Spending Our Money on Fripperies

I really find this hard to believe, but a week after AIG was approved to get $85 billion of our money, the executives did not think twice about holding a conference for its top salesmen. They could have canceled it. They could have had it at a less posh place. They could have not charged spa expenses of $23,000 to us. This was but 5% of the total cost of $442,000 for the week's conference.

I'm beginning to see why AIG failed. They seemed to have cared much more for themselves than for anyone else. For example, the guy who led the London office which was very instrumental in the company's destruction is still being paid $1,000,000 a month. Does he need it? Is the $200,000,000 he made running things into the ground not enough?

And then you have Sullivan, the CEO, who I thought was a reasonable guy. Although AIG lost $5 billion in the last quarter of 2007, Sullivan argued that bonuses to executives should still be paid. Was that because he would get $5,000,000?