The worst part of the world financial crisis is this: A handful people have nearly wrecked the global financial system, unemploying millions and deleting large quantities of peoples’ money, and yet these few have not even been identified yet.
Sure, a few large name CEOs are being shot at by the media, but the truth is that the workers in the financial products division of AIG are the ones who precipitated this entire mess.
For evidence, one need only read the recent op-ed contribution to the New York Times by Jake DeSantis, an executive vice president of the American International Group’s financial products unit, which is an open letter of resignation to the CEO. In this letter, Mr. DeSantis clearly states his very hard work at the company, none of which contributed to the evil mumbo jumbo that many bankers stupidly took advantage of, by writing that: “I was in no way involved in – or responsible for – the credit default swap transactions that have hamstrung A.I.G. Nor were more than a handful of the 400 current employees of A.I.G.-F.P. Most of those responsible have left the company and have conspicuously escaped the public outrage.”
This is not cool. That those who actually made the decisions that caused all of this havoc are unscathed at all is unacceptable. The first thing to do is find out who, where, and when. The why we know; people cheated the system to make millions. The next thing to figure is what to do with these people. Now, I am not a fan of corporal punishment in any form, but the money these people made should be taken away from them, and their lives should be effected in such a way that they somehow learn the evil of their ways. Personally, I would prefer that these people spend their time helping those less fortunate, like the homeless or starving, rather than in jail. But, alas, the system works the way it does. Either way, they still have to pay.
These types of situations often happen all the time throughout history and the world. Large screw-ups occur, and only those at the very top are held accountable, sometimes to a minimal extent, or not at all. But I do feel this situation is different. The whole world was effected! We, as humans beings, must continue to move in a positive direction regarding our morality and rules about the way we live. The problems we have are myriad; but we can only really deal with the ones that are right in front of us. We didn’t enter WWII until Pearl Harbor was bombed, yet morality would suggest we should have been involved much earlier, intelligence be damned. In this instance, where our global economy and very lives were shifted, the lesson we should learn is that what we do really matters, and those who make mistakes should suffer the correct punishment.
