New AIG CEO Slams "Lynch Mob" Attacks, Defends Vacation At His Croatian Villa

[Amerigo Vespucci]

New AIG CEO Slams "Lynch Mob" Attacks, Defends Vacation At His Croatian Villa



http://www.reuters.com/article/ousiv/idUSTRE57Q24J20090827

Thu Aug 27, 2009 8:07am EDT

By Adam Tanner

DUBROVNIK, Croatia (Reuters) - Wearing flip-flops, khaki shorts and a green polo shirt, the new chief executive of bailed-out insurer American International Group Inc says he's getting a lot of work done from his massive villa overlooking the Adriatic.

"People criticize me for being on vacation. I actually started work a week before I was actually supposed to," Robert Benmosche told Reuters in an interview. "I do have conference calls every day, I have all my information sent here. I can work here as well as in the office in New York."

Benmosche, 65, previously the CEO of MetLife Inc, the largest U.S. life insurer, came out of retirement to become AIG's CEO on August 10.

His holiday, which started only a few days after he took up the job at AIG, has raised some eyebrows in the United States, where financial executives have faced unrelenting criticism over high compensation and anything that smacks of a privileged lifestyle during the economic crisis.

[JeffR]

1. I'm sure my productivity would absolutely skyrocket on the Adriatic.

Shame I'll never get to find out...

[DBoon]

2. If I were him I wouldn't worry about "lynch mobs"

I would take very seriously the situation in which other flagrantly yet curiously clueless wealthy individuals found themselves, based on past history:

[sharp_stick]

5. Perhaps France will loan us some of their

tools? They aren't using them anymore. I promise, we'll clean and oil them before shipping them back.

[JuniperLea]

3. Yeah, that attitude will win him a lot of support...

From other reality challenged multi-millionaires.

I just don't get how these asswipes miss all the clues, and how they think they shouldn't be held accountable. Amazing disconnect.

Thievery makes "unrelenting criticism" sound like a party on the beach compared to "unrelenting investigation, prosecution, and imprisonment" which is where it should have gone.

I don't think there has been enough raking, and far too few hot coals.

[Amerigo Vespucci]

4. He simply lifted a page from the George W. Bush playbook...

...remember that clip (featured in Fahrenheit 9/11) where the reporter asks Junior about being on vacation and he tells her that he's workin' HARD, and that they done got phones an' fax machines right here just like they'd have in the White House, and how he was gonna be workin' on somethin' that VERY AFTERNOON (even though his voice trailed off and he didn't specify exactly what that would be).

:patriot:

[JuniperLea]

6. As a mother of three...

I can spot a lie from an obstinate 8-year-old immediately. That is the feeling I got when I saw that clip.

My little fibbers grew up to fib no more... too bad W is so puerile.