Lavish luxury — on your dime?
Posted by Brad at 2:03pm Tuesday, October 7, 2008
From Think Progress:
AIG executives went on luxurious retreat one week after receiving $85 billion bailout.
Today, the House Oversight Committee discovered that, just one week after the federal government bailed out insurance giant AIG, company executives went on a retreat to a luxury resort. The executives spent nearly $500,000 on manicures, facials, pedicures, and massages. During a hearing today, Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-MD) asked, “Have you heard of anything more outrageous?”:
CUMMINGS: Let me describe for some of you the charges that the shareholders, taxpayers, had to pay. AIG spent $200,000 dollars for hotel rooms. Almost $150,000 for catered banquets. AIG spent $23,000 at the hotel spa and another $1,400 at the salon. They were getting manicures, facials, pedicures and massages while American people were footing the bill. And they spent another $10,000 dollars for I don’t know what this is, leisure dining. Bars?
On Oct 7, 2008, Ryan Hukill said:
Is anyone honestly surprised by this? When people, whether they be executives, employees, children, or congressmen, are allowed to go unchecked, and then bailed out, rather than being forced to face the NATURAL CONSEQUENCES of their irresponsibility, they have no motivation to change their behavior, but are instead rewarded and encouraged to continue doing what they were doing in the beginning, oftentimes even believing that their errant behavior was, in fact, the right thing to do. What kind of message are these bailouts sending?