I Quit! (and now we know the rest of the story?)

Below is a link to an interesting letter from one of the 'greedy ones' at AIG: John DeSantis. I don’t know this man personally nor do I know his background or motivation for writing this letter any more than what he writes himself.

But it does make me wonder how many of those calling for 'blood' from AIG executives would, if faced with similar circumstances, actually have the wherewithal to do themselves what Mr. DeSantis claims he is doing?

I also wonder how many of those who boarded the CT 'tour bus' to visit these 'rich guys' and protest in front of their actual homes (whose idea was this?...) will actually read this New York Times op-ed piece and get more of the story?

Here is John’s actual article in the New York Times à New York Times artice - John DeSantis of AIG
This article appeared in the New York Times just yesterday (March 25th, 2009) and it already has been picked up internationally. (see http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2009/mar/25/aig-bonus-boss-resigns ).
As you probably are well aware, the AIG executive employee bonuses were somewhere between 165 and 220 million dollars. The bailout money to AIG was like 150 billion right? (did you know they're paying it back???...And of course, now we’re calling for these greedy executives from AIG, at least one of whom worked for a whole year without any salary (read the article New York Times artice - John DeSantis of AIG) to give back their bonuses OR we’ll pull out our big stick and the U.S. Congress will take it back via a law adding a line to the tax code that specifically targets employees from AIG. (by the way, are you familiar with the term: ‘bill of attainder’? It is by definition a legislative act that singles out an individual or group for punishment without a trial. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_of_attainder . Bills of attainder are forbidden by Article I, section 9, clause 3 of the U.S. Constitution. Funny what the gaps are in our education, isn’t it?)

I’m not defending the AIG executives, I’m not familiar with enough of the details to make a stand either way. Maybe most of them are all just greedy ‘fat cats’. But John DeSantis’ letter has to make you question jumping to that conclusion too quickly.
What’s more interesting to me is the outrage displayed by members of the U.S. Congress and allegedly the American public about these AIG bonuses. The frenzy of news coverage about this small group of people makes me wonder if the union workers at GMC had to drop any of their $135 per hour salaries, bonuses and benefit packages in order for GMC to receive their bailout money, which although currently less than the AIG bailout is still in the tens of billions and projected to increase this year and next.

I guess, these obscene costs for union worker’s salaries are not not something that Congress or the American people are outraged by although reducing the GM union worker benefit package to what Toyota compensates their non-union employees, for example would save about 6 BILLION dollars per year. Hmmm…let’s see what should I be more outraged by…$200 million in salaries for AIG executives in CT or 6 billion in salaries for UAW workers in the Midwest? That’s simple: those white collar Bourgeoisie piggies from CT of course. I mean who wants to hurt those poor blue collar proletariats from the UAW struggling to keep food on their table at a cost the American taxpayer of around $20 billion dollars per year, right?

And did you hear about the handout (bribe?) that GM is offering union employees to give up their jobs so they can retire their current Union workforce and rehire others at a lower per hour cost? It was in the papers but it’s still hard to even imagine numbers this large. GM offered a one time $140,000 payout to 74,000 employees as incentive to leave the company, sever all ties and NOT collect their pensions or health care that union retirement promises them. Now that’s a tough decision for these guys who have been working for 15 or 20 or even 30 years for GM to be all of sudden having to face the prospect of GM going bankrupt or NOT being able to pay their retirement pensions and healthcare costs that they have been counting on for years.

So I’m not saying it’s an easy decision but you know they are not the only people who have lost their jobs or their retirement money recently. Have you checked out the statistics of what current individuals 65 or older who have IRA’s and pensions in the stock market have lost in monthly and yearly income now that the stock market tumbled from 14,000 points to 7,000 points in 6 months? It’s not pretty for anybody out here right now.

If you’ve had trouble finding work lately or been laid off or had to bankrupt your business, etc. how nice would it be if the government would come in, bailout your company and then offer you a payout of $140,000 (I wonder if it’ll be taxed at 90%?) so that you can quit your job and either retire or maybe be hired back by the same company for less money…maybe say you’ll only make $84,000 per year instead of the $125,000 you were making.

It’s not a fairy tale. It’s happening right now at GM. You can read about it here: http://money.cnn.com/2008/02/12/news/companies/gm/ The government props up GM so they don’t fail and GM is offering all 74,000 of their union employees, supposedly with the government’s blessing, a one time payout of $140,000 per employee. Do the math. Really. Do the math. Grab a calculator and multiply $140,000 times 74,000. Not to be funny but you may need to use a spreadsheet or a computer because some calculators will NOT display that many digits. That’s right. GM, using government bailout funds has offered to give their employees (not executives…just rank and file, you know) slightly over 10 BILLION dollars.

I hope you get the point here. This outrage over AIG and executive bonuses, although maybe an important psychological or symbolic issue, certainly isn’t about economics or government stewardship of our resources.

But something that history has taught us is this. When the money's short and the breadlines are long every good king (dictator, tyrant, generalissimo, whatever) knows that it's prudent to hang a few 'fat cats' in the town square in order to appease and amuse the populace as well as to take the attention off of themselves.

So knowing history and the way of those in power, it’s hard for me to get worked up about 200 million to AIG when our own President within 50 days of saying forcefully and publicly that he will ban pork in his economic recovery package (http://www.nypost.com/seven/01072009/news/politics/obama_bans_stimulus_package_pork_149013.htm ) signs into law a stimulus package with pork that totals in the billions. How can I not be pessimistic and view this as a political diversion? I mean, definition of pork notwithstanding, 1 billion for community-development block grants, 4.2 billion for neighborhood stabilization programs and 650 million for the analog to digital TV conversion including 90 million towards educating “vulnerable populations” before they lose TV signals. (Heck it might have been cheaper to buy them all new color TV’s than to educate them!)

Again you can read about these non-stimulative, non-emergency portions of the ‘stimulus’ bill for yourself at http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=YjcyODIyZGM2MGU1ZDdkNDgxZDc3OTNjYjM4ZDY1ODI= .
Look it's not a republican versus democrat thing. To me that's just another smokescreen perpetuated by some in power to keep US, you know 'We the People', fighting amongst ourselves while they steal the Republic right in front of our eyes..(.God help me I'm starting to sound like a conspiracy theorist...) And it’s not an anti-Obama thing. I didn’t vote for him but I don’t have any hidden agenda against the guy. It’s all about reality and what’s best for all Americans not just special interest groups.

I read a funny cartoon by Randall Munroe on his XKCD website yesterday. I was just introduced to this website and I find it quite humorous in a quirky way. Here's a line from that comic strip a few days ago: "The difference between a million and a billion is the difference between me having a sip of wine and 30 seconds with your daughter and a bottle of gin and a night with her.” (You can see the comic for yourself at http://xkcd.com/558/ )

And that’s the real problem, our government is all ‘ginned up’ in their emotional frenzy of rescuing everybody and everything by spending money. And in this flood of feel good politics we’re trying so hard to sell this to the American people (some say shove it down our throats) that we get silly spectacles like a busload of 35 American citizens traveling on a bus to CT to visit and protest in front of AIG executives homes. I mean is this really significant or just a the latest in a series of video ‘sound bites’. And where is the national coverage of the thousands of American citizens who have been showing up to protests against the billions being spent by our government?

Did you know that April 15th is National Tea Party Day? (http://www.teapartyday.com/ ) Are you going to one? Did you read about the Florida Tea party three days ago in Orlando that drew somewhere between 3,000 and 6,000 American citizens? You can read about it here à http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/local/orl-locteaparty21032209mar22,0,426670.story and here à http://www.cfnews13.com/News/Local/2009/3/21/thousands_rally_against_stimulus_plan_at_orlando_tea_party.html .
So we get National News coverage of 35 people on a bus going to AIG executive homes (and did I see it correctly was one woman on that video actually opening someone’s private mail box? That’s a federal offense…) and yet thousands of people in Florida protest the spending policies of the current administration (a little over a trillion dollars right now) and I have to read about it in the Orlando Sentinel or see it on channel 13 news Orlando? What’s wrong with this picture? And who cares about analog to digital TV conversions anyway if the common man isn’t going to get the truth in color or black and white?

If you read nothing else, do remember to check out John DeSantis “I Quit” letter to AIG in the New York Times.
New York Times artice - John DeSantis of AIG