January 27, 2009 
I don’t really have words for how disgusted I am at this. CitiGroup, after receiving $45 billion in taxpayer money for their bailout, has decided to buy a $50 million dollar French jet to ferry corporate executives to and fro.
Never mind that they already have a fleet of corporate jets. Never mind that the jet is French, so they’re not even pumping money back into the struggling American economy.
Read this article by the New York Post. The article gets it right when they call this despicable. This is why, people, we need oversight on how the bailout money is spent. Superfluous purchases like this are a gross violation of the spirit of the bailout and the executives who approve this kind of waste should be brought up on charges.
The good news is that the White House got news of this travesty and called CitiGroup to the carpet. The White House said the purchase was “unacceptable” and CitiGroup decided to forgo the purchase of the plane. Read the CNN article on it.
When are these rich executives going to start behaving responsibly? They won’t unless we watchdog them. We need more oversight of these bailout funds. Period. We caught them this time? But how much of this irresponsible behavior are we not seeing because we have no oversight?
The Binary Biker 
Thanks Ron! This is the kind of stuff that makes me so angry. There are people in this country, this state, this city, probably on my BLOCK that don’t have money for FOOD this month, and a bank is buying a custom built jet!!! I want to throw up when I hear that! I get so frustrated because I don’t know what I, the little man (woman) can do?!?!?! It just makes me want to go to the corner of my lawn and scream “HELP”!!!!
BY ANY OTHER NAME, THIS IS DISRESPECT AND ABUSE, OF TAXPAYERS AND SHAREHOLDERS – http://pacificgatepost.blogspot.com/2009/01/disrespecting-taxpayers-shareholders.html – The White House and Congress continue with misguided policies, and incompetent distribution of taxpayer money.