ABC Catches AIG Executives Hosting Another Posh ‘Junket’ At Luxury Hotel
ABC Catches AIG Executives Hosting Another Posh ‘Junket’ At Luxury Hotel
Last month, a House committee discovered that just one week after the federal government bailed out insurance giant AIG, company executives went on $500,000 retreat to a luxury resort. Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-MD) asked in astonishment, “Have you heard of anything more outrageous?”
But yesterday, just as the federal government agreed to increase its bailout package to AIG, ABC News’s Brian Ross reported that the company’s executives gathered last week at a posh resort in Phoenix for a business conference, complete with “cocktail parties, limousines, and dinner out at a top restaurant.” AIG “instructed the hotel to keep its involvement secret, no signs with its name allowed.” Watch the report:
AIG CEO Edward Liddy defended the extravagant conference on CNN last night, claiming that the lack of signage was a result of cost cutting measures. “[W]e are really cutting corners. We’re doing the same thing the American taxpayer is doing,” Liddy said. “We are tightening our belts. We didn’t use any signage.” Watch it:
Cummings has now called on Liddy to resign. “That a firm already reliant on taxpayers’ funding would organize such an event is outrageous,” Cummings said.
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AIG officials say it was “90%” sponsored from outside AIG.
anyway, it’s chickenfeed…
November 12th, 2008 at 2:56 pm(oh, yeah< first?)
OK. That’s it.
Heat the tar and get out the feathers….
November 12th, 2008 at 2:58 pmWelfare for the rich, such nice, loyal, American, capitalists values…soak the public coffers for lavish parties, nice going AIG.
Eat the Rich….
November 12th, 2008 at 2:58 pmThis Bailout = Textbook Fascism
Pure
And
Simple
In another article I read about this, Liddy said part of the reason they made the hotel keep hush about AIG being there was because “some of our employees have been harassed.”
BOO-FU(KIN-HOO.
The sense of entitlement and the absolute lack of any cognition of their own guilt…in fact the COMPLETE DENIAL of guilt…and then the comparison this joker made between an Insurance Giant and the average taxpayer losing his/her job, home, EVERYTHING…
I just threw up a little…
November 12th, 2008 at 3:04 pmThe only appropriate response to this is JAIL TIME for ALL OF THEM.
Every AIG employee who was on either of these Junkets is guilty of defrauding the federal government in my view.
They took taxpayer money intended to keep the company afloat and to help prevent the collapse of our economy and SPENT IT ON THEMSELVES.
FRAUD.
GUILTY.
JAIL.
November 12th, 2008 at 3:06 pmSocialize loss and privatize profit.
It IS the Bushco way. Only two more months.
November 12th, 2008 at 3:07 pm“We are tightening our belts. We didn’t use any signage.”
My God man!1!!1!! Do you realize how expensive signage is??? Why, it’s almost as expensive as the verbage that’s coming out of my mouth.
Prime example of the astounding decision making process involved with a multi-million dollar CEO. Absolute proof that they are well worth the centage.
November 12th, 2008 at 3:08 pmCheck my first post above. The ‘tightening of belts’ they did by not using signage was no cost saving maneuver.
THEY DIDN’T WANT ANYONE TO KNOW THEY WERE SPENDING OUR MONEY ON THEIR FANCY PARTIES AND JUNKETS. THEY KNOW THEY’RE STEALING FROM US AND THEY THINK THEY CAN GET AWAY WITH IT…BECAUSE THEY CAN.
November 12th, 2008 at 3:10 pmThe scary part is that they just don’t get it.
There’s an entire class of people in this nation who are rich, were always rich and fully expect to keep on being rich and enjoy all the perqs that being rich entails. To them, cutting costs means cutting external costs like signage, but cutting costs on hotel rooms or restaurants is a ‘necessity’ and shouldn’t even be considered.
November 12th, 2008 at 3:12 pmWow! this guy has balls.
November 12th, 2008 at 3:17 pmLook Hank knows what’s happening and the White House appoves it as others are doing the same think. The rush to get the money was for it to be spent for fun. Now the GOP used the words to help the taxpayer but notice how the Fed and Paulson have given 2 trillion dollars away without approvel or accountablity. Hank Paulson is coming back to Congress to ask for more bailout money and Republicans will fight to give it to him. The GOP wants Obama/Biden to have a debt so big they can’t get out and then the GOP will blame all this mess on the Democrats.
November 12th, 2008 at 3:17 pm“Insurrection” increasingly comes to mind nowadays…
November 12th, 2008 at 3:18 pmI don’t know about anybody else, but I’m getting tired of being thought of as an idiot.
I have put up with the ridiculous notion that Sarah Palin is a foreign policy expert because one can see a small island of Russia from a small island in Alaska.
I gritted my teeth when I was told that the only thing that was keeping Joe the Plumber from buying a business that would net him a quarter of a million dollars a year was a 3% tax increase on anything above a quarter mil he might get.
And now I am supposed to buy the idea that AIG is being fiscally responsible because they “saved on signage”. Um…every decent hotel (and the Pointe Hilton Squaw Peak Resort certainly qualifies) provides signage free of charge to their meeting clients. This signage includes the outside of the meeting room, directional signs to the meeting room, and as part of the directory of the day’s meetings (generally found in the lobby or near the front desk). THIS SIGNAGE WOULD NOT HAVE COST AIG ONE PENNY.
I can understand it if this was an incentive trip to the company’s top performers that was promised to them a year ago. Such incentive trips are fairly common in insurance companies and other companies with a sizeable sales force. But even if this was an incentive trip, one could still have put together a very nice trip for less money (I used to do incentive event planning for an insurance company, and it IS possible to work with a tight budget and still do a trip package that an agent will work his butt off to win). But this was no incentive trip — this was a trip for executives seriously addicted to privilege (that they aren’t earning, by the way).
AIG seriously needs to be cut off. Now. No more.
November 12th, 2008 at 3:21 pmI reckon most of us haven’t run around long in the exalted spheres of “real money.”
That’s what caught Sarah “the Caribou Parvenu” Palin, in the end. She was over her head.
I am not making ‘excuses’ for AIG. TheF uckers have cost me, in particular, around $15k…
But when you’re talking “real money,” you don’t make it unless you spend it…
It’s like trying to get into the pants of fancy women. They expect to have money spent on ‘em, and will reward you if you spend enough…
Works the same in “big bidness,” deals and shit like that…
November 12th, 2008 at 3:22 pm“[W]e are really cutting corners. We instructed the bars not to use those little drink umbrellas. We’re doing the same thing the American taxpayer is doing, you know, except the opposite… by taking the tax dollars that they’re struggling to pay to be able to afford these lovely, but completely necessary get-aways.”
Something tells me this will be read in history books for years to come… as long as there ARE history books ;)
November 12th, 2008 at 3:23 pmYou know, when the first round of bailouts were being passed out, AIG got over $85 billion. Hank Greenberg, founder and former CEO of AIG said he and his team could go back in and fix things for about $20 billion.
Question: Why wasn’t that option explored? I used to work in a company owned by Greenberg and he was one tough SOB but he also knew how to watch costs, and grow a business.
The linkages between the “bailouters” and the “bailoutees” needs to be thoroughly investigated. Can’t help believing some of those dollars were kicked back. Congress, do your jobs!
PEACE
November 12th, 2008 at 3:23 pmAIG exec’s ,the new face of the our socialist apparatchik !Pass the vodka Vladamir and hand me a little cracker for my caviar.
November 12th, 2008 at 3:24 pmtokin librul Says:
Don’t try and start that “first?” shit over here. I think we’ve all had enough of it between mudflats and c&l for the last couple of years. Enough already.
November 12th, 2008 at 3:24 pmI bet they reused their towels to save the environment too .
November 12th, 2008 at 3:25 pmOther than the fact that the sky is falling and the consumers are listening to a talking chicken, can someone, anyone explain why an insurance company needs to be bailed out?
November 12th, 2008 at 3:25 pmAn insurance company people!!!
They have no product to offer in return other than a myth of security in exchange for their endless stream of cash.
Your taxdollars at work. Who says that America does not have the best CEOs that Main Street can subsidize?
November 12th, 2008 at 3:26 pmI don’t buy a lot of AIG’s self-defense claims. AIG said that 90% of the cost was born by the sponsors, including the appearance of Terry Bradshaw. I wonder if what they really mean, as seems to be indicated by a AIG spokesman, is that they expect to recoup the expenses through product sponsors at the event, and this is not a guaranteed recoup.
Furthermore, CEO Ed Liddy’s statement doesn’t even mention the presence of AIG executives at the event. Yet the KNXV report shows several AIG executives at the pool, in the spa, and running up a $400 bar tab at McCormick & Schmick’s.
The instructions of the hotel staff to keep AIG’s involvement with the event quiet shows conclusively that AIG knows that its behavior is outrageous.
November 12th, 2008 at 3:31 pmAnd these freaking morons call OBAMA a “socialist.”
Jebus.
*disgusted*
November 12th, 2008 at 3:31 pmThe Republican version of socialism.
November 12th, 2008 at 3:33 pmyes, i can really see the logic here: losing one’s home to foreclosure is the same as not putting up a sign at an event most could not afford to attend. they should free the assets of these fools as compesation for us having to bail their worthless arses out
November 12th, 2008 at 3:34 pm*freeze* that is
November 12th, 2008 at 3:34 pmThey can really cut costs by using a Quality Inn conference room.
November 12th, 2008 at 3:38 pmForget that “spend money to make money”. As my Gran would say ” don’t spend money you don’t have.”
AIG didn’t have this money until our lame leaders said “here have the taxpayers money…”
The more I think about it, the more I become convinced that Capone, Gotti, Gambino, and all of the original
November 12th, 2008 at 3:38 pm“insurance specialists”
should have received a government bailout when they were under hard times.
No signs!?
Bullshit. We have the technology in place that could have every one of those executives attending meetings from home, in their jammies.
I want my money back. NOW.
November 12th, 2008 at 3:39 pmI wonder why we’re hearing so little about this massive theft from our outraged Congressional Dems. Probably because so many of them are coconspirators.
November 12th, 2008 at 3:39 pmI am so disgusted.
November 12th, 2008 at 3:41 pmThese insurance clowns are all economic traitors to America.
November 12th, 2008 at 3:41 pmI just gotta laugh at this point. Are these people secretly trying to cause a massive Communist revolution, or are they really that self-unaware? It boggles the mind.
Look, I know lots of people who could use their jobs, and apparently could do them better. Swing by a temp labor place and fill up a pickup, you’d do better than these maroons.
November 12th, 2008 at 3:43 pmi wonder if crazyassed malkin will be posting their names, phone numbers and home addresses on her website since they are truly traitors to america.
November 12th, 2008 at 3:44 pmThese guys should read the history of the Romanov family.
November 12th, 2008 at 3:45 pmThe lack of signage was due to cutting costs?! ROFLMAO! OF course the only people who would be fooled by THAT are our trolls…
November 12th, 2008 at 3:56 pmDoesn’t their work to NOT have signage indicate that they knew they were doing something wrong ?
If you come home, and your teenage son is with his girlfriend, hidden in his room with the door locked, don’t you assume that nothing is going on ?
November 12th, 2008 at 4:04 pmKinkos: Dirty deeds done dirt cheap.
November 12th, 2008 at 4:05 pmOh, as they are tightening their belts THE SAME AS the American Consumer, where does the American Consumer get the lobster Bisque ?
November 12th, 2008 at 4:06 pmAs my Gran would say ” don’t spend money you don’t have.”
Did your Gran deal in multi-million-dollar deals? Did she get/die rich?
It really is a different world out there,
November 12th, 2008 at 4:15 pmMapleStreet Says:
Oh, as they are tightening their belts THE SAME AS the American Consumer, where does the American Consumer get the lobster Bisque ?
November 12th, 2008 at 4:06 pm
costco? that’s where i get mine…
November 12th, 2008 at 4:18 pmActually MapleStreet
November 12th, 2008 at 4:18 pmLobster is dirt cheap right now. Sort of a strange byproduct of the current mess. I friend bout live for less than 3/# just this weekend past
“I friend bout live for less than 3/# just this weekend past”
Is that swedish chef speak?
November 12th, 2008 at 4:19 pmAh burshdie burshdie (See I can’t spell that either)
November 12th, 2008 at 4:20 pmAs Jeff Foxworthy would (sort of) say: “Here’s yer sign(age)”…
Maybe AIG’s execs thought that if nobody knew their taxpayer-funded largesse was happening, then it really wasn’t happening. “Pay no attention to that party behind the curtain…”
November 12th, 2008 at 4:21 pmLet’s just continue to overlook the fact that the bailout money is NOT being used to buy-off bad credit, which was the original plan to balance the books and get credit flowing again.
G*DDAMNIT, THE PROBLEM IS NOT BEING SOLVED.
MORE CORPORATE WELFARE, PLAIN AND SIMPLE.
November 12th, 2008 at 4:32 pmThe government has the power to alter the company’s leadership, pursuant to the terms of the original $85 billion bailout agreement. The government now owns at least 79% of AIG.
WHY AREN’T THEY EXERCISING THEIR POWER?
Protect the jobs of good employees and the company’s vital assets in the interest of the broader economy, oust the reckless office loungers making an easy living in royal splendor.
How hard can this be?
November 12th, 2008 at 5:12 pmAbleCluster is obnoxious as is ClusterTim and all things Privacy Center related
November 12th, 2008 at 5:15 pm“[W]e are really cutting corners. We’re doing the same thing the American taxpayer is doing,” Liddy said. “We are tightening our belts. We didn’t use any signage.”
At $200 a plate, I’m sure there’s no tightning going on there, pal. In fact, you’ll probably need a bigger belt. I suppose you’ll pick that up at Manhattan’s finest strip mall, on the taxpayer of course.
November 12th, 2008 at 5:21 pmMy wife worked for AIG for 20 years, at a lower level position, but it was a sound, well run, not extravagant company. Business was first.
Bring back Hank Greenberg. He at least had some integrity. Well, not too much, but some. Liddy has none.
November 12th, 2008 at 5:21 pmI say let every single of these corrupt, greedy corporations go under. Don’t give them a f(uking red cent. Let them go the way of the dodo. The bastards deserve it. Allow new companies to rise up in their place. The same goes for the airline industry.
November 12th, 2008 at 5:38 pmclusterphuckTim! BUSTED! FLAGGED!
Changing your screen name will not change the fact that you are STILL a horse’s asswhole.
Stop your God damned ad-spamming, or get the phuck out of here.
November 12th, 2008 at 6:01 pmAs a resident of Phoenix, I say: “Who can blame them? The weather is great this time of year.”
As a taxpayer, I’m outraged.
November 12th, 2008 at 6:26 pmvinylspear Says:
… Capone…
Capone actually thought that the people on Wall street were not to be trusted…
“Dem’s guys iz all crooks.”
November 12th, 2008 at 6:35 pmSeeing this insanity, I truly can understand why people grab torches and farming implements and rise up in Righetous Anger!
November 12th, 2008 at 8:19 pmWhat next, we should be happy because they’re lighting their cigars with 20’s instead of 100’s?? No end to Stupidity!!!
Impeach, while There’s Still Time!!!
Hank Paulson is a reincarnated Herbert Hoover.
Paulson won’t help “bail-out” Detroit’s labor unions…er, automakers…but he’s willing to throw hundreds of billions of our taxpayer money at fellow members of his elite corporatist club, like AIG, whose chief executive then spends on lavish parties.
Paulson will single-handedly drive our nation deeper into a recession, if not a depression, before he’s done. What a cretin.
November 12th, 2008 at 8:36 pmAnd you know what will be done about this? They will be handed more money.
/the French had it right, way back when.
November 12th, 2008 at 9:13 pmYou can’t stop the wind from blowing. These guys have been high rolling for so long, you cannot expect them to change their way of life. The way you reengineer is to nip it at the bud and rid all the bad fruit to allow a new growth to take over. They should have cleaned house before trying to infuse cash. The wolves are in the henhouse.
November 12th, 2008 at 10:01 pmI found this on the AIG website:
Since our founding nearly a century ago, the AIG Companies (Collectively “AIG”) have focused on being a leader in corporate social responsibility. As a global financial services organization, we have committed our resources to developing products and services that address the needs of our clients as well as promote a corporate culture that values integrity, diversity, innovation and excellence.
AIG recognizes that its investments in support of our customers, employees and the communities in which we operate are critical to our success. AIG’s ongoing efforts to be an outstanding corporate citizen and promote responsible and sustainable business practices are essential to our long-term business objective of creating value for our shareholders and serving the interests of our clients.
did they do this between bong hits or lines of coke
November 12th, 2008 at 11:41 pm.
When Government dominates business, you get Communism.
When Government is dominated by business, you get Fascism.
~ RFK Jr.
.
November 13th, 2008 at 1:48 am