Shortly after the Fed gave the go ahead to rescue American International Group (AIG), company executives beat it to the swanky St. Regis resort, spending nearly half a million dollars — and $23,000 at the spa alone.  In the words of an incredulous Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-MD):  “They spent another $10,000 dollars for — I don’t know what this is, leisure dining. Bars?”

President Bush, VP Cheney and the Republican Party spent the last 7 years and possibly millions of dollars -- PRYING into OUR private lives to see just what it is we do on a daily basis.  They’ve spent months writing and voting on bills allowing themselves, the CIA and the FBI, the right to invade our bank accounts, health records and telephone, mail and email communications --- meanwhile they simply IGNORE that which these companies do --- even AFTER giving them $85 bailout because they are close to filing bankruptcy.

I can’t claim to be an expert in business affairs, but whatever happened to the use of auditors?   From what I’ve learned from sources like Wikipedia, I thought every company or government ran entity, was supposed to be scrutinized by both internal and external governmental auditors?  An audit is supposed to be an independent assessment of the fairness by which a company's financial statements are presented by its management.  As far as I know, audits of companies are governed by rules laid down by the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board.

A auditor’s report is intended to advise investors, the government, and other users on whether the auditee's financial statements have been prepared in accordance with Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP), whether they are free of material misstatement (e.g. free of important and significant errors), and whether they show a true and fair view of the operating results, financial position and cash flows of the auditee.

Apparently the auditors of AIG are ignoring little expenses like these newly reported resort trips. 

I guess we can also assume that the government (treasurer?) failed to ‘check’ AIG’s records, and just assumed AIG was giving a complete picture of their finances before they gave them the $85 billion bailout.

Perhaps it’s time for Barack Obama to demand a complete audit (checkup) of each and every company that claims to be ‘broke’ and in need of a bailout – before we taxpayers bail them out of anything.