Thread: No Integrity At AIG (American International Group)

His middle name must be Nero

Originally Posted by Metal Head

The CEO of the giant AIG Insurance Company, Edward Liddy, today defended spending $440,000 on a retreat at a luxurious California resort as "standard practice in our industry" because it rewarded independent insurance agents who were top performers for the company. The event, at the St. Regis Resort and Spa at Monarch Beach, California was held less than a week after the federal government saved AIG from bankruptcy with $85 billion in loans.

Members of Congress complained that AIG executives "were getting pedicures, manicures and massages" at the expense of American taxpayers, suffering from the financial crisis caused by AIG. Resort bills obtained by Congress showed AIG spent $23,000 on charges from the spa and salon.

In a letter to Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, obtained by ABC News, Liddy said "not a single corporate executive from AIG headquarters attended." According to Liddy, only 10 of the 100 guests at the retreat worked for AIG. Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA), who chaired yestersay's hearing on AIG, was not impressed with Liddy's letter to Secretary Paulson. Waxman told ABC News that, "It defies common sense to spend over $400,000 at an exclusive resort a week after the government bailed out AIG. It shows a reckless disregard for the shareholders, who are now the U.S. taxpayers".

But according Liddy, the trip was a standard business expense.

"It's very much accepted practice in the insurance business, especially to reward high-performing individual agents" said AIG spokesperson Nicholas Ashooh. "It's still painful and it's been very distressing to our employees".

Don't these people have any morals or ethics to the people they now serve? Put him (the CEO) in prison on criminal charges I say - what do you think? Just keep quiet and they (the management team) think it is only the media after them and not the general public.

He's right, it is standard business practice to reward people and organizations that make buckets full of money for you instead of for someone else. AIG in its present condition isn't a good example. Except to say they have to continue to do business and part of that is developing strong partnerships with other organizations and individuals by doing just such a thing as hosting a retreat. I doubt there are many here that don't own or work for a company that gives rewards of some fashion to those that they value most and want to keep that way. The only real difference is relativity.

Well as I've said before the US gov shouldn't have bailed them or anyone else out.

Trouble is people are stupid. They vote in governments like ours and theirs, they buy shares in companies like that. Ultimately even though it's other people who run up debt and other people to take these companies down, it ends up being people like me (us?) who end up suffereing one way or another.

I have long suspected governments don't mind education failing because dumb people are easier to control. And I'm not just referring to the illiterate non-working classes, but also the pig ignorant socialist self appointed intelligencia who cling to little pieces of information and extrapolate those into complete expertise.

I really should restrain my rants shoudn't I ?

Just remember the markets and the real economy are two different things.

Maybe creating all this financial mess was shrub's chance to get the talk away from greenhouse gases. No one has talked about that for weeks.

I saw a report in an Israeli on-line newspaper that staff at Lehmann Bros. transferred $400 billion to Israel before the company went belly up Rather makes you think of some local scandals of a few years past where the 'big boys' spent up big & transferred assets to mates that the government/courts didn't bother to chase.

Originally Posted by bsrlee

I saw a report in an Israeli on-line newspaper that staff at Lehmann Bros. transferred $400 billion to Israel before the company went belly up Rather makes you think of some local scandals of a few years past where the 'big boys' spent up big & transferred assets to mates that the government/courts didn't bother to chase.

Yep, I get emails all the time from their bankers in Nigeria.

Originally Posted by bsrlee

Lehmann Bros..

Lehman Brothers, not Lehmann bothers, we're a whole different breed.,

Originally Posted by Metal Head

AIG spokesperson Nicholas Ashooh.

Bless you....

To quote a famous song, "Get him up against the wall".