AIG wastes $440K at a resort one week after $85B bailout

Source

An invoice from the St Regis resort in Monarch Beach, south of Los Angeles, shows that AIG spent $139,375 on rooms, $147,301 on "banquets", $23,380 on spa treatments and $6,939 on golf at an eight-day company event which began on September 22.

A week earlier, on September 17, the Federal Reserve had to extend a huge credit line to AIG to keep the troubled firm from collapsing due to vast liabilities on risky financial insurance policies.

Is this the kind of report we can expect from the companies that take part of the $700B bailout bill that most Americans were very vocal with Congress against passing?

AIG states that it was planned and in the works since July before their crisis that recieved a special bailout. But can we honestly accept this answer or other companies to continue with their "reward plans" on our dime?

For me, this is worse than Congress giving the people a response of "We don't care what you say. We will do what we want and you get to pay for it." response to pressure from their constituents.

Hopefully a few more of these types of stories will surface and instead of voting them out, the people will rise up and drag them out.

[edit on 7-10-2008 by Ahabstar]

[edit on 7-10-2008 by Ahabstar]

reply to post by Ahabstar

Glad to see our hard earned money is keeping these parasites in the lifestyle they've become accustomed to.

I saw on the news this evening that the CEO of the dept. that caused the downfall of AIG, who was fired a few weeks ago, has been hired by the govt as a consultant for something like a million dollars a month! Unbelievable.

reply to post by Ahabstar


You know how it is. When you get a big payday, you gotta go on a spending spree. Too bad it's on the taxpayer dime.

These people are revolting.

It's my party, and I'll lie if I want too.

My company, which is suffering quite a turn down in profits, loss of 3/4 of stock value with not much relief in sight, has canceled the corporate Christmas party this year. It's usually a few hundred grand or so.

They are still wasteful at the top management positions, Many of my coworkers have been let-go recently..But we are still heavy on the management side.
It won't be long until each employee has their own personal manager!

Clint Eastwood would say how many did I fire?

Fn scumballs. Time to drag their carcasses through the streets behind a pickup truck while they leave a streak of gasoline flame on the road.

While it is appalling to be so irresponsible, that money is spent in America, and will work its way back into the economy.

reply to post by spacedoubt



Yeah, I build dynamic braking systems for locomotives. Trains are being purchased as a cheaper means of cross-country transportation. And they are being purchased globally for freight and passenger. I have done the numbers and our last two ordrs will be complete in two weeks, our standard system is built on a supply of 10-20 units and we do have an order of five. That is 2 days work. So by the numbers all orders for 2008 will be complete by Halloween.

So far there has been a layoff of all workers that had not completed their probationary hiring time. Last week the owner gave a "tour" of the plant to some visitors in suits. Followed by the head engineer giving a similar but more detailed question and answer tour. This was not a "sales tour" to a customer as not even Caterpiller (working on a prototype) recieved this kind of tour.

Mood from even the more conversational management is somber and quite. There were recent meetings with salaried staff with the 401K representative. Usually this is followed by hourly staff meeting with the rep, not this time.

We have been given the entire week of Thankgiving off without pay. There are postings of Voluntary Leave of Absence to anyone wishing to take unpaid days off.

I would say that the handwriting is definately on the wall...there will be a large layoff, closure or sale of the factory or combinations thereof.

So while I agree with Choronzon that money spent eventually filters through the economy, my concern is that giving money to the irresponsible financial industries is not going to help the people that actually run the economy by spening their earnings.

That is why I was opposed to the Bailout Bill. The $700B would have been far better served in subsidizing oil to drive the price of fuel down to reduce transportation costs in turn reducing item prices in retail and reducing household expenses to incourage spending via retail, vacation hospitality and visiting attractions (amusement parks, movies, sporting events) and with a bit of luck investment and entrepreneurship to create new jobs.

To me, the only logical way to rebuild an economy is from the local level up. Not by expounding consumer fears with a trickle-down from a field of industry that mostly does not distribute on a local level. I understand the fear of the banks not lending and the problems that it causes. But by having money in the hands of the many it quickly enters the banks via personal and business deposits.

To my view, the bailout just killed discresionary spending as consumers now have a higher tax rate coming on top of other rising expenses to contend with as well as fear of unemployment due to market instability.