'Speaking Fees' are absolutely the new form of fraud/bribery/kickback. It's the most arbitrarily thing imaginable, and you can just throw up any number for 'se

'Speaking Fees' are absolutely the new form of fraud/bribery/kickback. It's the most arbitrarily thing imaginable, and you can just throw up any number for 'services performed'. After Obama completed his term, he was immediately on the 'Speaking Fee' tour, including several million paid by a group of Italian banks in desperation [1], totally insolvent - for a a 45 minute speech (!). I wonder if what they needed was a 'Pep Talk' from a 'Former President' ... or perhaps someone influential to put in a good word with the ECB to push for loser monetary policy that might help save failing Italian banks? I don't think speaking fees imply some kind of bad behaviour, but they are definitely smoke and often represent a conflict of interest. It's a little bit funny that people don't recognize this: $700K (or whatever large amount), this is a material amount of money, you don't just spend this for no reason, you 'get something' for it. As Hillary Clinton was about to win the 2016 presidency, masses of cash flowed into the Clinton Foundation (Norway and Australia were pumping in 10's of millions) but just as she lost - 'charitable donations' dried up. Have a look at this chart [2]. Just stare at this chart for a minute: massive cash flows to the charity someone expecting to be the most powerful person in the world, and then those cash flows completely evaporate as soon as we found it she wasn't going to have that power? So, did Norway, Australia and all these international agencies and governments magically decided to be 'less charitable' in 2016? Or was it that they were 'expecting to get something in return' for their massive charitable donations? Let's not be naive. It doesn't mean there is criminality or even excessive payments, but it's obviously a conflict of interest. If may be something as simple as 'The Norwegian Sovereign Wealth Fund wants 10 Minutes with the President, to get an introduction to some agency' - and that's it. A very expensive call, but possibly worth it. And this is not 'political' and certainly not 'one side of the aisle' it's just business. [1] https://www.express.co.uk/news/world/802063/Barack-Obama-speech-Global-Food-Innovation-Summit-Milan-private-speech-Wall-Street https://www.express.co.uk/news/world/802063/Barack-Obama-spe... [2] https://www.opensecrets.org/news/2018/12/clinton-foundation-revenue-low/ https://www.opensecrets.org/news/2018/12/clinton-foundation-...