American Insurance Group executives have been ridiculed for spending $440,000 for entertaining themselves at a spa only days after receiving $85 billion in a public bailout. It appears that they have gotten the message. They went hunting partridges instead in England at a cost of $86,000. That is over three times the average income of the American citizens bailing them out for poor business decisions.
The hunting adventure to shoot small birds has come out as another story revealed that AIG is continuing to pay for a luxury suite at Madison Square Gardens.
AIG officials defended their hunting party on the grounds that it is an annual event and was planned before the bailout. Perish the thought that they would cut back once they are put on the public dole.
“This was an annual event for customers of the AIG property casualty insurance companies in the U.K. and Europe, and planned months before the Federal Reserve Bank of New York’s loan to AIG,” company spokesman Peter Tulupman.
The New Daily News quotes AIG head Sebastian Preil as saying “The recession will go on until about 2011 – but the shooting was great today and we are relaxing fine.”
I feel much better.
That fact is that AIG executives are doing us all a favor. If it were not for these hunts, partridges would overrun this world, imposing a partridge-based economy and partridge-based society. Indeed, Sarah Palin recently showed a picture of Obama with a partridge when he was eight years old. AIG is the thin executive line that keeps us partridge free.
For the full story, click here.
A hunting we will go, a hunting we will go
Heigh ho, the dairy-o, a hunting we will go
A hunting we will go, a hunting we will go
We’ll catch a fox and put him in a box
And then we’ll let him go
A hunting we will go, a hunting we will go
Heigh ho, the dairy-o, a hunting we will go
A hunting we will go, a hunting we will go
We’ll catch a fish and put him on a dish
And then we’ll let him go
A hunting we will go, a hunting we will go
Heigh ho, the dairy-o, a hunting we will go
A hunting we will go, a hunting we will go
We’ll catch a bear and cut his hair
And then we’ll let him go
A hunting we will go, a hunting we will go
Heigh ho, the dairy-o, a hunting we will go
A hunting we will go, a hunting we will go
We’ll catch a pig and dance a little jig
And then we’ll let him go
A hunting we will go, a hunting we will go
Heigh ho, the dairy-o, a hunting we will go
A hunting we will go, a hunting we will go
We’ll catch a giraffe and make him laugh
And then we’ll let him go
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I’m curious to find out what blog platform you’re working with?
I’m having some small security problems with my latest website and I would like to
find something more risk-free. Do you have any suggestions?
U guys have got to be kidding do you not realize that the Clintons are responsible for the mess were in the economy was fine when clinton took it over he destroyed it and handed this mess to bush and bush made it worse instead of better he is the first republican to F$%^ up the economy in history but the clintons did the most damage and now obama is spending money like a drunken sailor on what GOVERNMENT!! no working man will see one penny of the stimulus package unless you work for the government
And today it’s announced that AIG execs after driving their company deep underground are in line to get $165 million bucks. Breathtaking arrogance, eh?
=Terry=
One great American myth is that we are a society not ruled by class. We are really among the most class governed society’s in the Western World. The easiest way to discern this is to watch our TV commercials and/or go through the ads in various magazines. The underlying message of a Lexus ad is quite different than the ones for Fords. The personae in these ads are also quite different based on the class being catered to. The people in the beer ads are quite different than those in the ads for premium liquors. These underlying messages are absorbed by all of us and effect our purchasing and our voting patterns. We are sheep being herded by industrial psychologists and are mostly unaware of how much our actions are affected.
The first popularization of this effect was Vance Packard’s “The Hidden Persuaders” in the 50’s. What I think is missed in this is that this is an effect that has been around for ages, except that in the past it was openly a guidepost of societies. In the Middle Ages “sumptuary laws” prevent the small emerging merchant class from dressing like nobles. Today those same laws are expressed by the cost of things and the color of your credit card. If we use this perspective to analyze the happenings in our society things like people voting against their own interests begin to make sense.
We are indeed livings with class warfare, but as usual for human events, it is the privileged class making war on those they consider to be less deserving.
Abercrombie and Kent doesn’t give refunds on short notice, so it would have been a waste not to go. Besides, how did they get such a good price, everything A&K does is like $20,000 a person.
Y’all
I have been searching on ‘B.Net’ for the live interview article I read, just recently, which was done in the early Fall (November 2007, as I recall) of 2007, with AIG’s former CEO, Hank Greenberg wherein he eludes to ‘upcoming events’ and for everyone to ‘ stay tuned’…
What was he talking about then?
Sounds ominous to moi!
http://search.bnet.com/index.php?t=0&s=120&o=0&q=hank+greenberg&tag=content;col1
I dunno. In retrospect, is it so surprising THAT article is mysteriously, and only recently, no longer readily available
– since I have been posting on it, nationally, whereas it just
‘popped up’ before – ie when nobody else, but moi ‘, was interested and prepared to make some noise?
p.s. Hey mespo and JT – have you guys seen THIS
– from ‘Stove’ Emerson…???
PDF]
JONATHAN TURLEY
File Format: PDF/Adobe Acrobat – View as HTML
Al-Arian Prosecutor Gordon Kromberg Profiled « JONATHAN TURLEY. Patty C has done a nice job of distilling the point. My problem is that you obviously do not … Gimme a break! 🙂
Yo – can’t post more than two URL’s at the same time
= CHECK ‘IT’ OUT!
http://www.investigativeproject\
.org/documents/misc/178.pdf – Similar pages
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Jill,
I like that term. It isn’t hope, it is an aspiration of better things!
rafflaw,
I think there should be something called the aspirational income index!
Jill and Mojo,
This fact of people voting against their own economic interests has confused me for several years. It is evidence of the brain-washing that the Republicans have been spewing for years. Hopefully Obama can close the deal and win back the White House and bring some sanity back to our politics.
Jill –
You make a great point I’ve often considered to be a strong (if also wrong) reason that middle-class people often vote against their own economic best-interest. Because they are ‘for getting rich’ they will often vote Republican, not realizing they are burdening themselves with higher taxes while relieving wealthy corporations and their fat-cat owners.
Perhaps some people believe that their voting record will determine whether they ‘make it big’ someday or get promoted to that dream-job.
“I’ve voted Republican my whole life, so I don’t understand why I’m not getting ahead and my kids can’t afford to go to college …”
This is from poster Tony D on another thread today:
“Indiana was giving people FREE rides to the BMV if they needed to get one. And just a regular photo ID is like $10.
If someone complains about a price like that, then maybe they shouldn’t be voting anyways.
People would be surprised at what they can afford if they just quit spending money on unnecessary items such as soda, fast food, video games and players, cds, ipods, nail salons….the list could go on.”
I give it the most ironic post of the day (so far)! It is indicative of a profound hatred of the poor in this nation. AIG welfare kings/queens were getting their nails done and a whole lot more, but the outrage is directed at poor people. As Mojo mentioned, Joe, really Samuel, knows all about this! The middle class keeps themselves in line when they buy this classist bull shit. As long as someone thinks they’ll “make it big”, maybe via the lotto, they keep identifying with economic interests that are not really their own. Meanwhile, this stategy allows real wages to decrease since 2000.
The middle class could become a powerful force in correcting the economic injustice of this society should they wake up and stop hating the poor. I hope they do so before it’s too late and they wake up to find themselves the poor.
The AIG attitude reminds me of Alec Baldwin’s character on the great comedy ’30 Rock’. Liz Lemon (Tina Fey) is the head writer of a show and Jack Donaghy (Alec Baldwin) is General Electric’s “corporate suit” and man-in-charge. Liz stands in Jack’s huge, high corner office staring at Jack with confusion;
Liz: Why are you wearing a tuxedo?
Jack: It’s after five. What am I, a farmer?
Well what do you expect of them? To live like the rest of us?!! If they don’t set the proper example, how are we to know what to aspire to? “Joe the Plumber” understands what I’m talking about …
Fitzgerald purportedly had said to Hemingway, “The rich are different from us.” To which Hemingway ostensibly had replied, “Yes, they have more money.” And it appears more cajones!!
In the past, when a company suffered, frivolous expenditures were the first things to be cut. It almost seems as though there’s simply an expectation that there is a standard of elitism that isn’t pierced, regardless of the circumstances.
However, that leads me to think – since this was apparently for “customers”, would the high rollers (the major breadwinners for AIG) still use AIG if that standard of prestige was diminished? This might possibly be an attempt to maintain some element of normalcy that will allow them to retain their biggest and most profitable customers.
Other than that, this simply infuriates me.