In Which Matt Taibbi Runs With It

Matt Taibbi vs. Jake DeSantis:

No contest whatsoever.

Like a lot of people, I read Wednesday's New York Times editorial by former AIG Financial Products employee Jake DeSantis, whose resignation letter basically asks us all to reconsider our anger toward the poor overworked employees of his unit.

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.

I was a lot nicer, for the record...which is why I'm not getting paid the big bucks for being Rolling Stone's political reporter. DeSantis was an executive VP in a firm of 400. He knew exactly what was going on. Period. If he didn't know, he was simply an incompetent twit instead of a greedy asshole.

Like I've said, you want to absolve yourself, Jake? Treasury and your country needs your "expertise".