Happy Pig of the Week Award Goes to AIG Executives

So what did the executives of A.I.G. do after getting a government bailout? They spent over $400,000.00 on a "retreat" to a posh resort. This is from an article by the Associated Press:

Days after it got a federal bailout, American International Group Inc. spent $440,000on a posh California retreat for its executives, complete with spa treatments, banquets and golf outings, according to lawmakers investigating the company's meltdown.

AIG sent its executives to 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. The resort tab included $23,380 worth of spa treatments for AIG employees, according to invoices the resort turned over to the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee

Not suprisingly the members of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee were not too happy about this. Here is what Chairman Harry Waxman had to say about it:

"Average Americans are suffering economically. They're losing their jobs, their homes and their health insurance. "Yet less than one week after the taxpayers rescued AIG, company executives could be found wining and dining at one of the most exclusive resorts in the nation."

During the presidential debate at Nashville on Tuesday, October 7, 2008, Senator Barack Obama called for the executives who planned the retreat to be fired.

For their incredible chuptzah, the exeuctives who planned the retreat, and the executives who attended it, are why we give A.I.G. our "Happy Pig of the Week" award.

You can read the entire AP article here.

"If You Want to Keep Getting What You're Getting, Keep Doing What You're Doing"

The quote in this entry's headline is attributed to Les Brown, who at one time was married to Gladys Knight. Brown is a motivational speaker. The point in the quote is that you have to change your habits if you want to make change in your life. If you are stuck in a bad job, and you just keep doing what you are doing, you will stay in the bad job. The same thing is true for relationships. Since governing is really about relationships, it is also true in politics.

When you think about it, Brown's quote is the essence of the Democratic message on the economy. If voters are unhappy with the economy, and poll after poll shows that they are, but they still elect John McCain, then they are going to keep getting what Bush gave them. A economic plan that depends on tax cuts for the rich to generate economic growth. That, of course, won't happen.

Growth under McCain will stay anemic. The United States will continue its slow economic decline. What could happen, though, is that there will be growing economic inequality in America. There will be millions of jobs outsourced to India and China. Our children and our grandchildren will continue to have futures that are not as bright as we would like.

If you are talking to your neighbors, your friends, your relatives about this election and if they are unsure who they are voting for, lay the Les Brown quote on them and explain what it means. It will help them understand.