I do not feel sorry for this guy at all- I do agree with his calling on the
AG and the congress for pulling his pay but!  that's where I fall short of
feeling sorry for this guy.

Here is what I say to the working stiff that has a degree from MIT making
obscene money... You have been greedy for way too long and you should be
ashamed of yourself. When is enough enough--

I own shares of AIG who was supposed to be a respectable organization with
steady growth from insurance business. What a train wreck it turned out to
be because of a hand full of rogue employees that have not been identified
or brought to justice for taking part in the all American SCAM. Those are
the real dirt bags.

Why can't the government find the employees that were responsible for the
failures and bring THEM to justice.

My losses are from a few hundred shares of stock and cannot be recouped but
mine are minor compared to many others.


Here below is the resignation letter from a former AIG employee-  Jake
DeSantis "check the size of his "bonus after taxes"  GREED breeds GREED
And he thinks he deserves the money. He may be a nice guy and very smart but
when the rubber meets the road all I can think about is "if the top brass at
AIG were taking much less money over the years I would still have an
investment worth something.

My thoughts

==================
or link

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/25/opinion/25desantis.html?_r=3&pagewanted=all


----------------------------

DEAR Mr. Liddy,

It is with deep regret that I submit my notice of resignation from A.I.G.
Financial Products. I hope you take the time to read this entire letter.
Before describing the details of my decision, I want to offer some context:

I am proud of everything I have done for the commodity and equity divisions
of A.I.G.-F.P. 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.

After 12 months of hard work dismantling the company — during which A.I.G.
reassured us many times we would be rewarded in March 2009 — we in the
financial products unit have been betrayed by A.I.G. and are being unfairly
persecuted by elected officials. In response to this, 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 take this action after 11 years of dedicated, honorable service to A.I.G.
I can no longer effectively perform my duties in this dysfunctional
environment, nor am I being paid to do so. 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. Having now been let
down by both, I can no longer justify spending 10, 12, 14 hours a day away
from my family for the benefit of those who have let me down.

You and I have never met or spoken to each other, so I’d like to tell you
about myself. I was raised by schoolteachers working multiple jobs in a
world of closing steel mills. My hard work earned me acceptance to M.I.T.,
and the institute’s generous financial aid enabled me to attend. I had
fulfilled my American dream.

I started at this company in 1998 as an equity trader, became the head of
equity and commodity trading and, a couple of years before A.I.G.’s meltdown
last September, was named the head of business development for commodities.
Over this period the equity and commodity units were consistently profitable
— in most years generating net profits of well over $100 million. Most
recently, during the dismantling of A.I.G.-F.P., I was an integral player in
the pending sale of its well-regarded commodity index business to UBS. As
you know, business unit sales like this are crucial to A.I.G.’s effort to
repay the American taxpayer.

The profitability of the businesses with which I was associated clearly
supported my compensation. I never received any pay resulting from the
credit default swaps that are now losing so much money. I did, however, like
many others here, lose a significant portion of my life savings in the form
of deferred compensation invested in the capital of A.I.G.-F.P. because of
those losses. In this way I have personally suffered from this controversial
activity — directly as well as indirectly with the rest of the taxpayers.

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.

But you also are aware that most of the employees of your financial products
unit had nothing to do with the large losses. And I am disappointed and
frustrated over your lack of support for us. I and many others in the unit
feel betrayed that you failed to stand up for us in the face of untrue and
unfair accusations from certain members of Congress last Wednesday and from
the press over our retention payments, and that you didn’t defend us against
the baseless and reckless comments made by the attorneys general of New York
and Connecticut.

My guess is that in October, when you learned of these retention contracts,
you realized that the employees of the financial products unit needed some
incentive to stay and that the contracts, being both ethical and useful,
should be left to stand. That’s probably why A.I.G. management assured us on
three occasions during that month that the company would “live up to its
commitment” to honor the contract guarantees.

That may be why you decided to accelerate by three months more than a
quarter of the amounts due under the contracts. That action signified to us
your support, and was hardly something that one would do if he truly found
the contracts “distasteful.”

That may also be why you authorized the balance of the payments on March 13.

At no time during the past six months that you have been leading A.I.G. did
you ask us to revise, renegotiate or break these contracts — until several
hours before your appearance last week before Congress.

I think your initial decision to honor the contracts was both ethical and
financially astute, but it seems to have been politically unwise. It’s now
apparent that you either misunderstood the agreements that you had made —
tacit or otherwise — with the Federal Reserve, the Treasury, various members
of Congress and Attorney General Andrew Cuomo of New York, or were not
strong enough to withstand the shifting political winds.

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. None of us should be cheated of our
payments any more than a plumber should be cheated after he has fixed the
pipes but a careless electrician causes a fire that burns down the house.

Many of the employees have, in the past six months, turned down job offers
from more stable employers, based on A.I.G.’s assurances that the contracts
would be honored. 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.

The only real motivation that anyone at A.I.G.-F.P. now has is fear. Mr.
Cuomo has threatened to “name and shame,” and his counterpart in
Connecticut, Richard Blumenthal, has made similar threats — even though
attorneys general are supposed to stand for due process, to conduct trials
in courts and not the press.

So what am I to do? There’s no easy answer. I know that because of hard work
I have benefited more than most during the economic boom and have saved
enough that my family is unlikely to suffer devastating losses during the
current bust. Some might argue that members of my profession have been
overpaid, and I wouldn’t disagree.

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. Our earnings
have caused such a distraction for so many from the more pressing issues our
country faces, and I would like to see my share of it benefit those truly in
need.

On March 16 I received a payment from A.I.G. amounting to $742,006.40, after
taxes. In light of the uncertainty over the ultimate taxation and legal
status of this payment, the actual amount I donate may be less — in fact, it
may end up being far less if the recent House bill raising the tax on the
retention payments to 90 percent stands. Once all the money is donated, you
will immediately receive a list of all recipients.

This choice is right for me. I wish others at A.I.G.-F.P. luck finding peace
with their difficult decision, and only hope their judgment is not clouded
by fear.

Mr. Liddy, I wish you success in your commitment to return the money
extended by the American government, and luck with the continued unwinding
of the company’s diverse businesses — especially those remaining credit
default swaps. I’ll continue over the short term to help make sure no balls
are dropped, but after what’s happened this past week I can’t remain much
longer — there is too much bad blood. I’m not sure how you will greet my
resignation, but at least Attorney General Blumenthal should be relieved
that I’ll leave under my own power and will not need to be “shoved out the
door.”

Sincerely,

Jake DeSantis

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