Obama got his facts completely wrong.
One wonders what else he is getting wrong.
This is what Barack Obama had to say about the $400,000 St. Regis affair during the Tuesday night debate (he said the following in response to the first question): "In fact, we just found that AIG - a company that got a bailout - just a week after they got help, went on a $400,000 junket.
"I tell you what. Treasury should demand that money back, and those executives should be fired."
Obama, who has zero experience in the private sector, has demonstrated a profound ignorance by attempting to pontificate on a subject upon which he is completely misinformed. In doing so, he has exposed his eagerness to blather solely for the purpose of political expediency.
Barack Obama owes the hard-working and incredibly successful individuals who attended the St. Regis junket an unequivocal apology.
Anyone in the insurance business is familiar with these junkets...and they are completely the opposite of what you were led to believe in the press. One wonders whether Obama relies solely on newspapers and the MSM for his information:
- the junket was NOT for AIG executives; it was for independent agents.
- The independent agents are NOT employees of AIG but are, as the name implies, independent agents who receive 1099’s at the end of the year, NOT W-2’s. In all likelihood, the agents represent 5-10 other insurance companies.
- The St. Regis trip is a common incentive type trip that agents compete for: they have to produce a certain amount of business during a designated time period in order to qualify. Virtually every single insurance company in the United States does it.
- The trip was probably set up 6-12 months ago. It was an OBLIGATION on the part of AIG to provide these agents with the trip.
- To renege on this obligation that AIG had towards these independent agents would be TANTAMOUNT TO NOT PAYING THEIR ELECTRICITY BILL.
UPDATE:
Thanks to Dissento who provided the following link to a statement issued by AIG, which confirms the claims I make in this diary: http://www.aigag.com/...