One of today's big stories on the net was the open resignation letter from Jack Desantis (executive VP of AIG) to Ed Liddy, AIG's CEO.
Follow me over the fold for my analysis and response.
So tonight on the train ride home from work I was reading the New York Times. I hardly ever get a half hour to myself to read the Times anymore, so it was a nice treat on the commute home.
Anyway, on the Op-Ed page today is a resignation letter from one of the VP's from AIG. It is an open letter to Ed Liddy, the CEO of AIG from Jack Desantis the VP in the financial products division of the company. It is a really interesting piece and definitely worth reading.
In the letter Mr. Desantis makes a number of very interesting points, among them:
- That neither he, nor the vast majority of current employees at the company were responsible for the credit default swaps that are draining the company. Most of them he noted have departed the company and left everyone else behind to take the blame and brunt of public scorn.
- That he (and presumably many others) feel like Mr. Liddy hung them out to dry during his Congressional testimony, and that Mr. Liddy isn't doing enough to stand up to protect the employees of AIG who were actually turning profits within their divisions.
- That Congress and other elected officials are scapegoating ALL AIG executives for the mistakes, fraud, and mis-steps of a very small handful of people who abused their authority and positions.
- That he and other executives who worked tirelessly (and profitably!) are now being savaged by a public that doesn't have all of the facts.
- That he made enough money during his years at AIG to ride out the current storm unharmed, and that he intends to donate all of his after-tax bonus cash to various causes and charities that will help others suffering as a result of the current recession. Very commendable.
I guess all I have to say to Mr. Desantis is that you and many other multi-million dollar fat-cat corporate executives on Wall Street now know what it's like to be a public school teacher in the United States.
You say that you are relentlessly derided for your pay, compensation and benefits; constantly insulted and second guessed; endlessly blamed for the mis-steps and mistakes of a few; sold out and scapegoated by bosses and elected officials who don't want to take blame for mis-management and cowardice; forever having your qualifications and competence called into question by non-professionals with little or no grasp of the larger issues at hand, but hearts full of hate and anger?
Welcome to the world of public school teachers (and many other public sector workers) Mr. Desantis. We feel your pain and know every single one of these challenges like we know our own curriculum.
We have dedicated our working lives to helping kids and making life better for millions of people, and in return we are often the subject of the same exact kinds of attacks that you claim you are facing at the moment.
And granted, the resentment directed at school teachers isn't as intense as the flash in the pan anger being aimed at the AIG execs at the moment. But what it lacks in intensity (compared to AIG) it makes up for in its ceaselessness. Teachers spend 25 or 30 years dealing with these same problems and challenges day-in and day-out. And unfortunately, when times get tough, the intensity of these attacks increase - and we don't have multi-million dollar salaries to fall back on to help cushion the blow.
So Mr. Desantis, I am not going to take any cheap shots at you. But I am going to call you out on your hypocrisy. For the last 30 years in this country the ideology of corporatism (in the guise of the national GOP and its explicit economic policies) has attacked the idea of government as a solution for just about any social problem or need whatsoever.
The wizards of Wall Street told all of us to give up on our democratic ideals of self-governance and commonwealth because the markets and market based solutions were so perfect and so rational that something as dumb, slow, incompetent, greedy, and corrupt as democratically elected government could never hope to serve people as well as the unfettered, explosive growth of the markets that was going to rain down like manna from heaven for eons to come.
Public pensions and social security?! Who needs those when 401K's will grow like wild flowers providing a market-based solution to retirement income for the 80 million baby boomers who were about to retire. Remember, it was the Republicans and their Wall Street cronies who just a few short years ago tried to get the government to put even social security into the markets in the form of private investment accounts.
Public schools?! We don't need those - just charterize all of them. Fire all those lazy public school teachers, even though the facts bear out that traditional public schools and traditional unionized public teachers are infinitely more efficacious at teaching kids, and that our public schools over the last century have helped grow the GDP of this country to unprecedented levels in all of human civilization.
Public services?! We don't need those either. Just hand everything over to corporations to run for us, and they will do it faster, cheaper and more efficiently.
Public health care?! Guffaw. Who needs single-payer when we have big insurance companies looking after our health care needs? At least the 80% of who are lucky to have some kind of health care.
And the list goes on and on and on. Every form of public service has been mercilessly and ceaselessly attacked by a massive propaganda machine funded by Wall Street and aimed at convincing all of us that you and your buddies on Wall Street and in the halls of conservative think tanks had all the answers. All the rest of us had to do was hand over our power, our cash, our ideals, and our capacity for human reason, and the corporate class would take care of all of it for us a la the movie Rollerball.
And those attacks against the public sector have included a number of strategies and tactics - foremost among these being to convince the public that public sector workers are worthy of derision and scorn, and that the vast majority (not just a small handful) are hopelessly incompetent and corrupt.
So in closing, let me say that I think it is a commendable first step that you are donating your "bonus" to those affected by this financial collapse. But it is only a first step. You and the other members of the cult of 'free-market mumbo jumbo' owe a huge huge huge apology to the people of this country and this planet.
You need and your corporate friends need to stop attacking the power of government and undermining its ability to help and protect ordinary people from those who would cheat them out of their life's saving thus rendering years of labor to something akin to serfdom.
You need to admit that markets, while sources of enormous wealth and power, cannot be allowed to operate unchecked and unregulated. And finally, you need to openly acknowledge that there are some sectors of human life and society (such as health care and education) that are too important to leave up to 'market forces' alone.
But I doubt you will do that considering that your big plan for returning your 'bonus' isn't to actually give it back to the taxpayers and their government but instead, like some Wall Street tycoon or neighborhood ward boss - you are going to dole it out yourself because as you say yourself you "do not want to see [the money] disappear back into the obscurity of A.I.G.’s or the federal government’s budget."