AIG Executives Squander $400K In Taxpayer Money

…On A Spa Retreat

Well That Didn’t Take Long, Now Did It

October 8. 2008

Congress

Not even a full two weeks after the government bailed out AIG with $85 billion in taxpayer money, plus and additional $38 billion this week, their executives took it upon themselves to misuse some of the funds to indulge in a lavish $400K spa retreat, replete with costly amenities, such as massages. Failure being pampered on the taxpayers' dime.

Is there any wonder the stock market won’t stabilize. While, AIG did need the help, it is wrong that they are squandering and misappropriating taxpayer money, especially during such trying economic times. The very issue of where the money would go concerned many and AIG has now fanned the flames of doubt and cynicism, over the urgency and sincerity of the trillion dollar taxpayer bailout money being doled out to some of America's most visible, albeit failed corporations.

Some feared the money would end up in the wrong places and it already has within days. And the government wonders why the stock market keeps plunging (it has lost 1600 points in less than two weeks). Such waste and corruption does not inspire consumer confidence from people in the country and around the world, looking on at the stock market and corporate America. When citizens view things such as these, they grow angry, as it is their tax money subsiding the waste, while domestically and globally it makes one think twice about investing in such corporations.

This is not how you stop another full scale Depression from happening. This is how you nudge it along. This ever increasing corruption, theft and misappropriation that is prevalent in corporate America today, if left unchecked, is going to bring about the fall of the United States. The nation cannot afford this madness.

AIG's $400,000 luxury spa bill:

STORY SOURCE

AIG execs' retreat after bailout angers lawmakers

Oct 7, 9:13 PM (ET) - WASHINGTON (AP) - 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.

http://apnews.myway.com  and  http://www.thesmokinggun.com

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http://www.miamiherald.com