A Response to AIG’s Jake DeSantis – Victim, Philanthropist, Media Critic, Quitter
AIG’s Jake DeSantis is a self-righteous wealthy person who likes to remind us how hard he works. This reminds us of numerous Hollywood stereotypes designed to make us dislike various wealthy characters so we can root for the plucky young working class hero. And that makes us really hate Hollywood for getting inside our heads, because although his guest Op-Ed in the New York Times made us throw up our leftover Mac and Cheese, Jake DeSantis has some good points, points that almost make us forget about the puke all over our Old Navy t-shirt – almost.
In a very small nutshell (almonds or us when we were 12), DeSantis is quitting his job at AIG and giving whatever part of his bonus he has left after (possibly massive) taxes to charity. Sounds noble enough, but there’s a catch:
Jake Desantis wants us to see him as a victim, perhaps even feel sorry for him.
Hold on, hold on – pitchforks down! I said down, entire state of Michigan! Let’s hear this dude out.
So the appeal is this – DeSantis wasn’t involved in any of the Credit Default Swaps or Smurfberry Collaterallized Obligations or Pure Shit Bonds that helped bring his country, nation and planet to its knees. In fact, he’s been working his ass off for a year, away from his family 10, 12, 14 hours a day, trying to unwind the whole mess. He’s been doing this for the salary of a dollar a year, and he was promised a “retention bonus” apparently worth at least $750,000-plus as his reward for his hard work. But then the political pressure came down, his new boss went all Benedict Arnold, and now Congress and Cuomo want to make an example of him – but they’ve got the wrong man, damn it! Jake DeSantis is not the one-armed man!
All right, Jakey. Here’s the deal. You seem like a decent guy. Maybe your priorities are a little out of whack leaving your family all those hours to try and save a bankrupt pariah, but maybe you’re just a believer, you’re driven, whatever – we’ll grant you that.
The pledge to donate to charity – nice, we like it. Tough not to see it as a clever play for positive PR in a world that’s ready to throw you to the wolves, while we all play the part of the wolves, but hey, maybe some family won’t freeze to death in their car because of you – so, kudos.
But here’s the thing – that shit is really happening. There are fucking tent cities springing up in California, dude. And it isn’t to film a Slumdog Millionaire sequel. These are your countrymen in this day and age, unemployed and homeless, many through no fault of their own. Now, if you want to see yourself as blameless, that’s your right. Maybe you are. But you are an executive for AIG’s Financial Products division – whether or not the paperwork for CDS’ crossed your desk or not, you have become a rich man by working at a company that in the end, fucked us all.
You know, it’s funny – when we hear on the news how executives like yourself are taking one for the team, getting paid a dollar a year – nobody seems to mention the million dollar bonus that was promised along with that salary. But I guess that’s cool – rewards for hard work, sure.
But here’s the thing – lots of people come to expect bonuses, and guess what – lots of us aren’t getting them anymore. And it’s at least indirectly in part because of the activities at AIG that helped make you rich. By the way, those activities led to the most collosal economic failure of a single company in human history – that seems like a fair enough reason to withhold those bonuses, especially when taxpayers are holding the purse. Companies we work for aren’t paying our bonuses in the mere anticipation that there’s more assholes out there like the folks you worked with who are going to drag us down deeper.
So with all that in mind – are you kidding us, Jake DeSantis? You work in the world of markets and high risk financial products. Shit happens; you knew the risk involved in staying, that’s what your job is about – managing risk. Seems that most at AIG, including yourself for failing to anticipate the political risks, didn’t do your job well.
And yet – even with this huge collapse and political crapstorm, you are in a financially fortunate enough position to give away three-quarters of a million dollars. And you come to us to commiserate and collect your gold star? Seriously?
Go home to your family, dude. We’re sorry about your shitty boss and that lost year of your life, but we’ve got to clean the puke off our second-hand clothes and go whore ourselves to make rent – we don’t have time for your fucking pity party.
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The stupidest thing is that he’s not even whining about not getting paid – he did get paid $1,000,000 before taxes! And there’s no way that 90% tax bill is ever going to become law!
So basically he’s in a snit because his boss hurt his feelings. He’s giving up the income of 15 US households because he the way people are treating him makes him feel bad.
My guess is the only reason he wrote that is to let the world know he has so much money he can give up that much of it and it won’t even hurt one bit.
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Tom Humes
The Ballad of Jake DeSantis and Other Tales of Capitulation…
The Ballad of Jake DeSantis and Other Tales of Capitulation…
So what if he worked 10, 12, 14 hrs. a day away from his family. There are people that also worked 10, 12, 14 hrs. a day on MULTIPLE jobs just to: pay the bills, keep food on the table and keep bill collectors off our ass’es. Now this punk us crying about working long hours to fix a mess caused by his people? Please. As for the 1.00 base pay. Who gives a f? Hell, must of us would sign up for a deal such as that, if it meant a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow…..This guy acts as if something is owed to him.
These punks should consider themselves lucky they aren’t behind bars and the wife of a guy named Bubba.
I don’t place all the blame him though. I blame our reps for not letting a sinking ship sink…. Lost in the story is the fact that, most of the bonus money went to overseas workers and went to cover their losses with overseas firms and Amer. firms that already got their piece of the BAIL-OUT pie.
What makes me mad is the punks in Washington grilling U.S Automakers about the money staying in this country but no one is saying a damn thing about this money leaving the country. I’m less mad at punks like Jake and more mad at our Reps. in Washington.
In the end, I say to hell with all of them. The little man should riot in the streets. Riot and get our damn piece of the bail-out pie. Riot and let them know we won’t be played for fools. Riot and let them know we won’t be paying to lift Wall-street up any longer and that we don’t give a damn about their political lively hoods are about punks like Jake…… We work 10, 12, 14 hrs. a day too and it’s time we get some damn attention!
you seem to be stating that all the financial problems of the world started and ended with AIG. Wasnt it the Governments that allowed this to occur for years, wasnt it the banks who could offload there risk to someone else and just keep giving out money and wasnt it the individuals who ultimately couldnt do the maths and got credit they couldnt afford. I dont begrudge anyone making any amuonts of moneym thats just the world we live in. the US poeple seem to be wanting some kind of eutopia where everyone earns the same, noone is out of a job and everyone walks around smiling and skipping all day..maybe communisim is the answer to the USA. The truth is, if the people that truly understand these complicated prodcuts leave the company, the tax payer is screwed and will never get thier money back. Pay the guy $1M and get back $40Bn … seems like good maths to me ..! maybe thats the issue with the fine citizens of the US .. mathematics
I JUST WROTE AIG AN OP-ED LETTER
(the Letter, Joe Cocker)
WilliamBanzai7
Sing along: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HoW81×4j7ow
Gimme a minute to write a $750,000 complaint
Its just a matter of time before I’ll find a new game
Fast and easy days are gone, I’m a-goin’ home
Hey baby, I just wrote AIG an OP-ED letter
I don’t care how much money I get to keep in the end
Got to go back to my savings once again
Fast and easy days are gone, I’m a-goin’ home
Hey baby, I just-a wrote AIG an OP-ED letter
Well, I wrote them a letter
Said I couldn’t live without my bonus no more
Listen mister, can’t you see I can’t just give it back
To charity maybe, don’t cha wanna hear more?
Anyway, yeah!
Gimme a minute to write a $750,000 complaint
Its just a matter of time before I’ll find a new game
Fast and easy days are gone, I’m a-goin’ home
Hey baby, I just wrote AIG an OP-ED letter
Well, I wrote them a letter
Said they would have to live without me, ohhhh no!
Listen mister, can’t you see I can’t just give it back
To charity maybe, don’t cha wanna hear more?
Anyway, yeah!
Gimme a minute to write a self servng complaint
Its just a matter of time before I’ll find a new game
Fast and easy days are gone, I’m a-goin’ home
Hey baby, I just wrote AIG an OP-ED letter
you liberal, class warfare loving pieces of shit……you just don’t get it. The guy had nothing to do with the credit default swaps and he shouldnt be penalized for it. If you would read the whole letter, it says his division was netting approx 100 million a year….tell me what kind of compenastion you would ask for if you did that for your comapany….. And Congress and the President should be ashamed for implying that every one that received the bonuses were responsible for the CDS…….
By the way, there are readily accessible online profiles of Dudley Do-right which list him as a derivatives expert. So how innocent could he be, and could he have been over the past several years, of his own corporate team’s hijinx?
Thanks, Wrecking Ball, for reminding us about poor selfless Jakie-boy’s MILLION DOLLAR BONUS he was promised along with his $1/annum. And I’d love to know how many millions he’s been paid, cumulatively, over the past many years while working for a diseased corporation which has helped wipe out trillions in middle class savings and may yet help tumble the globe into a major depression.
What do you bet this guy never served in the military, never did any low-paid (Vista, Peace Corps, whatever)public service, and climbed on the “financial services” gravy boat just as soon as he could and has sailed on it ever since, only scuttling off it now that the heat is on. He’s been wildly over rewarded for his work, he’s in the richest 1/10 of 1/0 of 1% of Americans, and now he’s having a pity party for his poor put-upon righteous self. Wow.
No doubt there will dozens of screeds ripping the creepily self-pitying, grotesquely self-righteous, laughably clueless, obscenely self-entitled, Mr. De Santis in the NYT and elsewhere in the next day or two….. He just doesn’t get it. Why should he? He’s been a boy in a bubble his whole professional life, his avaricious delusions reinforced by his fellow bubble-boys on The Street.
I suggest that all the numbskulls who who’ve both written this article and commented on it (other than perhaps Keith) should ask themselves what they were doing when they were in high school and could have worked as hard as Mr. DeSantis to get a scholarship to MIT. In case you haven’t heard it’s 20% brains, 80% hard work. You work like that guy, then you get to a position where you generate risk-adjusted $100M for your company. Then talk! ok!
America isn’t supposed to be a welfare, socialist place. You earn your way to wealth, and when you get there you get to keep it and give it away the way YOU choose. Change that, and don’t expect the US to remain a superpower much longer.
Those of you critics are only jealous assholes who have not likely done anything more with your life except look for blame. You cry about a guy who didn’t do anything wrong, except be employed by AIG. This guy worked up the ranks and benefited from hard and smart work – $100 million in profits to AIG when other pricks took down the company and left us taxpayers holding the bag. You petty pieces of shit should all get together and start a huge pity party . . . for yourselves. Let’s see you work for $1 a year after all of this guy’s hard work and have your promised bonus vaporize. You would cry how unfair, call the cops and harbor resentment the rest of your life, but you shitheads don’t have a life. Now go get a life.
Goddam. Lot of jealousy here. You poor bastards need to spend time posting bullshit on your blog and more time developing a product that has value.
The only reason you don’t get DeSantis’ point is because your only survival is as an employee, not an employer. If you were smart enough to make a living doing what you loved, you’d understand that it’s an amateur-hour dream that it’s going to be a total waste of time to do what you love when you can’t make a living doing it.
Your populist angst does nothing to solve any real world problems. People are in tent cities because they are of the employee mindset. Go ahead and rip on the employeers. Keep ensuring that there’s no incentive to employ. Let me know how that works out for you.
“I wanted to put a bullet in the head of every panda that wouldn’t screw to save it’s own species.”
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Mike, Richard, Keith, you miss the point. Its not about whether AIG deserves all the blame, or whether Jake Desantis deserves any blame, or whether he deserves the millions he made. Its his maudlin rant about how unfairly he’s been treated that has disgusted people. The guy is so delusional he compares his lot to that of a plumber.
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It seems to me that the majority of people complaining about “our money” being used to pay these bonuses, probably actually pay little to no income tax every year. So really, how much of the bailout money is YOUR money? I imagine a lot of you are also big recipients of government aid in one form or another (including unemployment, tax credits, financial aid, etc). Why don’t you get a better job, quit taking MY money (like Jake DeSantis, I happen to pay the government a lot of money in taxes every year which goes to subsidize you people), and do something for yourself for a change?
Melly, you unsympathetic POS, don’t you realize that “get a better job” is an idiotic piece of advice in an economy with no jobs right now? No, I guess you wouldn’t, considering the rest of the drivel you wrote.
The blog writer is right. Boo fucking hoo, Jake DeSantis. I’ll feel sorry for you when you go live in those tent cities in Cali.