Let's pray that American corporate culture isn't embodied by the mammoth insurance firm AIG. This company, the recipient of first $85 and then $40 billion dollars from US taxpayers, seems clueless about the crippling effects of the economic downturn on everyday, hard working citizens. How else to explain AIG's secret gathering for financial planners held at a posh resort near Phoenix last week?
Now, in case you forgot or think we're repeating ourselves, this isn't the well publicized week long party AIG executives treated themselves to in southern California last month. It seems the company's one concession to the flack they got for that one was to tell the hotel in Phoenix to keep this one on the down low. A hotel worker told a reporter they weren't even allowed to use the word AIG. He may have meant acronym, but you get the point.
When asked about the secrecy, AIG CEO Edward Liddy came up with the preposterous notion that this was an example of cost cutting. How much is hotel signage going for these days? Then, the company went into full damage control mode. What else are you supposed to do when you're begging for all this money from Uncle Sam? AIG says reports about the Phoenix conference are "misleading". And imposing a code of secrecy about it wasn't? A statement from Liddy went on to say the cost to his company was minimal, paid for by in part by the financial planners who attended, and that these seminars were crucial to helping to repay the taxpayer.
So, they couldn't have held the conference in their own offices, either here in New York, or in someplace a little cheaper than the Pointe Hilton Squaw Peak Resort? No matter how Edward Liddy slices it, AIG is now the poster child for corporate culture run amok. Does he realize there are Americans who can't even plan to spend a paltry amount of money on gifts for loved ones over this holiday season? Would he like to tell them how important it is to fly first class, get driven around in limousines, and eat in fancy restaurants?
Think these are the only executives who haven't gotten the message the country is in trouble? You tell me.
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We need a historian:I think the rich didn't "hurt" during the Great Depression. As to AIG:as you said in another venue, do they care? Not about "America hurting" only about getting caught spending the loot.
To legislators and executives, from the State level to the federal: Stop corporate crime, close loopholes, collect unpaid taxes, and legislate new revenue from corporations and rich folks.
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