AIG should hire me

Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner is upset because AIG is unable to stop some $165 million in bonus payments to some of the insurance giant’s employees. When Mr. Geithner approached AIG Chief Executive Officer Edward Liddy about withholding the bonus payments because AIG had received $170 billion is US government aid, Mr. Liddy explained that the company was contractually obligated to make those payments and besides, they were needed to keep the company’s highly specialized staff in the company’s financial products division from seeking employment elsewhere.

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If AIG is paying bonuses to employees that helped the company lose over $65 billion last year, the largest corporate loss in history, then they should seriously consider hiring me as head of their investments division for the following two reasons. First, they wouldn’t have to pay me a huge salary or equally large bonuses. I would do the job for $14.00 per hour and a year-end bonus indexed directly to the amount of money I managed to lose the company. The London office of AIG is reputed to have lost the company about $430 billion (which to me is piffle) and the employees responsible walked away with millions in bonuses as a result. Which brings me to the second reason they should hire me, which is that I could easily lose $65 billion for the company in the first quarter alone, if I worked a little overtime. Since I have attention deficit disorder I could invest company funds in so many risky ventures in such a short time span, it would make their heads spin. Why even the most astute auditors wouldn’t be able to keep up with, much less trace how I could lose such tremendous amounts for the company. Hiring me would accomplish a lot for Mr. Liddy and AIG, as they could demonstrate to federal regulators that the company is being prudent with all that TARP money by paying its senior executives just over minimum wage and giving them # bonuses to boot. It would get Timothy Geithner off their back, who could then devote more time tracking down Americans who cheat on their taxes and get the IRS to recover the money. There must still be a grandmother in Gnarled Gulch, South Dakota who hasn’t declared the income she derived from babysitting the neighbor’s kids and who needs to be made an example of. My curriculum vitae is resplendent with investments I made that went south. Why I think I’m personally responsible for bringing about ‘Black Monday’, as I made an investment in the stock market on October 15th, 1987, the business day just prior to the massive market crash. Last year I managed to lose a fortune without even trying in a real estate investment that returned less than 70¢ on the dollar in just under a year, no less! I am perfectly suited for a position at AIG’s top management because I have a track record that such a company could be proud of. My presence at AIG would allow the company to continue sending TARP funds to foreign banks to satisfy its dubious debts, while proving to the Obama administration that they were “prudent” in their executive compensation policies.