Goodbye, AIG!

AIG Tower in Hong Kong (Bobby Yip/Reuters photo)

Jake DeSantis, an executive vice president at American International Group Inc has issued his resignation letter, published on the New York Times web site on Wednesday.

DeSantis feels let down by the company and its chief executive for not supporting employees who agreed to receive bonuses, in the form of retention pay, for staying on with the company in unstable times.

In the letter DeSantis says he was not involved with the part of AIG’s Financial Products unit that resulted in heavy losses for the company.

He worked in the commodity and equity division, not in the credit default swap section, which lost so much money that the government had to help with tens of billions of dollars.

“After 12 months of hard work dismantling the company — during which A.I.G. reassured us many times we would be rewarded in March 2009 — we in the financial products unit have been betrayed by A.I.G. and are being unfairly persecuted by elected officials,” he writes.

He said he would donate his $742,006.40 retention payment, after taxes, to groups aiding victims of the economic downturn.