I am not lover of the bailout plans that are happing all arround the world but canceling the AIG event would not have made a business sense.
What the article is not saying is that AID had already paid 430,000 $ as non refundable deposit to the resort, that money would have been kept by the resort if nobody would have shown up.
Now I can argue that the 23,000 $ for the SPA could have been saved and they would have not had to pay anything but from a business point, why would they give 430,000 $ to the resort for nothing?
Now again, I'm not saying that AIG was right to do it that is down to their decision.
What I'm however also saying is that what passes a journalism these days (i.e. not mentioning the advance non refundable deposit) is a disgrace.
And in respect of the bailout, I'm sorry but for years these companies made money out of a pyramid scheme and other unsustainable activities right under the eyes of politicans and regulators or even with their blessing.
Than finaly the unsustainable activities must end becaue they can't get hold of money (just like a pyramid or ponzi scheme) and now everybody cries wolf and looks for the taxpayer to help.
I'm sorry but I think we should not bail out failed business models just because we think the world might colapse if we don't because as so many exampels show they don't change after help, they just package it differently and see how they can make more money out of this.
What we need is a goverment which actualy thinks (because everybody in Ireland saw the end of the buidling boom coming beside our govement), regulators that actualy do something (not like our NCA) and the will of the law enforcement to actualy look at issues and do something.
Nobody can tell me that all of this crisis comes as a surprise.
I for one think bailouts are crazy, sure it is going to be years of depression and problems ahead if we don't bailout, but if we just bailout and change nothing (i.e. continue to live on credit) the same will happen in another years time, just bigger.
To my fellow US citizen, stop living on credit , pay your bloddy bills and if you earn 25,000$ don't get a house with a 120% morgage which cost more in payment than you earn.
I for one want the gold standard back to our currency!