The NY Times reprinted the following letter — sent on Tuesday by Jake DeSantis, an executive vice president of the American International Group’s financial products unit, to Edward Liddy, the chief executive of A.I.G.
Won’t change many people’s minds re: the bonuses. but certainly paints another side to the picture …
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Excerpted from NY Times, “Dear AIG, I Quit”, March 25, 2009
Dear Mr. Liddy,
It is with deep regret that I submit my notice of resignation from A.I.G. Financial Products. 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 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.
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. A.I.G. management assured us on three occasions that the company would “live up to its commitment” to honor the contract guarantees.
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.
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. 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.
I can no longer justify spending 10, 12, 14 hours a day away from my family.
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.
Sincerely,Jake DeSantis
For the full text of the letter:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/25/opinion/25desantis.html?_r=2&ref=opinion&pagewanted=all
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March 26, 2009 at 12:57 pm |
Sad… He sounds like a good person.
March 26, 2009 at 2:32 pm |
I hope Congress finds a way to retroactively tax Joseph Cassano’s $280 million in earnings he received over 8 years for designing and overseeing all of AIG’s credit default swaps. Also, to recoup the $1 million per month retainer he received following the company’s implosion in 2008, where he received more compensation in a month than most Americans do in their lifetimes for the simple task of explaining how he managed to produce the worst corporate performance in the history of the world. These people deserve the guillotine more than they do our sympathy.