Bankers Worked Hard For Their Money, You Know

Well this is sort of neat! An actual AIG-FP executive wrote an op-ed in theTimesexplaining why he is not the most evil biological form on the planet short of the Ebola virus, and he makes some good points, such as: not everybody in the AIG-FP unit fucked up the world. It was only the credit default swap people.

Also, employees were repeatedly promised their bonuses over the past six months, and yes it does kind of suck for them that now they don't get them because of politics. But jesus christ:

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 boomand 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.

When will these people learn that arguing you made a lot of money "because of hard work" will not win you any points with people who work equally hard but make very little (to say nothing of those who have no jobs at all due to the fuckups of this editorialist's colleagues), and this is in fact the very sort of vain insulting bullshit attitude that makes people despise bankers?

Add that to his bit at the end about believing that "I at least deserve to dictate how my earnings are spent," while everybody else in America just has to pay boring old taxes that go wherever their elected representatives decide the money goes, and we are forced to conclude that this gentleman's hard-earned $742,006.40 in bonus money should go to the purchase of a giant bag of dicks for him to eat.

 Dear A.I.G., I Quit! [New York Times]