Despite my initial misgivings, I took the trouble to read all of Jake deSantis's editorial in the NYT.  I then took a minute to consider what Mr. deSantis said, and what I thought about it.

I realized, first, how rare it is for the top traders and managers of the financial elite to speak out in public, about anything.  For that reason, its members generally lack a recognizable or sympathetic face.  Those of us outside their sphere tend to see them as a small, incestuous coterie of the well-connected and obscenely privileged, whose economic success seems independent of the consequences that impact the rest of us.

Needless to say, this is not exactly who they are, or at any rate this is not how Mr. deSantis sees himself.  For that reason alone, the editorial was enlightening. Revealingly, Mr. deSantis makes much of his upbringing in a struggling, barely middle class home, and a scholarship to MIT: whatever his current station in life, Mr. deSantis clearly wants us to know that he wasn't born into easy circumstances, and that he has risen by dint of his own talents and efforts.  Some sense of guilt still seems to cling to the onus of being rich.

Whatever the appeal of Mr. deSantis's personal particulars, he does makes critical points in his editorial us taxpayers should keep in mind: that he and his division had nothing to do with credit default swaps; that, as a profitable unit of AIG, the sale of his unit at a  reasonable price will affect how much money AIG is able to pay back; that he and others in his division have continued to work long hours despite the siren calls of other financial services companies.

It's clear that Mr. deSantis and many others at AIG-FP have good reason to be upset at Mr. Liddy for not defending them before Congress. Mr. Liddy's failure to emphasize that most employees responsible for the credit default swaps have already left led directly to the wave of opprobrium unfairly breaking over their heads.  As the clean-up team, not the wrecking crew, the least those remaining at AIG-FP should expect from the man they work for is a spirited defense.

Here Mr. deSantis is at his most sympathetic: being sold down the river by your boss is something many of us can relate to.

But it's easy to see why taking up a sympathy collection for Mr. deSantis and friends among the general public would be a fool's errand.  Whatever his upbringing, Mr. deSantis displays the deafness of the compensation class he now occupies, though as someone who has toiled long hours myself - sometimes for a lot, sometimes for a little - I'm willing to attribute some of his self-centeredness and lack of perspective to sheer mind-numbing overwork. 

In a world where circumstances beyond their control have ravaged the plans and expectations of many, many gifted and hardworking people in professions and industries around the globe completely unconnected with financial services, it is unlikely Mr. deSantis will find himself an object of special consideration for his efforts, however worthy they may be. He will have to find sympathy and understanding among family and friends, not in a blasted world where great effort for little gain is a commonplace.

I find myself returning again and again to the most jarring tone-deaf note in Mr. deSantis's editorial. Mr. deSantis goes out of his way to mention his willingness to work "for an annual salary of $1" out of "sense of duty" to AIG and the public. Well and good - taking a $1 where formerly you took much more is certainly a technical sacrifice. 

But how many people, reading on, are going to let him retain credit for high honor and nobility when they come upon the actual net amount of the "retention payment" that nicely supplements Mr. deSantis's martyr-like salary of 100 cents - $742,006.40 "after taxes" - and this not, in all likelihood, the only retention payment Mr. deSantis has received.  When Mr. deSantis claims that he can now donate this entire amount to charity without his family suffering "devastating losses", surely most people see less nobility in his $1 salary and sudden concern for others, and more of that earlier shade of guilt.

Mr. deSantis's mixed message only rendered his next statement a laugh-out-loud punch line:  "(s)ome might argue that members of my profession have been overpaid, and I wouldn't disagree".

But when I stopped laughing, and went back to reflecting, it became clear how revealing this last statement truly is.  Mr. deSantis, whose parents worked "multiple jobs" when "steel plants were closing" for tiny fractions of what he now makes, obviously only half-believes his own statements that his current station in life arises simply and cleanly from his great exertions and his frugal habits of "saving".

Through whatever nexus of talent, charm, old school ties, and other fortuitous circumstances, Mr. deSantis has done well, and I don't begrudge him his success.  I believe wholeheartedly that he learned much from his parents, that he works hard, that he saves, and that, more than many other members of his profession, he does in fact care about people outside himself and his immediate circle.

I just wish he had spent more time on the overcompensation of those toiling in financial services, and less on his own glorious sacrifice.

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