Dumb:AIG (nyse: AIG - news - people ) bungles its way to the brink of collapse, begs for an $85 billion bailout from the Feds and shortly thereafter sends its sales force on a $440,000 junket to a luxury resort in California. Congressional investigators found that the Marie Antoinette of the credit crunch set spent $150,000 for food, $23,000 for spa charges and $7,000 for golf. In a minor victory for common sense, AIG, under pressure from federal regulators, announced Tuesday that it would bar any bonuses or raises for its top executives this year and would dock its CEO's pay to $1.
Dumber: Nearly four weeks after nine major Wall Street banks received angry letters from House Oversight Committee Chairman Henry Waxman--strongly suggesting that it would be obscene to give themselves multimillion-dollar bonuses after putting our entire economy at risk and getting a $700 billion bailout--only one of them has announced any significant change in their payout plans. That one, of course, was Goldman Sachs, former home of Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson. And Goldman is still on track to pay bonuses averaging $4.5 million to its 400-plus partners.
Dumbest: Facing much public skepticism and hostility to begin with, the CEOs of GM, Ford and Chrysler decide to come to Washington to warn us that they are on the brink of a "catastrophic collapse" by flying separately on their own G4 corporate planes. According to ABC News, GM CEO Rick Wagoner's private jet trip cost his ailing company an estimated $20,000 round trip. In comparison, seats on a Northwest Airlines (nyse: NWA - news - people ) flight from Detroit to Washington were selling online for $288 coach and $837 first class. Asked to defend this excess, GM and Ford's first instinct was to say that it was a corporate decision to have their CEOs fly on private jets--and that is non-negotiable.
