Jake DeSantis IS part of the problem with AIG.

The New York Times has printed a letter of resignation, attributed to Jake DeSantis,an executive vice president with AIG. He is one of the executives who recieved a bonus.

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.

He goes on to say that he's donating the money to "those suffering from the global economic downturn." And he gives a little biography of himself, depicting himself as a family man and a decent guy, and reiterating that he and his division had nothing to do with the company's collapse.

I'm sure that will warm the heart of the woman in Long Island who's being evicted because her landlord lost the building to foreclosure. The woman had paid all her rent on time, but not only loses her home, but all the deposits she paid on it. She's a decent, warm and fuzzy family type who did everything she was supposed to, too.

Here's the thing, Mr. DeSantis: AIG is failing. Your division is part of a company that is facing the most dire emergency imaginable: its imminent demise. It's the Titanic, and it is going to take all hands with it if it sinks. You're all going down, not just the guy on the bridge who was supposed to avoid the iceberg. The wait staff doesn't get a coffee break from helping with the evacuation just because they were doing their jobs when the ship started taking on water.

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.

And so do all of AIG's customers, you gutless whining jerk. I see. You're a victim. Well shit, Jake, welcome to the club. We're having a picnic out in Sacramento, bring a can of beans with you. No, really, bring the beans: everyone's unemployed and money's tight. Maybe you can swap sob stories with those folks who had to walk away from their mortgages: mortgages that went up while their jobs disappeared. I'm sure they will be heartbroken that you didn't get your bonus while AIG was failing to cover their losses.

Jake, only a complete jackass expects to be rewarded when the business around him is in a shambles. Sure, you met all your obligations. Whoopedy do. But the rest of us whose hard-earned tax money is being used to give you money on top of your base salary didn't sign on to make sure you got your frills.

Yes, you do deserve to get paid. And once AIG is back on its feet, and taxpayers have their money back, AIG is obligated to pay you your extra money - out of its own pocket, not out of mine.

So, here's a big 'FUCK YOU' to Jake DeSantis. And I really mean that in all sincerity.

Three Hack Writers at the Washington Post.

David Cho, Shailagh Murray and Paul Kane ;

These three reporters for the Washington Post seem to lack the ability to fully understand the capitalist system that we adhere to in our democratic republic. Their complete lack of a grasp on the realities of the situations leads me to describe them henceforth as The Three Hacks. (As you can see, this isn't Kane's first offense).

With millions of Americans angry over the outrage of executives at failed financial institutions being rewarded for leading their businesses to bankruptcy, Congress has responded with a rather inelegant solution: place a tax on those receiving the un-earned bonuses to recover those funds in their entirety. The Three Hacks take issue with this approach in their article Punitive Income Taxes on Bonuses Threaten Financial Rescue Plan:

Congress today moved to levy punitive taxes on bonuses at financial firms receiving government aid, threatening to undermine the government's rescue of the financial system.

The Three Hacks sternly - and I imagine with straight faces - wrote:

The taxes imposed would be so high that the result would likely drive away nearly all firms participating in the federal assistance program.

Well, DUH. If the firm can afford to turn away from the program, then they really shouldn't be benefiting from it anyway. And if you need to come begging for money to keep your doors open because you led your company into fiscal disaster, you have not earned any bonuses. AIG's not the victim of a natural disaster or an act of god: AIG is in this mess because their senior management was greedy and short-sighted.

The Three Hacks go on:

Employees receiving bonuses at Bank of America Corp., Citigroup Inc., J.P. Morgan Chase & Co., Goldman Sachs Group Inc., Morgan Stanley, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac would all be covered, according to supporters of the measures. At many of these firms the majority of employees receive bonuses, which often comprise a large part of their compensation.

Yes, that is true. But that's not to say that their base salary is peanuts; we're still talking six to seven figures. A vice president might make $200,000 in salary, but bonuses and stock options bring that up to a couple million dollars. Very true. The Three Hacks seem to be under the very mistaken impression that no one in the entire United States of America understands employment contracts. The problem is, while the rest of us seem to understand it, The Three Hacks do not.

Here's a fact that the Three Hacks have missed: the executives are only supposed to get those bonuses for the work they do; they have contracts, and the contract spells out the exact circumstances that merit bonuses, commissions and options. That's what they are being compensated for; results, not sitting in a big office swilling martinis while planning vacations. And I think it's fairly certain that not one of the executives in question has "running the company into a black hole of debt so massive we take the entire country's gross national product with it" as one of the contractual benchmarks of their performance.

You work, you get paid. You do the work exceptionally well, you get rewarded. The more you earn for the company, the more you increase the profits, the more valuable you are and the more you should earn. We all understand that.

If not for billions of dollars of taxpayer money being funneled into it, AIG would not only no longer exist, neither would many if not most of its clients.

And I have to point out, that if the company were out of business, these executives who stand lose their un-earned bonuses would not be collecting any compensation beyond unemployment. And that only lasts six months.

The bottom line is this: if you are managing a company, and the company fails because you did something stupid, you don't get rewarded for that. In most businesses, you get the axe. You're lucky we're bailing you out; you don't deserve it: but the people doing business with you, who thought you knew what you were doing, might.

No, David, Shailagh, and Paul, Congress isn't threatening to undermine the government's rescue of the financial system: the incompetent clods who thought that taxpayer bailout money should be used to reward greedy jerks are the ones doing that, as are the greedy jerks themselves for accepting it.

AIG; From Bad to Criminal.

Well, AIG says that they are contractually obligated to pay bonuses to some of the executives who were running the company when it failed.

The American public is understandably upset; from our perspective, it looks like senior executives are being rewarded for failure. Frankly, I wish my own employment contract had a bonus schedule for failure, because it would take a lot of pressure off me come review time.

That may or may not be the case; we haven't seen these contracts, nor the clauses that spell out what the employee had to do to earn them.

But it's irrelevant. AIG came begging for a hand-out. And when you come begging, you must be willing to sacrifice something. The first thing AIG's management should have sacrificed were their own bonuses. The senior executives should have gone to each employee and made them understand that a company that is about to shut down cannot honor bonuses.

If they are unwilling to do that, AIG shouldn't be given a cent. Let AIG fail, and let the employees lose their jobs and their benefits. They'll have lots of company, to be sure.

There is a principle to be upheld here, and right now, AIG isn't upholding anything; it's simply a hold-up.