Awards for Everyone

Jake DeSantis, an executive vice president of the American International Group’s financial products unit, sent a letter on Tuesday to Edward M. Liddy, the chief executive of A.I.G. The letter was published on 25th March in the New York Times . The fact that the letter was published in the New York Times appears strange, since most letters of resignation are not publicised. Maybe he was doing a Pontius Pilate, and washing his hands in public.

Mr. DeSantis, who has worked for the company for 11 years, explained that he felt unable to continue working for the company which he called dysfunctional, and that he and his staff in the financial products unit had been betrayed by A.I.G and unfairly persecuted by elected officials. He goes on to state that his unit was not responsible for the credit default swap transactions that have hamstrung AIG. He will not be returning his bonus, as requested, but after the tax has been taken off he is going to give it to charity, to ‘those most affected by the economic downturn’. His intent is not to keep a single cent of the money for himself and his family.

He also states that he feels that Mr. Liddy, the chief executive of A.I.G., was not responsible for the mismanagement at A.I.G either.

Which begs the question, what are these high paid executives actually being paid for? Mr. DeSantis has worked the last year for a $1.00 fee, on the understanding that he would receive a bonus payment in March of this year. In view of the fact that the company was being dismantled where exactly did he think the profits were that would pay his bonus? Surely bonus payments are being paid at the end of a financial year based on the performance of the company paying the bonus. Of course, he thought the bonus payment would come from the American Taxpayer, his bonus actually being paid out of the BailOut Fund which is American Taxpayers’ money.

So for 10 years Mr. DeSantis worked for a dysfunctional company that was creating an artificial finance bubble, but he failed to see that and he was in no way shape or form responsible for that. So what did he see? He must either be very gullible, in which case one wonders how he ever made it to vice executive, or he is a hypocrite, who now that the A.I.G. ship is sinking fast does what most rats do.

Needless to say, the readers ‘comments in the New York Times were many, and the discussion is now closed, so no further comments can be added to it.

Perhaps the most succinct statement of all is from Rolf, New York

‘ Hint : If your company accepts tens of millions of dollars from taxpayers, consider your bonus renegotiated’

Well said Rolf, I am sure most taxpayers will agree with you on that.

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This post if about that most ordinary of activities, driving a car. Because I have to move from patient home to patient home, I have to drive a lot, so here is what I have learnt about driving in Spain so far.

PARKING THE CAR

It is perhaps no coincidence that the words ‘aparcar’ (to park) and ‘abandonar’ (to abandon) both start with an A, since a lot of Spanish drivers appear to be unable to distinguish between parking and abandoning their vehicles. We ourselves (as a joke initially) now mainly refer to parking the car as abandoning it. Cars are abandoned on pedestrian crossings, in bus stops, on street corners, on roundabouts and left double parked. Double parking is very common and most mornings I have to drive past at least half a dozen double parked cars in the main street of the nearest town to get to my early morning patient. These are not delivery vans, which could be expected at that time of the day, they are ordinary cars abandoned in order to purchase bread, newspapers, cigarettes etc. I have been told that double parking is allowed as long as it does not obstruct the flow of traffic, which of course it always does But, they do leave on their hazard warning lights, so you can at least see they are there

MOPEDS

There appear to be millions of those, all owned by 12-year old helmet-less riders. These weave in and out of the traffic with complete disregard for their own safety and the overwhelming confidence of the young that they cannot possibly die or injure themselves. Miraculously they tend to get away with it most of the time.

DIRECTION INDICATION

Que? Never heard of that in Spain. I am fairly sure it is not included in standard driving lessons, since no-one bothers to indicate. If you are behind a car and it does indicate, it is 99% certain that the car is being driven by a foreign driver. Never ever ever believe that the car that is indicating will indeed go where it indicates it will, because it most likely will just go straight or turn into the opposite direction to the way it indicates. After all the guessing game is far more interesting than ordinary driving, get used to it.

SPEED

Drive as fast as your car will let you. Drive as fast as possible up to junctions and be almost affronted if a car happens to be passing, since they are making you brake. That seems to be the general idea anyway – and I have now got used to trying to drive a bit further out from the curb so that when a car does push its nose into my path I will miss it (just) – as long as there is no traffic coming from the opposite lane at the same time. Or, and this is just as common, drive as if your car is made of porcelain, when you go over one of the innumerable speed-humps in the road, try to stop in second and then take off again. Do this over every speed hump and soon you will have a two kilometre queue behind you – but persevere and keep doing it anyway – just because you can )

RAIN

We tend to get all our rain in one big ‘lump’. Because most of the time it does not rain in our bit of Spain (even though we are on the plain) the roads cannot cope with rain. The drains do not work, which causes innumerable problems, particularly when driving. The surface is then greasy and very easy to lose control of the car. Drivers here are not told about the increase in stopping distance (something we tediously had to learn off by heart to pass the driving test in the UK) and don’t take it into consideration. Great care on rainy days please, unless you like water skiing in your car. Most drivers here seem to love it.

PEDESTRIANS

Pedestrians have an absolute right of way in Spain, and even if they cross between two zebra crossings, you are supposed to give way to them Zebra crossings appear every 25 m or so, but most people ignore them, preferring to cross where they come out of the shop to get to their double-parked car. A lot of zebra-crossings are within a meter of the corner, which is very silly, as when you have just turned the corner you are still moving and there is the zebra crossing. So far I have managed to avoid hitting pedestrians, but more luck than driving skill. It is one thing I would change really, the position of the zebra crossings in relation to the corners of streets and roundabouts.

TRAFFIC WARDENS

Do not exist in Spain. If they did, they would need one wheelbarrow load of ticket books each day. Now there’s an idea for raising some new taxation!!

No matter how dangerous the roads are though in Spain, apparently Portugal is even worse. My advice is, if you are a hesitant driver, do not drive in Spain. Never buy a new car in Spain or import one, a battered second hand car is fine. Most cars here get dents in them very quickly because of other car’s doors being banged into them, parallel parked cars hitting them front and back, and general chaos on the road. Having said that, when they do have little scrapes, there does not seem to be the animosity I have witnessed on British road in similar situations. Mainly both drivers just look at the damage in amazement, and then go home, no exchange of insurance, no-one plans on having the damage repaired, no big deal really.

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Pope Benedict XVI is currently visiting Africa. Whilst on the plane flying to Africa he pronounced that the use of condoms remains against the doctrine of the Catholic Church (as set out in the Encyclical ‘Humanae Vitae’ , 1968).

He is quoted as saying that ‘Aids cannot be overcome through the distribution of condoms, which even aggravates the problem’. This latter statement is completely wrong as the majority of scientists agree that the consistent and correct use of condoms substantially reduces the spread of Aids. It would be interesting to know what research the Pope is quoting when he made that statement.

The UN programme against Aids says that condoms are an essential part of combination prevention. Several Aids activists as well as the French and Belgian government have expressed grave concern at the Pope’s statements, in exactly that continent where Hiv and Aids are of pandemic proportions, which unfortunately is also the continent where the Pope remains quite popular.

The Pope of course has the right (vested in him by the Catholic Church) to make statements on Church Doctrine, but unless he can show evidence of research that shows that condoms aggravate the problem, he really does need to retract that statement.

The situation is that condoms are expressely forbidden because they are a form of birth control, (within what the Church considers it rightful area of expertise) but that condoms are an essential part of the combination prevention for HIV.

If people as a consequence of the Pope’s statement stop using condoms, this means that more babies will be born that are HIV positive. This is obviously something that the Pope feels he can live with, although he did say that he is suffering with the poor of Africa. That should make them feel a lot better, hopefully it means that he will be distributing the estimated $10 – $15 billion Vatican wealth very soon amongst the poor and needy.

Or maybe he will buy a drug company that enables the people suffering from Aids that he is so concerned about, to have free drug treatment. At the moment 70% of people who are HIV positive on the African subcontinent, die as a consequence of the disease. The cost of drug treatment is prohibitive for most African countries.

As a very lapsed Catholic I have no problem with the Pope making his doctrinal statements, but I feel he has to keep out of the issue of Health Promotion, particularly as he is not offering any evidence of his statement. Come on Pope, you talk about religion and God, and let everyone else make pronouncements on their areas of expertise.

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