Daily it becomes more clear how certain members of congress and the senate need to be tarred and feathered. They are quick to stand on a pulpit and rant about those in charge of AIG and the like for running the businesses into the ground when they themselves are equally or more culpable.

Last night the President stood on his podium and talked about the change of NO DEBT or living beyond our means.

What can he be thinking? OH THAT’S RIGHT HE IS NOT!
Or again he thinks ‘we the public’ are total fools.
ARE WE?
Does anyone else out there understand when this man speaks a lie of some kind fly’s out?

Enough is ENOUGH!

The following is a letter sent on Tuesday by Jake DeSantis, an executive vice president of the American International Group’s financial products unit, to Edward M. Liddy, the chief executive of A.I.G.

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

It seems the public is truly fed up and ENOUGH IS ENOUGH has become the mantra of the day.
Give back the kick backs (political contributions) from AIG. In the latest poll from Rasmussen 67% say GIVE THEM BACK! While 21% say no. To date only Chris Dodd has said he would. Of course Chris Dodd says he will do a number of things and does not come through. Then we must consider Dodd is living in fear he might be impeached or recalled someday soon. It is probably a good idea for the public to see what he actually is going to do in this case.

Holding ones breath for action to take place is NOT ADVISED!

The public IS NOT STUPID! It does not take rocket scientists to understand the bailout money has gone to those who caused the crisis to begin with. And those who should be the overseers to the whole mess clearly were brain dead on these issues.

Is the public scrutiny going away? Not in this century. The sleeping giant (the true silent majority) has been awakened and is beginning to flex its muscles and scream STOP.

We have forgotten we are the POWER and it is in the best interest of all in public office to realize that lest they be booted out of office on their dead ass butts.

I still believe they need to take a pay cut just like they suggest the public do.

I think 66% drop is a good figure.
After all they have been sucking the tits of the government long enough. Let them work a year for $1 like the head of AIG has said he would do.

Keep in mind those in politics have the attitude of “let them eat cake” while the mass who is now REQUIRED to provide cake and a lot more to the lazy dolts on the hill sees life from a whole different perspective.

I am interested to see who really has the metal to win this battle.
So far my money is on the awakening giant for a whole lot of reasons.

List of the top 5 people who got kick backs from AIG

Chris Dodd (D-CT) $280,238
George Bush (R) $200,560
Chuck Schumer (D-NY) $111,875
Barack Obama (D) $107,332
John McCain (R-AZ) $99,249

We the people have awakened to an indescribable mess in our government. Daily there are so many things uncovered it is hard to know what to address next.

There is brewing an assault on the 2nd amendment … wake up everyone and be ready to stand up for your rights on this one.

Love this!

Next the brilliant idea that our Military needs to pay for its own medical?
YOU HAVE GOT TO BE KIDDING!
We ask our bravest to fight on foreign soil to keep these ASS HOLES in government safe and then do not want to take care of them? Again I say start the cutback in GOVERNMENT. STRIP THEM BACK TO WORKING IN THE GOVERNMENT ON THEIR OWN DIME.

What a surprise when I turn on the news only to find a whole gaggle of congress people arguing whose fault the AIG debacle is. I was most appalled at watching the lower than pond scum Barney Frank rail about the bonuses given to AIG heads.

HOW DARE HE?
HOW DARE Chris Dodd open his fat mouth after taking THE BIGGEST KICK BACK from AIG with Barack Obama taking the 2nd largest KICK BACK.

Yes I said KICK BACKS … lets call a spade a spade.

I have had a suggestion for quite some time.
EVERY LEADER IN WASHINGTON needs to give up their salary this year. They leap on their soapbox and feign indignation over the mass bailouts that were caused by their own failure. There is only one big change in DC and that is the change of President and Vice President … other than that we have pretty much the same pond scum in the House and Senate. EVERY ONE of them failed in their job. It’s time they stepped up to the plate and took responsibility. Starting with Frank and Dodd.

The Democrats are not the only ones who need to be held accountable. The Republicans share equal responsibility.

Let these businesses that are out on a limb FAIL … the sooner the better.

Apparently Obama and crew are STUPID enough to believe all of us are MORE STUPID than they are. Do keep in mind there is a lot of difference between not paying attention to what is going on than being STUPID. Finally the GIANT is awakening and stupid it IS NOT. The outcry is simple ENOUGH IS ENOUGH!

I understand how difficult it is. Daily I say to myself what can I do? One thing at this point. Keep this growing blog going. As time goes on the same message will be echoed across the ether.

Get your own Blog … they are free from WordPress.com. Connect to one another. Google is picking up these posts almost immediately. The more of us there are the more aware and informed we all become.

Glenn Beck has said it best … YOU ARE NOT ALONE!