Business Observation of the Day

Here's a prime example of what not to do following a government bailout of a major financial and insurance company. AIG sent its executives on a very pricey hotel retreat at a fancy spa/hotel.

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.

The retreat didn't include anyone from the financial products division that nearly drove AIG under, but lawmakers still were enraged over thousands of dollars spent on outing for executives of AIG's main U.S. life insurance subsidiary.

"Average Americans are suffering economically. They're losing their jobs, their homes and their health insurance," the committee's chairman, Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., scolded the company during a lengthy opening statement at a hearing Tuesday. "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."

Nice. Classy.

While the stock prices went to nil, workers get laid off, and taxpayers foot the bill for a bailout, company executives take a powder.

Of course, the faux outrage from Congress is quite touching, especially since they're not going to give up their own creature comforts any time soon either.