Federal Reserve loans an additional $38 Billion to AIG

Tell me again about all the great return on investment that we're going to see there. The right was giddy talking about the returns we would be seeing on this bailout. It was almost like hearing someone talk about the massive return they would see as shares of DogFood.com were snatched up just before that bubble burst. None of these investments are fun and none of them should be viewed as money making ventures. The new plan to semi-nationalize the banking system may be a better option and taxpayers could see some return thanks to investing on better terms, but this is all about preventing an even larger failure of the system.

Now that that is out of my system, let's look at AIG again. The party-loving folks who ran the beast into the ground splurged on a posh executive excursion to the tune of $400,000 because, well, they deserved it. I can't help but compare it to my world in the startup industry where we shave every dollar, every day to mind the books and keep everyone employed without cutbacks. We double up in rooms while traveling - when we travel - so that we can keep money in the bank and not fire people. When we do travel, we take the cheapest option and look for the cheapest hotel rooms so we can keep going another month until the business climate improves. But hey, we didn't force such an enormous failure that required the government to intervene not once, but twice and probably again. We didn't declare bankruptcy and then let our former CEO sell $1 billion of stock, which still puzzles me to this day. All we ever did was remain profitable and mind our spending like responsible adults.