These guys really don’t get it. They have no idea how close they are to mobs with torches and pitchforks storming their gates.
Citigroup Inc., targeted by lawmakers for paying $400 million to put its name on the New York Mets’ new ballpark, and seven other banks that received government funds may face questioning by Congress for spending $845 million on stadium sponsorships.
Bank of America Corp., which like Citigroup received $45 billion in government funds, is paying $140 million to have its name on football’s Carolina Panthers stadium. JPMorgan Chase & Co., which received $25 billion from the Troubled Asset Relief Program, is spending $66 million for branding Chase Field in Phoenix, home to baseball’s Arizona Diamondbacks.
Ohio Democratic Representative Dennis Kucinich, who last week urged the Treasury department to cancel Citibank’s deal, called spending by banks for naming rights “frivolous” and said Feb. 3 that he plans to hold hearings. Companies that received TARP funds are under scrutiny as President Barack Obama and lawmakers respond to public outcry over executive bonuses and questionable expenditures.
I mean, yeah, from one perspective, just like the Vegas junkets and the lavish bonuses and the private aircraft, as a percent of the taxpayer money spent it’s trivial. From another perspective, it’s a public slap in the face to … well … the public. It’s like having your kid beg you for money for the bills this month, then discovering he spent a portion of it going out for a chi-chi dinner, or blew some of it at the track. And it raises the issue whether the other money — the vast bulk of it — that’s been given over is being similarly pissed away.
These are the sorts of companies that complain most bitterly when the government sticks their noses into their business. But, having come hat-in-hand to beg for bail-outs, it’s amazing that they are so tone deaf as to continue to pull these stunts. Even if they don’t mean it, a period of contrition and austerity would really be a good idea right now …
(via Les and The Consumerist)
Maybe those running the program could identify the really obnoxious items like the stadium sponsorships, excessive pay, etc., and take back twice as much money. Or ten times as much — double is probably too subtle for these bastards.
Perhaps they could simply dock it from the executives’ pay. Oh, we won’t be cruel — we’ll amortize it over 30 years. With interest.
~Laughs~
So, AIG, which we should own like 75% of now, is the sponser of Man United for the next couple of year too.