Posted on 10/08/2008 7:12:17 AM PDT by COUNTrecount
Less than a week after the federal government had to bail out American International Group Inc. (AIG), the company sent executives on a $440,000 retreat to a posh California resort, lawmakers investigating the company's meltdown said Tuesday.
The tab included $23,380 worth of spa treatments for AIG employees at the coastal St. Regis resort south of Los Angeles even as the company tapped into an $85 billion loan from the government it needed to stave off bankruptcy.
The retreat didn't include anyone from the financial products division that nearly drove AIG under, but lawmakers were still enraged over thousands of dollars spent on catered banquets, golf outings and visits to the resort's spa and salon for executives of AIG's main U.S. life insurance subsidiary.
"Average Americans are suffering economically. They're losing their jobs, their homes and their health insurance," House Oversight Committee Chairman Henry Waxman, D-Calif., scolded the company during a lengthy opening statement. "Yet less than one week after the taxpayers rescued AIG, company executives could be found wining and dining at one of the most exclusive resorts in the nation."
The hearing disclosed that AIG executives hid the full range of its risky financial products from auditors as losses mounted, according to documents released Tuesday by a congressional panel examining the chain of events that forced the government to bail out the conglomerate.
(Excerpt) Read more at apnews.myway.com ...
had they been senators on vacation after enacting a huge tax hike, there’d be no problem.
Exactly.
And if we conducted an audit of Congress and both presidential campaigns, I bet we’d find more receipts just like this one.
Guys, this was their last supper.
Well, we do have a situation somewhat analagous to the peasants of France, right before they stormed the Bastille. The peasant taxpayers are expected to pay the freight for incompetent corporate slugs. Like the French peasants were supposed to pay for a useless aristocracy.
Hate to spoil your rant, but Congressmen do not get golden parachuets from taxpayer provided funds when they are voted out of office. They get retirement benefits similar to anyone else in government service, based on time served. Period. You get what you pay for and what you pay for in Congressmen isn’t all that great, so when you get what you get well, that is what you paid for.
You won't find much because they pay GSA travel rates for flights, hotels and meals. The corruption does not appear on government expense reports. The excess is all on private accounts used by lobbyists to wooo congresscritters to get their support.
AIG’s Stowe Mountain Resort Earns Audubon Green Community Award
http://ir.aigcorporate.com/phoenix.zhtml?c=76115&p=irol-govresponsNews2&ID=970450&highlight=
My guess is that the contract stated that there would be a 100% forfeiture of deposit if canceled in less than 15 days before the scheduled event except for 'Acts of God'. The Resort would have already bought the supplies and locked-down the rooms for this event, hence the forfeiture clause. Consequently, whoever was ramrodding this event probably was faced with 'rock and hard place' decision. Leave $400k on the table for nothing, disrupt all travel plans of attendees and loose a chance to acquaint all with the 'new realities' in person OR do it anyway and take the heat.
The real idiocy was the extra charges for golf, liquor and Spa charges. In the light of events, management should have told all to pay for their own and if they were entertaining business guests, put it on their expense accounts. HOWEVER, speaking again from some experience, some of these charges may have been specified in the contract and thus non-discretionary (not atypical in a Resort setting).
I too was grabbed by the headline but upon reflection I think I might have made the same decision. I would have just hoped that I could have explained my actions before the media firestorm. Given the election year, the financial crisis and the proclivities of the media, it looks much like an absolute no-win scenario.
Good Lord! There’s no end to this crap.
Just my take on this after previously posting. It is an UNUSUAL MEETING that does not have SOME Executives attending, so just that statement alone does NOT say that it was ONLY EXECUTIVES ATTENDING. Just a thought on this matter.
They should have cancelled the event and either donated it to charity or lost the entire amount.There is NO rationale for this kind of expenditure at this economically devasting time.Where were/are their PR people?
Do you really mean venial (i.e., capable of being forgiven; not heinous; excusable; pardonable: a venial fault or transgression,) or did you perhaps want to say venal (i.e., open to bribery; mercenary: a venal police officer)?
Regards,
These companies cannot possibly be hurting when they can spend million and even billions on bonuses and this sort of BS. The “bailout” was nothing more than a taxpayer “handout”.
Consequently, my belief is that we do have a burgeoning 'Ruling Class' similar to the Mandarin class of China that consists of the people who are rulers, were rulers or are being groomed to become rulers. Look at the current candidates and see how many 'Ivy League' grads are running for state and national offices. Sarah Palin is NOTEABLE for her absence of 'credentials' in this area.
Exactly who are the incompetent jerks here?
The preening politicians and bureaucrats who are busy giving away hundreds of billions of taxpayer money to Glutinous Pigs on Wall Street?
Or the Glutinous Pigs who have been living large while driving their company into the drink, and who now have their loot safely tucked away while government idiots try to put Humpty Dumpty together again?
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