Mr. DeSantis leaves AIG

Jake DeSantis has famously submitted his resignation because he concluded that AIG had betrayed him and every other employee now working in AIG's Financial Products group who never profited from the ill-fated credit default swaps that subsequently wrecked the company. DeSantis believes he has earned his bonus. And he has if his account of his AIG career is at all accurate. Yet, problems remain.

First, DeSantis should have his bonus but for the fact that his company is insolvent and remains in business mostly because the Bush and Obama administrations were willing to keep it out of bankruptcy court. Why ought the taxpayers reward him and others like him when he willingly participated in this dubious enterprise?

Second, was DeSantis aware of the dangers posed by these credit default swaps? If he was, did he blow a whistle? Did he indirectly profit from this activity (by working for a company that greatly profited from this activity)?

Third, let us not forget that the relevant events occurred in a capitalist economy — in the especially brutal American system, no less. Fairness would have as much bearing on the AIG bonus situation as it had, say, on the UAW members who were forced by the crisis and political hectoring to give back additional monies and benefits. Does DeSantis believe that these men and women deserve this fate in any way at all?

While I find it easy to feel sympathy for Mr. DeSantis' plight; I also believe that the wrong he has suffered at the hands of AIG and the public pales when compared to the despair and misery one can easily find throughout the world. It is a matter of proportion. The world has more pressing problems to address than the one made public by Mr. DeSantis.