-- event cancelled. --

The good people at AIG, whose initial $85 billion care package from the government was not quite enough, requiring an additional $37 billion in tax dollars, held, as you likely heard, a $400,000 retreat for staff and salesmen. After the initial government intervention.

Unchastened by the bad press they've received for this tone-deaf move, they have another such retreat planned next week, at the Ritz-Carlton Half Moon Bay, a luxurious facility on the California Coast, and one whose very name epitomizes the type of indulgence one would expect busted companies to avoid.

The company's new CEO, Edward Liddy, himself appointed by the government, stated in a letter to the Treasury Secretary that "we owe our employees and the American public new standards and approaches.'' An understatement to be sure. New standards? Not the ones that led to the implosion of the company in the first place? Huh. Good thinking!

Yet, in the same letter, Liddy then excuses both indulgent retreats with a simple "this sort of gathering has been standard practice in our industry for many years." Presumably this is a standard that doesn't need to be changed.

Then which standards are going to be scrapped? The ones that encouraged under-capitalized credit-default swaps? The industry practices that paid far more attention to competing in the race to fill bank accounts than to assuring the stability of investments? Or are we just going to do a quick rewrite of the company handbook and have it re-printed with Treasury dollars?

The point here, Mr. Liddy, is that you need to change what you're doing - from top to bottom. From New York City to California. It is not business as usual. This is October, 2008, not October, 1998. Not even September, 2008. It is a new world. And your employees and salesmen not only don't need a lavish retreat - they clearly don't deserve it. Instead of bringing them to the Ritz, why not send them to the unemployment office?

Your company betrayed the trust of its investors once. If you do it again, remember that you just got about 300 million new investors - many of whom don't know or care about how you used to do things. Most of whom, frankly, don't like you, or your industry. And by their standards, if you do decide to go forward with that retreat in Half Moon Bay, don't be surprised if more people show up than you anticipated.