Jamaican in Africa

Obama: Stop the Witch Hunts and Stabilize the Banks

Mr. Desantis was well rewarded when times were good and AIG was profitable, and that is how it should be. The organization that he helped to lead is no longer profitable and the division he is Vice President of has helped to cause economic havoc for people at home and across the globe by destroying their life savings, bankrupting their employers and weakening their governments.
He insists that tax payers, many of whom earn thier living moving garbage, fighting wars, waiting tables, confronting criminals, running into burning buildings or riding ambulances use their taxes to pay him a seven figure bonus rather than fund their local schools, fix the roads or improve their access to healthcare. Mr. Desantis clearly does not realize the magnitude of what happened to many of these people because of what his organization did.
To him, perhaps the rising unemployment, home foreclosures and hunger statistics are nothing more than abstract figures in a newspaper and not a part of his reality. He may not have made the connection between people who are victimized by the organization he helped to lead and the real economic dislocation these people face. These people have collectively said no to rewarding him and his colleagues for destroying all they have tried to save for a life time.
He now says... well it wasn't me, and the people who did it left... didn't he as a leader have a responsibility to tell the people engaging in the destructive scheme that what they were doing was wrong? He clearly did not stop thier destructive behavior, and for his inaction he wants tax-payers to subsidise his bonus because it was "promised". Did he say a word while GM contracts with hourly paid workers were re-negiotiated because the tax payers said that they had to be?
I cannot look into his heart, he may well be a good and decent person and model citizen who goes to church, supports the local PTA and helps out at the Boys and Girls Club or local soup kitchen. I believe that as well intentioned as he is, he is also out of touch with economic realities facing many Americans who came from the background that his parents did. His letter also suggests that he is not aware that he and hisorganization had a fiduciary responsibility to the IRA holders and 401K savers who are AIG shareholders and were depending on their retirement savings.
I believe that Mr. Desantis may be so insulated that he is truly unaware of the suffering his inaction or lack of vigilance as a leader at AIG has inflicted on people who are more vulnerable to economic dislocations than he is and he just does not understand why tax payers and the people who represent them are outraged.
May God bless him, and open his eyes to reality. He can give $700k to charity and walk away from a job, and his family will be fine. The people who would empty bedpans in a hospital if he were sick cannot walk away from thier $30K a year job if they want to keep their kids clothed and fed, yet he does not understand their outrage.

On Mar 25 09:18 PM reality chk wrote:

> I don't care about Jake DeSantis or any of these multi million dollar
> annual wage packages. These free agent type wages have escalated
> to unreasonable levels because of competition, greed and manipulation.
> Get away from the isolated island called Wall Street and look at
> the real people who barely make $50K /year This disparity is not
> acceptable. For the past 15 years the Wall Street Vultures have been
> pushing the manufacturing world around until they pushed millions
> of people into the ocean on their way to China. Look at the earnings
> data for the pat 15 years. You will see a disturbing trend . Wages
> for the manufacturing sector have either stayed static or have declined.
> Even with cost of living adjustments. That means that people who
> work for a living are working for less and less each year. It also
> means that as we loose manufacturing, people loose their jobs, these
> same people are taking service jobs for a lot less wages further
> perpetuating the decline of the working class. All this while the
> Wall Street vultures are thriving with smoke and mirrors promoting
> themselves and genius, superstars demanding more and more.
> I'm not sure if AIG is a good example but it is the one in front
> of us today. I go back to my original question: If these superstars
> are so damn good why can't they make it on their own merits?
> Also don't you think the game changes somewhat when you go begging
> to the poor worker (taxpayer) for a bailout. The same worker that
> you are constantly see as a liability and you are pushing him to
> either take less or you do away with his job.
> This huge disparity in the Free Market system will cause further
> problems when the classes are getting further apart this way. So;
> I don't care about Jake DeSantis or any one else of that group.
>
> I care about the little guy who is being taken advantage everyday.
> These are hard times in the manufacturing world, I employ 16 people
> and I owe everything I have to those 16 people. I share everything
> I have with these 16 people. I may never be a rich man but I am a
> happy and content with a CLEAR conscience knowing my success did
> not come from someone's demise.

Obama: Stop the Witch Hunts and Stabilize the Banks

The freak show are you call the executive bonus compensation are a result of the executives own hubris. It is their outrageous conduct that threatens the whole bailout, nothing else.
Had they not persisted in demanding that taxpayers reward them with millions of dollars after they destroyed so many people's life savings there would be no outrage.
What we have here is a classical case of cause and effect, their conduct caused a storm of popular outrage. Shame on them for threatening the world's financial system and thier greedy folly which now threatens to derail efforts to efforts to repair their earlier blunders.


On Mar 24 04:32 PM Libby Mihalka wrote:

> I said in the article that these bonuses are egregious. My point
> is these bonuses represent just 0.02% of the entire taxpayer funded
> bailout and yet the outcry regarding these bonuses could derail the
> plan. It will be difficult for Congress to allocate additional funding
> to the bailout if everyone is having a tantrum regarding these bonuses.
> This whole sidshow reminds me of last fall when everyone was saying
> we shouldn't help homeowners or banks because of moral hazard. Look
> at how well that worked out. If we had taken steps sooner we wouldn't
> have such high unemployment and be in such a mess. We should keep
> our eye on the ball and not be distracted by the freak show.

Obama: Stop the Witch Hunts and Stabilize the Banks

I am not sure that I understand her arguments.

Is she suggesting that legislation to limit rewards to people whose poor decisions have undermined credit markets, destroyed people's life savings and caused countless economic catostrophies is a witch hunt?

Perhaps she does not realize that rewarding inappropriate conduct only encourages the misbehaving party to continue the antisocial and destructive behavior. If telling a person that they won't benefit from conduct that harms others is a witch hunt we must re-evaluate our use of words.

Our jails provide that housing for rapists, child pornographers, murderers and thieves are full of people who have harmed others. I am not suggesting that the bonus recipients be jailed (except if criminal behavior is demonstrated during a thorough investigation), but I believe that their irresponsible conduct should be discouraged.

Her logic on the other hand may be interpreted to suggest that the residents of our jails are victims of a relentless government witch hunt and society would be better off rewarding their misconduct rather than taking steps to discourage it. A pox on such logic and all who advocate it.