If that line of reasoning is less than charming when it comes from your middle-schooler, it is downright exasperating when it comes from the incomprehensively out-of-touch executives at the taxpayers’ new insurance giant, AIG.
By now you may have heard that AIG, which has twice in the last month received multi-billion-dollar payments from the federal government, had planned a retreat for its top independent agents at our own Ritz-Carlton, Half Moon Bay. As you might imagine (though apparently the company’s public relations folks didn’t), AIG’s new government guardians didn’t take kindly to such an expenditure, and Thursday the company announced it would scuttle the junket.
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In other words, “Come on, Dad. Everyone’s doing it.” You can practically hear Liddy sighing over the totally unfair rules his uncool new owners have set.
And Liddy’s right, you know. Everyone is doing it. Which is precisely the problem. The “standard practice” for the industry included shameful compensation packages for executives, lavish retreats like the one planned in Half Moon Bay and trade in derivatives and credit swaps that even company insiders and government regulators didn’t understand.
If AIG agents are feeling the privation from their canceled trip to the Ritz here, they can always recall their lovely getaway at taxpayer expense a couple weeks earlier, to the St. Regis Monarch Beach Resort near San Diego. There they reportedly spent more than $440,000, including $7,000 for golf and another $23,280 for spa treatments.
What’s the big deal? Everyone’s doing it … aren’t we?
— Clay Lambert
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