The crybaby of AIG

A few days ago, I opened the Op-Ed pages of the New York Times and read a job resignation letter by Jake DeSantis, a former AIG Executive Vice-President.

DeSantis, who had been the head of business development for commodities at AIG, felt “betrayed” by AIG and “unfairly persecuted by elected officials.”

For a moment I almost felt sorry for the DeSantis, who seemed to be feeling the heat from two attorneys-general who were threatening to reveal the names of bonus recipients like him, and of Congress, which is threatening to tax those bonuses at a 90% rate.

As a consequence DeSantis was quitting, revealing his own name, and giving to charity his entire bonus — after tax deductions —of 742,006.40.

Million dollar mogul in
a five and ten cents huff

Of how much? Doesn’t that mean is real bonus was somewhere slightly north of $1 million?

And he resents the ire of the American taxpayers?

Hey, Jake, ever hear about the auto workers who had to give back part of their contracted-for medical and pension benefits?

Hey, Jake, ever hear about the out-of-work blue and white-collar folks who don’t know where their next meal or mortgage payment is coming from, while you admit “saved enough that my family is unlikely to suffer devastating losses during the current bust?”

I’ll bet you did and I’ll bet your family won’t suffer, considering the kind of past earnings that led you to expectations for a million-plus bucks a year.

"Innocent?" Well, not exactly.

You claim, Jake, that you had nothing, nada, zilch-o to do with the AIG meltdown. You say you're innocent.

I believe you. But maybe that’s because you were lucky. Instead of slicing and dicing mortgages, you were slicing and dicing and indexing commodities futures next door. They just didn’t happen to melt down. Not yet, anyway.

The good, the bad the commodified
and the commodity indexified

Now I have no objection to the concept of commodities trading. At least not agricultural commodities trading on a per-contract basis. Buying or selling agricultural futures enables a farmer to lock in a profit — or prevent a loss — on his crops. It enables companies like coffee distributors to stabilize prices at the supermarket. It has a reason, other than sheer greed, to exist.

But by the time commodities get to the Trading Desk, it’s another story. When people start packaging commodities into indexes, and selling put and call options on the futures, and futzing around with margins, and God-knows-what-else since the last time I looked in on the business, that’s not useful. That’s just another form of irresponsible economic parasitism, no different from mortgage mysto-magic.

Remember, all the money you made in commodities for AIG came out of somebody else’s pocket. In 18th Century England they used to hang pickpockets. Here we give them million dollar bonuses.

"Whaaa, whaaa, whaaa!"

Some time ago I mentioned what I heard commodities futures salespeople call the plumbing contractors and dentists and others whom they gulled into trading futures with the promise of huge profits, and then watched lose their shirts.

“Crybabies,” they called them.

So Jake, in an economy where people are losing their homes, their jobs, their savings, their investments, their pensions and their shirts, guess what you are with your million dollar temper tantrum?

Right. Look in the mirror.

Annoyed, irked, furious that some stockbroker, brokerage “financial planner,” or shill led you down the garden path? Here’s what they think of you.

Years ago, in the course of interviewing some commodity salesmen at a major brokerage house, Yours Crankily discovered the word that financial salespeople use for customers who complain that they’ve taken their advisors' advice and lost money.

“Crybabies.”

Yeah, they can afford to put you down. After all, it wasn’t their money that got lost. It was yours.

Not to say that the buyer shouldn’t always beware just on general principals. Anybody who says he knows where a stock is going a week down the road ought either to have his head examined or get arrested for fraud or insider trading. A childhood friend of mine, who was a Senior Vice President at a couple of well-known banks once told me, “I made my entire career and a lot of money pretending I knew what the market would do. The truth is, I didn’t know s**t.”

All the same, people come to brokers, bankers, advisors and publications because they know they need to invest and they’re not sure what to do. They figure the “expert” knows more than they do. And these experts are more than happy to sell advice to them, and sometimes securities and wealth management plans as well.

So people who sell their expertise want you to believe that indeed, they are God.

Visit the web testimonials page of The Oxford Club, an organization that sells subscriptions to newsletters containing investment advice. The first testimonial you encounter says this, “"Alex Green is the one of the most creative investment advisors I have ever encountered. I've known him for over 25 years, and have been continually impressed by his thorough diligence and skillful timing on investments. Alex has a broad view of investment opportunities, from domestic to foreign." http://www.oxfordclub.com/Visitors/Testimonials.html

Oxford mail and e-mail promotion pieces talk not only about beating the Dow or the S&P 500, but also about doubling and tripling your money in short amounts of time. No wonder some naïve investors look on these people as God. And no wonder they cry like Job when the market drowns their hopes, and sucks away their savings. But at least God restored Job to his former state when Job cut out his praise-the-Lord stuff and turned crybaby. Don't expect that from the Oxford Club, or anyone having anything to do with Wall Street.

Listen, I happen to like the Oxford Club. Green has made recommendations that have made money for me in recent times. All the more reason why I get nervous when Green sends me an e-mail praising, of all people, the author Ayn Rand, and carrying on about John Gault, a fictional Rand character. Worse, he uses Rand's colossally ridiculous fiction as the basis for his latest round of investment advice.

Do I mean the same fiction that praises ruthlessly predatory capitalists? Yup. And that scares me. Green writes:

“First, take responsibility for your own trades. Whether you make money or lose money, you should relish the fruits of your labors when your stocks go up, and not blame others when your investments decline.

“Granted, you may have learned of an investment idea from a stockbroker, newsletter writer or TV personality, but only you can be blamed if the stock goes south. Ultimately, it was YOU who decided to use that broker, subscribe to that newsletter writer, or watch that favorite financial program. Wise investors use several sources and then make their own investment decisions.”

Wait a second, Alex! Wait just one damn second! Why didn’t you tell me this when The Oxford Club was selling your skills as a stock guru?

In fact, why is Oxford telling me, in a box full of lusciously purple prose about blue water, inserted right into the text of Green's e-mail about John Gault, “The 2007 Breakout Commodity Report: Make Up to 689% in the Next Few Months from ‘The BLUE Revolution’

“A torrent of water is about to let loose on thirsty Nevada, from rivers of water that lay 200 feet to 2,000 feet below the surface of some of the most barren-looking land in the world. And a single company owns the right to that water - more than a million acres of proven reserves - that will generate approximately 11.4 billion gallons per year!

“Investors who know about this secret network of underground rivers stand to almost quadruple their money (on this investment alone) when the water begins flowing in just months.

“And that’s just one of four water-related opportunities you’ll learn about in The Oxford Club’s new report: Profit From The Blue Revolution: Pocket 689% Gains Or More From The One Commodity More Precious Than Oil, Uranium And Natural Gas.”

Got that, folks? Six hundred and eighty-nine percent, Green's "club" says. “In the next few months” at that.

Holy cow! That’s what I call a bold attempt to grab me through my computer screen and massage my greed gland to financial orgasm.

Just remember that on the same page, Green is excusing himself from any liability if the Oxford prediction of almost septupling your money in a few months turns out to be as phony as a $3 bill.

What scares me even more is that people who sell advice – even the generally good advice the Oxford Club has been selling me – are beginning to get off specifics and into John Gault and Ayn Rand morality. Consider that a giant “uh oh.” What do they know about the state of the market that they don’t want me to know until I part with my subscription dollars?

Or do they really know anything at all?