F.P. now has is fear. Mr. Cuomo has threatened to ‘œname and shame,’ and his counterpart in Connecticut, Richard Blumenthal, has made similar threats – even though attorneys general are supposed to stand for due process, to conduct trials in courts and not the press.
So what am I to do? There’s no easy answer. I know that because of hard work I have benefited more than most during the economic boom and have saved enough that my family is unlikely to suffer devastating losses during the current bust. Some might argue that members of my profession have been overpaid, and I wouldn’t disagree.
That is why I have decided to donate 100 percent of the effective after-tax proceeds of my retention payment directly to organizations that are helping people who are suffering from the global downturn. This is not a tax-deduction gimmick; I simply believe that I at least deserve to dictate how my earnings are spent, and do not want to see them disappear back into the obscurity of A.I.G.’s or the federal government’s budget. Our earnings have caused such a distraction for so many from the more pressing issues our country faces, and I would like to see my share of it benefit those truly in need.
On March 16 I received a payment from A.I.G. amounting to $742,006.40, after taxes. In light of the uncertainty over the ultimate taxation and legal status of this payment, the actual amount I donate may be less – in fact, it may end up being far less if the recent House bill raising the tax on the retention payments to 90 percent stands. Once all the money is donated, you will immediately receive a list of all recipients.
This choice is right for me. I wish others at A.I.G.-F.P. luck finding peace with their difficult decision, and only hope their judgment is not clouded by fear.
Mr. Liddy, I wish you success in your commitment to return the money extended by the American government, and luck with the continued unwinding of the company’s diverse businesses – especially those remaining credit default swaps. I’™ll continue over the short term to help make sure no balls are dropped, but after what’s happened this past week I can’t remain much longer – there is too much bad blood. I’™m not sure how you will greet my resignation, but at least Attorney General Blumenthal should be relieved that I’™ll leave under my own power and will not need to be ‘œshoved out the door.’
Sincerely,Jake DeSantis
Still angry at those evil banks? ‘¦Or the lib’s in charge to fix them?
And last but not least we go overseas as the prime minister of Britain, who seems to be taking all of his cues from President Obama on how to spend your way out of a recession, was finally called to task by a member of the EU Parliament.
It is a wonderful little snippet that exactly mirrors what’s about to happen in this country. His name is Daniel Hannan he is the MEP for South East England…sounds like a campaign i would donate to. It is very sad that we don’t have the same thing going on here with our Republicans but I think the Republicans are willing to sit back and let this whole thing self-destruct so that Republicans can get back in power.
We’™ll President Obama, who wants to walk in the footsteps of FDR because he believes the economy is in the same condition it was when FDR took office, has a lot of catching up to do’¦..FDR passed 16 pieces of major legislation in the first hundred days President Obama has one a stimulus package that wasn’t even really a stimulus package.
Oh yea’¦..those promised tax cuts (which Rush and Hannity said would never happen) and that I was hoping for to balance out the tax increases in California. They were put on the back burner today.
Like I said’¦..it was a good/bad day in the news.