But that really glosses over the fact that one has to make real tangible sacrifices to work on Wall Street. I'm not going to say that these poor souls are all being exploited, but the only reason many of these people (myself included) are willing to put up with the stress involved is the monetary reward. The lifestyle is brutal. And a company in crisis like AIG is going to be a cauldron of stress that no sane person is going to put up with unless there is a reward attendant thereto. To hold that reward out to people to fix it, and then yank it back AFTER they've done the work? That's really unconscionable.

"None of us should be cheated of our payments any more than a plumber should be cheated after he has fixed the pipes but a careless electrician causes a fire that burns down the house."

First of all, Jake, you asshole, no plumber in the world gets paid a $740,000 bonus, over and above his salary, just to keep plumbing. Second, try living on a plumber's salary before you even think about comparing yourself to one; you're inviting a pitchfork in the gut by even thinking along those lines. Third, Jake, if you were a plumber, and the electrician burned the house down -- well, guess what? If you and that electrician worked for the same company, you actually wouldn't get paid for that job.

Out in the real world, when your company burns a house down, you're not getting paid by that client. It's only on Wall Street, where the every-man-for-himself ethos is built into an insanely selfish and greed-addled compensation system, that people like you expect to get paid in a bubble -- only there do people expect their performance bonuses no matter how much money the shareholders lose overall, no matter how many people get laid off after the hostile takeover, no matter how ill-considered the mortgages lent out by your division were.

You expect that money because you think it's owed to you. But what money? The money is gone. Your boss, if not you, set it all afire. You want the money, but where exactly do you think it's coming from?

Do you just not understand that that money now would have to come out of someone else's pocket? That it would have to come from middle-class taxpayers, real plumbers, people who didn't make millions over the years in equity and commodity trading?

Jake, if you were a plumber, and the electrician burned the house down -- well, guess what? If you and that electrician worked for the same company, you actually wouldn't get paid for that job.

If these transactions aren't and never were your expertise, then where the hell is your value here?

One part of DeSantis's argument is that he was indispensable to solving the credit default swap crisis because he knew so much about them. Another part is that he, personally, is blameless because he knew nothing about credit default swaps. Taibbi is pointing out the contradiction.