Rolling Stone’s Matt Taibbi helps to unravel the financial crisis; and finds that at its core, twelve guys ruined the economy for everybody.
Yes, twelve guys.
The mistake most people make in looking at the financial crisis is thinking of it in terms of money, a habit that might lead you to look at the unfolding mess as a huge bonus-killing downer for the Wall Street class. But if you look at it in purely Machiavellian terms, what you see is a colossal power grab that threatens to turn the federal government into a kind of giant Enron — a huge, impenetrable black box filled with self-dealing insiders whose scheme is the securing of individual profits at the expense of an ocean of unwitting involuntary shareholders, previously known as taxpayers.
Jake DeSantis, Executive Vice President of American International Group’s Financial Products Unit, publicly filed his resignation today.
I, like many, have become weary of the sideshow that has distracted us from the root causes of our current crisis. Mr. DeSantis appears to be as well. He, like many, has done his job conscientiously and honestly; and can no longer work for a company that has failed so many.
Moreover, he is donating the money being paid to him to aid those most affected by the economic downturn AIG helped to create. It’s refreshing to see someone from the party of personal responsibility actually demonstrate some.
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.
No individual decides to quit his/her job. Many individuals, however, when still in high school and considering their futures, compare staying in high school and then going on to college to simply dropping out and letting everyone else “row the boat.” They look at their older sister who got that teaching or nursing degree and consider that sister’s lifestyle, comparing it to that of their older brother who dropped out of high school and has turned living at the public trough into an art form. He gets the food and the rent and the medical and the tax checks (even though he has never paid a penny of income tax, himself) and the health club membership and, perhaps most importantly, the overflowing public adoration of any candidate aspiring to political office.
It sounds harsh, but the saying “Stupid should hurt” is a good one.
What is this older brother’s name?
Lots of people draw these elaborate hypothetical scenarios, but where in reality do these people exist?
And why should “stupid hurt?” Some people are just stupid. They aren’t lazy or careless, they just aren’t very smart. My friend and I are intelligent guys – at the very least, above average – and we’re not alone. What of our counterparts on the other end of the IQ spectrum? Are people suggesting they should be kicked to the curb because they drew the genetic short straw?
And what of the millions of people out there who were just poorly-raised? One of the revelations that surfaced during the Presidential campaign was how widespread the “anti-intelligence” attitude is throughout rural and blue-collar America (or “the real America,” as Sarah Palin terms it).
So, some young man from Kansas, raised by a couple of hayseeds that thought college was too “elite” for their kid, should be doomed to poverty when his blue-collar job gets outsourced because why? To teach him a lesson?
The point is well-taken in the instances my friend describes. One of the faults in that reasoning, however, is the assumption that all, or even most, of the people in that position made conscious choices that led them there.
Another is the implicit idea that everyone that wants to make a life for themselves should go to college and pursue a degreed career. Someone has to pick up the trash, wait the tables and pick the vegetables. Why should the people that work hard to perform these vital functions be any less deserving of the chance to provide for their families?
To me, that’s the part that sounds stupid; and yes, it hurts.
Who are all of these people deciding not to work? For the past several days, I’ve read several letters to the editor claiming that the economic stimulus plan being put forth by the White House will result in people deciding they are better off not working.
I challenge the authors of such letters, and anyone else for that matter, to name for me three actual people that heard the news of these government bailouts and quit their job.
Don’t worry, I’ll wait.
In the meantime, maybe everyone else can give the “downfall of the nation” rhetoric a rest. You aren’t being penalized for success or rewarding laziness. Laissez-faire capitalism results in these increasing economic blow-ups every decade or so, and the longer the downside is ignored, the more destructive these explosions will get.
By moderating the downside, however, we create a level of economic security. By making sure that laid-off workers can keep their health care, draw unemployment and maintain some stability for their families during these transitional periods, we curtail much of the fear that drives many poor financial and economic decisions.
To do that, however, we also have to moderate the upside. The money for that security has to come from somewhere, while at the same time, the wealthiest of us have an obligation to invest back into the system that afforded them the opportunities they exploited in the first place.
Now conservatives will argue that doing that results in a lower GDP, and they’re correct. But most Americans, I believe, would be willing to sacrifice a little GDP in exchange for some economic security.
That’s not socialism, and anyone that tells you otherwise is relying on your ignorance of what socialism actually is in order to frighten you. It’s responsible management of capitalism.
This country was not founded on the auspices of “every man for himself,” but rather “we the people.” And as such, we all have a responsibility towards our our brethren. Those that try to justify their lack of compassion and unwillingness to contribute to our common cause by denigrating their brothers and sisters are, in my opinion, unpatriotic.
We may not be able to change such people’s perspectives, but the least we can do is not allow them to position themselves as the voice of America. They are just voices for themselves, and Americans must strive to be more than that.
“The answers to our problems don’t lie beyond our reach. They exist in our laboratories and universities, in our fields and our factories, in the imaginations of our entrepreneurs and the pride of the hardest-working people on Earth.”
People tend to have a visceral reaction to the sight of books piled ten feet high and left to rot in a windowless warehouse or strewn about a classroom floor. They seem to have more sympathy for books than for the children who’ll never have the chance to use them. Half of Detroiters cannot even read. Unemployment is above 20 percent and our streets are filled with hopeless people. When I see schools left like this, I know exactly what waits for many of these kids. I see it every day on the streets.
Rolling Stone’s Matt Taibbi helps to unravel the financial crisis; and finds that at its core, twelve guys ruined the economy for everybody.
Jake DeSantis, Executive Vice President of American International Group’s Financial Products Unit, publicly filed his resignation today.
A friend of mine wrote:
Who are all of these people deciding not to work? For the past several days, I’ve read several letters to the editor claiming that the economic stimulus plan being put forth by the White House will result in people deciding they are better off not working.
Absolutely devastating.