Matt Taibbi responds to Jake DeSantis, the AIG exec who wrote the whiny GBCW letter last week in the NY Times:
DeSantis has a few major points. They include: 1) I had nothing to do with my boss Joe Cassano’s toxic credit default swaps portfolio, and only a handful of people in our unit did; 2) I didn’t even know anything about them; 3) I could have left AIG for a better job several times last year; 4) but I didn’t, staying out of a sense of duty to my poor, beleaguered firm, only to find out in the end that; 5) I would be betrayed by AIG senior management, who promised we would be rewarded for staying, but then went back on their word when they folded in highly cowardly fashion in the face of an angry and stupid populist mob.
I have a few responses to those points. They are 1) Bullshit; 2) bullshit; 3) bullshit, plus of course; 4) bullshit. Lastly, there is 5) Boo-Fucking-Hoo. You dog.
AIGFP only had 377 employees. Those 400-odd folks received almost $3.5 billion in compensation in the last seven years, a very large part of that money coming from the sale of credit default protection. Doing the math, that averages out to over $9 million of compensation per person.
Ask yourself this question: If your company made that much money, and the boss of the unit made almost $280 million in just a few years, exactly how likely is it that you wouldn’t know where that money was coming from?
***Also, there’s this: let’s just say, Jake, that you’re telling the truth, that you don’t know anything about this toxic portfolio. If that’s the case, then why the fuck does anyone need to retain you at an exorbitant salary to help unwind that very portfolio? If these transactions aren’t and never were your expertise, then where the hell is your value here?
When I spoke to Christine Pretto, the AIG spokeswoman, and asked about those bonuses, she said that AIG needed to retain people like you in order to take advantage of your “knowledge of these transactions.” So if you don’t have knowledge of these transactions, what are you being paid for? Your winning attitude?
At one point, about halfway through that rant, I may have shouted out “Hallelujah. Preach it!” And I’m not religious. This world would be a helluva lot better with more Matt Taibbi and less Fred Hiatt.
(via)
Incertus
The guy who wrote Get Your War On has a good response too.
The whole thing is brilliant
Napoleon
I love Taibbi. He is an absolute joy to read and he has been getting more air time in the last month or so. Did anyone see him on Hardball on Friday? He was hysterical. I have begun to think that he, along with Stewart and Colbert, may be one of the best things the left has going for it in the media right now. But unlike Stewart and Colbert who do not hold themselves out as journalist, he actually is one, but combines it with a wit that makes what he has to report stick with you.
Pooh
Matt Taibbi!
poopsybythebay
You aren’t kidding. I loved that rant so much I ran around the house and read it to anyone who would listen. Hell-I even read it aloud to the dog. The thing I kept thinking in my mind was wouldn’t it be wonderful if ANY not all, but if ANY of our elite press corp were like Matt Taibbi. Not one of them would have been able to write that insightful rant or would have ever allowed their sycophantic conventional wisdom to get in the way of what they write. They as a group are incapable of looking at an issue with that kind of almost surgeon like precision and breaking through the bullshit to get to the crux of the matter-ever. It is as if when they come to Washington they are already narcissistic or something about Washington makes them that way–I can’t decide what comes first the chicken or the egg. Anyway–Matt is my new hero and I wish he would turn that incredible journalistic scalpel towards the Republican party and explain what the hell is going on with the nutcases we are left to deal with in their present day incarnation.
zirconium
I love the sound of rich whining crybabies during financial meltdowns. It’s music to my ears.
Shawn in Showme
Taibbi’s certainly come a long way from the sophomoric "The 52 Funniest Things About the Upcoming Death of the Pope". If you told me that the overgrown adolescent that wrote that four years ago would be the brilliant political commentator he is today, I would never have believed it. He’s grown up before our very eyes.
Michael
The world needs the sort of gadfly commentary that publications like Rolling Stone and comedians like John Stewart provide. They don’t take themselves seriously, and can step out on the limb while speaking truth to power.
JenJen
@John Cole, top: John, have you ever read Taibbi’s "The Great Derangement: A Terrifying True Story of War, Politics, and Religion at the Twilight of the American Empire"?
It’s an excellent read, and if you like his voice as much as I do, you’ll howl out loud with each new chapter.
Danton
"GBCW"? I am not aware of all internet abbreviations. I am aware that Taibbi is the best thing about Rolling Stone.
John Cole
GBCW defined.
BTW- my pad thai that I made was SPECTACULAR.
El Cid
I just have been watching the "Roundtable" portion of ABC’s "This Week with George Centristopoulos" and watched Matt Dowd respond to Krugman’s sober explanation of why health care costs must be controlled in order to preserve the economy and the budget that ‘Obama has to prove his legitimacy to the American people by taking on core Democrat constituencies.’
I.e., We Republicans, who constitute the very definition of American legitimacy, will not truly support Obama until he makes more of those greedy old people on Social Security eat more dog food and kicks more poor people out of medical clinics.
F*@% all you god damned useless bastards, Matt Dowd.
Comrade Mary, Would-Be Minion Of Bad Horse
Danton: GBCW.
Comrade Mary, Would-Be Minion Of Bad Horse
El Cid, I think Dowd topped himself (oh, if only …) by saying that Obama really wasn’t a peacemaker because after all the talk of getting out of Iraq during the campaign, now he was going into Afghanistan. As if Obama had not repeatedly argued that one reason Iraq was a mistake was because it took needed troops away from Afghanistan and made things worse.
JenJen
@Incertus: That was FANTASTIC. Thank you so much for the link, I wouldn’t have seen it otherwise.
I’ll never forget managing this great little tavern in those strange months after 9/11. The cook and I would hunker down on the line and laugh our asses off at all the David Rees comics, which we’d print out for each other, all the while wondering if it was OK for us to laugh (it wasn’t), which is why we kept his work to ourselves.
This one I seem to remember the most.
Jason F
Seriously? You’re going to credit Atrios? Don’t you read the comments to your own blog?
Pooh
@JenJen:
I have read the book. It’s almost sad because all the characters are clearly alienated from other people…
John Cole
@Jason F: Sorry, I try to read them all but sometimes I miss a few.
Michael
Health Care seems to be the third rail for the corporatists – they’re so very desperate to keep it untouched; meanwhile, self-employed guys like me pay a very large amount of money for "coverage" which doesn’t pay for anything. We’re pretty healthy, yet I pay thousands each year for the little stuff that pops up, plus the premiums.
The social contract is breached from the top, yet my former party insists that the bottom still owes its end of the bargain.
Jason F
I absolutely love this column, but Taibbi doesn’t even touch upon the most brazen part of DeSantis’s little "Open Letter from John Galt": the part where he explains that because he loves his country and his company so much, he was willing to work for $1 … right up until the point where they took away his three-quarter million paycheck.
Danton
John, I’m not the pad thai guy. I’m the salsa verde and frijoles guy.
Pooh
That’s funny, I thought Obama proved his legitimacy by, you know, winning an election by a sizable margin…
Singularity
Did any other major blogs link to the Smirking Chimp? Because they seem to be down.
donovong
Did anybody ever figure out if the DeSantis guy actually exists? I read somewhere that he cannot be found anywhere on the food chain in public records. There was some speculation that the NY TImes had been spoofed. As if they didn’t have it coming.
Jason F
@John Cole: I’m just giving you a hard time because I’m an incurable attention whore.
Jason F
@Singularity:
The GOS linked to the Taibbi column in a rec-list diary (which is where I saw it last night). Given that it’s Taibbi — i.e. a guy who the world knows wears something other than pajamas — I wouldn’t be surprised if this one gets plenty of attention.
El Cid
@Comrade Mary, Would-Be Minion Of Bad Horse: You’re just angry that the clever Dowd finally exposed Obama for not really being a radical pacifist.
(This snark should not in any way, however, be construed as some blanket endorsement of upcoming U.S.-Afghanistan stragedies.)
Laura W
@John Cole:
Perhaps a nice food styling photo atop the tourney thread?
You know how popular the recipe/condiment threads are.
JenJen
@Singularity: Try this one, seems to be working!
@Laura W: I really got screwed but good by Pitt in my brackets yesterday. I’m putting the city of Pittsburgh on notice.
El Cid
That would be too, too awesome. I wish it were the Yes Men, but then both the name and the letter’s content would have been far more egregiously absurd.
Speaking of the Yes Men, there’s this new video on their blog.
John Cole
Armando wants attention again. I’m not going to give it to him.
Nice little trick he does there, though. Take what I said about people thinking Obama had betrayed them on the legalization issue and claim that somehow I am calling Al Giordano stupid.
God, he is such a fucking wanker. I never thought it would be possible to hate some Democrats more as a Democrat than I did as a Republican.
Laura W
@JenJen: Yeah. I already told Northridge that the next major quake they sustain is my thanks to them. Assholes.
jenniebee
The fact that Matt Taibbi is mortal may be taken as proof that there is no such thing as an omnipotent and benevolent God. Because if there was one, he would be just like Matt Taibbi.
JenJen
@John Cole: It’s not difficult to find Armando to be a massive asshat at all, Dem or no Dem.
Now, I’ve never been a Republican, but that never stopped me from thinking that Armando (aka Big Tent Democrat) is a complete tool. So welcome to the club! Plenty of intra-party hatin’-on to go around.
Chuck Butcher
I’m still trying to figure out how anything I’ve seen or heard out of political DC has anything to do with addressing the disparity of wealth in this country. I’m entirely willing to hear that something has been been proposed.
Without addressing this the rest is just window dressings, you can pile up all the BS patches on health care etc you please and the core problem remains and probably gets worse.
Incertus
@John Cole: That’s some pretty weak sauce as attacks go–it’s the kind of thing you might see coming from Fox News.
Pooh
@Chuck Butcher:
But, but, but that would be Class Warfare…
John Cole
@Incertus: That is Armando for you. The sum total evidence of his proof that I think Al Giordano is stupid? My post has the word “stupid” in it.
Doesn’t mention Al Giordano, though.
Armando is just a total jackass.
The Moar You Know
@John Cole: Armando is a shitbag.
But I have to thank him for one thing – I had just gotten into political blogs and was spending quite a bit of time over at the GOS when Armando started running seriously amuck. It was watching Markos’ abject failure to deal with him (and with other people who were seriously impeding the discourse over there) that made me realize that Markos was only in it for the money. Anything for page hits.
Result: a site with far more noise than content, with a commentariat that is as sheeplike and stupid as that at the right-wing blog of your choice.
So yeah, Armando ruined DKos and nothing of value was lost.
JL
@John Cole: I just took a quick glance over at TalkLeft and did not see the comment mentioning you. Of Course, Jeralyn had a youtube of the sweaty, sexy, boss singing Dancing in the Dark so that could have diverted my attention.
In fact thanks for mentioning Armando cause I would not have seen this great sexy, sweaty person singing.
Jim in Chicago
Moar You Know, WTF are you talking about? I read DKos all the time and can’t remember the last time I saw a post by BTD. Were you thinking of MyDD perhaps?
As for value at DKos, where Taibbi’s story was diaried well before John picked it up, try these for starters:
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2009/3/28/102530/532
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2009/3/23/84449/7350
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2009/3/22/115011/850
Woodrow "asim" Jarvis Hill
Did he even read Al’s post? Al is all over Obama for laughing it off, yes. Yet Al saves the bulk of the post for ass-kicking the people who voted up the "legalization=PROFIT!" question in the first place. For wasting a great chance to get their opinions out into the open.
Al understands, better than perhaps anyone on "our side" how this isn’t about "ohmybutthurt!", but strategy. I wish more Democrats — hell, more GOPers! — would listen to what he has to say.
NonyNony
@Jim in Chicago:
I presume that Moar You Know meant that period of time between when Armando really started going nuts and when Kos finally kicked Armando off the site. I don’t recall how long a time it was, since I had stopped really paying much attention to dKos long before Armando went crazy. In fact, I only found out about Armando getting kicked out sometime later from someone on a BJ comment thread, IIRC.
passerby
"I have a few responses to those points. They are 1) Bullshit; 2) bullshit; 3) bullshit, plus of course; 4) bullshit. Lastly, there is 5) Boo-Fucking-Hoo. You dog."–M. Taibbi
"American Hero", aptly called.
I haven’t read anyone more on the mark and as bitingly funny as Taibbi.
[feels the purge]
burnspbesq
@Chuck Butcher:
Nor are you likely to. The Village thinks large income disparities are just hunky-dory, as long as all the kewl kidz are on the right side of the chasm.
burnspbesq
Taibbi’s shrillness and sanctimony make Greenwald look like the personification of sobriety and restraint. And my feelings about Greenwald are no secret.
If your message is so fucking good, why are you overselling it? And don’t insult the intelligence of your readers by saying that’s the only way to cut through the clutter. Scott Horton and Brad DeLong don’t have any difficulty cutting through the clutter.
John Cole
@burnspbesq: The difference between a rant and laying out the case. Taibbi’s is the former.
Hell, I think Taibbi made some mistakes in his rant (ie: the reason you would want to keep him on). It was still fun to read.
burnspbesq
@John Cole:
That’s fair. And in fairness to Taibbi, it can’t be easy to walk in the footsteps of Hunter Thompson and P.J. O’Rourke. But if you turn the dial to 11 and leave it there, how do you differentiate the message that the sky really is falling from all of the other messages?
BDeevDad
An AIG wife rant was posted in the New Yorker and a commenter found her "expenses"
BethanyAnne
Really, all you have to pay attention to with ConcernTrollDemocrat is the "speaking for myself only". It really is a great way to remember how much of a tool he is. Only someone who was kicked off a site for being a shill would have to use that disclaimer for every post for the rest of his life.
El Cid
I think I was probably reading & occasionally commenting on DKos during the ‘Armando’ thing. Did I do something wrong by hardly noticing it or not paying much attention?
Redhand
The whole idea of being able to "earn" such compensation in this line of work is bullshit, as in, "If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is."
No one can persuade me that these scumbags actually thought the underlying derivative transactions were such gold, or that they were worth the money they got "managing" them. The whole thing absolutely reeks of fraud, or at the very least, obscene money-for-nothing paper shuffling.
Wile E. Quixote
@John Cole
Thanks, I thought that it stood for "George Bush Cock Worshipper". Now if someone would just tell me what a DFH is.
Comrade Stuck
@John Cole:
I want a BTD thread. so he will call us all Obama cultists and give me the excuse to go over there and give him a rhetorical wedgie. Purdy Please, we never have no fun anymore! gosh darnit./
Svensker
@Wile E. Quixote:
Now if someone would just tell me what a DFH is.
Dirty Fucking Hippie
nepat
@Woodrow Jarvis Hill –
Agreed. Strategy is what it’s all about, but strategy requires the long view. Unfortunately the critical left doesn’t do the long view all that well. Toddler-level temper tantrums are the order of the day. They pay the bills and keep the clicks and the TV bookings coming. Which brings me to Taibbi.
I just don’t get it. He’s angry. We know this because he uses the word ‘fuck’ in every fucking sentence. And he hates rich people because they just don’t get it. And they’re phonies. And they have some nerve complaining. And shit. I enjoyed the whole anti-elitist rap better when Holden Caulfield was doing it.
Yes, AIG is teh suck, but it would be more useful to our political position overall if our anger lined up with our policy initiatives. Where’s the collective barbaric yawp over healthcare? Or education? Or energy? Instead it’s day-after-day of pointless navel gazing. Krugman! Taibbi! Meanwhile the major policy initiatives of the Obama administration are rendered trivial and secondary to the orgy of Wall Street bashing that passes for political discourse these days.
I didn’t vote for Krugman. Or Taibbi. I voted for the other guy.
Mike in NC
Dirty F-ing Hippie
jcricket
@Svensker: AKA "the people who have been right for 40 years".
John Cole
DFH defined. See entry #2.
JenJen
@John Cole: Wakey, Wakey, Eggs and Bakey!
Or maybe pan noodles. Good morning!
Comrade Stuck
@John Cole:
Urban dict also says this.
Hmmm . Fill in the blank
leo
Hopefully the NY Times will print Taibbi’s response.
jcricket
I thought the rant was good, albeit long. The whole original editorial struck me as self-serving BS (as Taibbi said) and about as realistic as the "Going Galt" or Joe the Plumber not buying a business because of Obama’s tax cuts or Ronald Reagan’s welfare queens. It’s all BS, the entire GOP economic agenda.
It starts with a lie, followed by faux-research, which is then supported by made up anecdotes and reinforced by the right-wing noise machine.
And the reason it’s still so compelling is, even now, Democrats aren’t out there forcefully arguing in favor of a more sane, progressive tax system. They’re still afraid to, as Taibbi did, call BS. Until that happens the Republican "free lunch" mantra will continue to be an acceptable "alternative".
It’s like the faux debate about creationism v. evolution or vaccines and autism. Sure, there are animated voices on both sides, but one side is 100% right and the other 100% wrong, and the continued debate only wastes time, resources and potentially lives.
jcricket
@Comrade Stuck: Wonder if it has to do with this phenomenon?
Comrade Stuck
@jcricket:
Maybe we should just keep calling them wingnuts and let God sort ’em out.
BethanyAnne
You know, "Peak Wingnut" would make a great WoW guild name.
Paul L.
Seems that Taibbi is a believer in Fake but Accurate
Did He ever correct his statement about Bush and the Plastic Turkey?
MATT TAIBBI: It was a plastic turkey.
AMY GOODMAN: Was it actually plastic?
MATT TAIBBI: Yes. Apparently it was a plastic turkey.
AMY GOODMAN: It was plastic?
MATT TAIBBI: Yes. That was actually reported in the — in another part of The Nation, in the daily outrage column online. But, yeah it was a plastic turkey, apparently. Which is even funnier. The famous shot where he’s holding the big turkey, apparently that’s a plastic turkey.
Here is the NY Times correction
An article last Sunday about surprises in politics referred incorrectly to the turkey carried by President Bush during his unannounced visit to American troops in Baghdad over Thanksgiving. It was real, not fake.
Comrade Stuck
@Paul L.:
A turkey’s a turkey and you of all people should know that.
Svensker
Matt Taibbi, who has killed no one, can apologize about making a mistake about the plastic turkey after George W. Bush, who has killed thousands upon thousands, apologizes for making a mistake about the threat presented by Iraq.
But in wingnut land, Taibbi’s error is more egregious.
futzinfarb
Is there a tax expert out there? What are the tax implications of the way all these executive compensation plans are put together with bonuses??? The more I’ve heard about them, their ubiquity and and their detachment from performance, the more I’ve suspected that there’s some other very important angle. Are these compensation packages built around big bonuses a way to route money around the tax obligations of the "little people?"
Ed Marshall
@Paul L.:
I don’t really give a shit about the turkey, but those comments in your link bitching about it are a hoot. No GWB, the socialist traitor, back then. Nothing but the full-on, manlove for the savior of Western Civilization that I remember but no one will own up to anymore.
demimondian
@Wile E. Quixote: DFH == doubly fucked helot
AnneLaurie
Matt Taibbi is also responsible for one of my favorite quotes about the easy metric for distinguishing between American political parties:
Comrade Darkness
@John Cole, it IS tough to go wrong with a dish containing peanut butter AND ketchup.
Mike in NC
At least the ones I know personally.
numbskull
It’s a feature, not a bug.
OriGuy
And I though GBCW stood for Global War on Country & Western.
tavella
The turkey thing was miscommunication; the fact that it was a display turkey, not meant to be served, was translated into it being plastic. Chinese whispers.
So he was carrying around a decoration, but it was made of meat, not plastic.
jcricket
Yes, money buys them power, but they’d gladly give up money to spite Obama when they "go Galt" or lower their income to avoid paying slightly more taxes (yes, I know they’re lying).
All Republicans care about is spiting Democrats at this point. I don’t even think they have a real agenda with any kind of "this is how we will help America" thought behind it. Look at the ridiculous "budget" they put forth with the directionless graph.
All they cared about was power, then they had it, and all they cared about was keeping it. When that went horribly, horribly wrong, they’ve found themselves directionless, leaderless, rudderless and up to their neck in intra-party fighting. Fine by me.
iluvsummr
@donovong:
The first thing I did after reading DeSantis’ NYT piece was google his name. I found a LinkedIn page that seems to match his description (as of today, it still lists him as being an executive vice president at AIG). Even more interesting (from my perspective) is his MIT masters thesis topic: "Chemical Vapor Deposition of Iridium and Rhodium from Organometallic Precursors" conducted at Los Alamos National Laboratory.
He’s a material sciences major who ended up in the financial industry. The year I graduated, almost half the computer science PhDs went to do research on data mining/machine learning and statistical arbitrage for hedge funds, including some of my closest friends. I think academe lost out in the process. Who knows what DeSantis could have contributed to the world as a materials scientist. Too bad that world didn’t pay enough for him.
passerby
@Comrade Stuck:
"A turkey’s a turkey and you of all people should know that."
ZING!
[rotflmao]
p.s. I’m going to continue to spread the rumor about it being plastic. ): P
Comrade grumpy realist
Speaking as another MITer, I’d say that DeSantis also unfortunately fits another of the stereotypes: totally clueless about what signal he is giving off to people and totally unable to understand that Other People Might Not Live The Way He Does.
When I was getting interviewed for a quant position at Moody’s, they asked me my opinion on the whole LTCM mess. I pondered, then said: "looks exactly like what I’d expect a bunch of MITers to come up with. Fell in love with the math and stretched out the applications beyond reality."
terry chay
@donovong: Here’s a LinkedIn profile. I think one problem is that titles are so inflated in the financial services industry that you don’t realize an “executive vice president” is actually a peon. This guy is the tech equivalent of a senior software engineer. In our industry he’d be making $110k/year—a very comfortable salary. Instead we’re talking about a $740k after-tax income.
DFH no.6
Whaddya know? Smirking Chimp!
Haven’t been to that site in such a long time, didn’t even know it was still extant.
The Smirking Chimp and Media Whores Online were my first contacts with political blogs, back in the dark, dark days of early Bush (**shudder**).
Man, I still miss The Horse (whoever he or she was). Kinda like Billmon.
Taibbi’s good, but I gotta go with the critique above that he shouldn’t just turn it to 11 and leave it there.
terry chay
@iluvsummr: I forgot to mention the reason why most people are having trouble finding Jake Desantis.
My brother mentioned that he used to go by "Jason" not "Jake." He’s my brother’s year at MIT (Class of ’92 neé ’91) and from the same hometown as us (and John Cole): notice the reference to “closing the steel mills” in the original NYT editorial. ;-)