Frugal Living Today

In the news over the past few days we have given a major corporation - in this case AIG - $85 Billion because their collapse, we were told, would cause the collapse of the business economy of the entire country and perhaps even the world.  I’m a good-hearted person and I don’t want anyone to collapse, but as the news week progressed we learned more about why the company needed so large a check.

When former AIG CEO Robert Willumstad was replaced in September, he refused the $22 Million severance package he was contractually entitled to, saying “I prefer not to receive severance payments while shareholders and employees have lost considerable value in their AIG shares.” according to n ABC News source.  Too bad Willumstad had to leave so soon.  Apparently he took with him any common sense the company had.

Less than a week after the BDBO (Billion Dollar Bail Out), AIG execs weren’t too concerned about the business economy as they took a week-long spa trip to California - complete with banquets, massages and gold outings-  at a cost of $440,000.  If you’re doing the math, that’s nearly half a million dollars.  Are you mad yet?  Wait, it gets better.

Last night just after Wall Street closed with another record low it was quietly announced that AIG was set to get another $37.8 Billion from the Government that We the People put in place; a goverment that We the People pay for.  Let me close by sharing this:

The outstanding public debt as the the minute that this blog post is being written was $10,229,834,015,920.52.   Based on the total estimated population of the U.S. that puts each citizen’s share of that debt at $33,554.00 and that total debt has increased at a rate of barely less than $3.25 Billion per day since September of last year.

If you haven’t figured it all out yet (and who has? certainly not Washington D.C.), we’re in one hell of a mess with our business economy.  It seems to me that the only lesson that we as regular citizens can learn from all of this is what not to do.  It sure doesn’t seem like we have any true leaders anymore.