Open Letter #1 ~ Re: A.I.G.

obamaimage, originally uploaded by Randuwa.

President Barack Obama
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW
Washington, D.C. 20050


Dear President Obama,

I am writing to you this evening after learning that the international insurance giant A.I.G. has decided to use some of it's bail-out funds to pay its executives $100,000,000.00 in bonuses. This raises for me a couple of questions:

1) Bonuses for what? I'm a teacher. Will I get a bonus under your proposal for merit pay for teachers if I send all of my students to the poorhouse and prison? If so, then, hey - I'm ALL FOR MERIT PAY!

2) Bailouts without strings? Haven't we been down this road before under George-the-Lesser and his corporate loving regime? (Just this very morning I got yet another phone call from the DNC asking me for money. MY MONEY. Why would I ever give you or the Democratic Party another penny of MY money when it just goes into the pockets of multi-millionaires who are incompetent in their professional contractual expectations while I struggle to meet my meager fiduciary obligations?)

I hope that you will act in extraordinary ways to protect my tax dollars from such arbitrary and capricious abuses. When the head of A.I.G., Edward M. Liddy, justified this outrageous action, he stated that:

1) He was afraid of being sued. I would counter that such a threat is the new cost of doing business with MY money. Those who sue only diminish their desirability as future employees at A.I.G. or anywhere else. (When have you ever heard a company demure from seeking court approval for reneging on retiree pensions or health care benefits because they are afraid of being sued for breech of contract? And these people have actually WORKED! It's absurd on its face.)

2) Further, he contended that these employees were the “best and the brightest” and not paying out bonuses could jeopardize their retention with the company. Am I living on “backwards planet”? These experts are the greedy foolish curs that landed A.I.G. in its present crisis. If I were such an “expert” as a teacher, I would be gone in a heartbeat.

Will you remind dear Mr. Liddy that he was appointed by you, and that his #1 obligation is to ME (the tax payer); and NOT to the people who's “expertise” caused this crisis? Is this too much to expect? I sincerely HOPE not.

I so want you to succeed. I write you in both the spirit of outrage and trust. I love my country, and it hurts me to the core to watch the privileged few rape U.S. for their own selfish pleasures, and all the more in time a crisis when average folk are making patriotic sacrifices.

Humbly Yours,

randuwa