9 ms·

Speaking fees is how one legally bribes politicians. Such is how my cynical self sees it. The Clintons earned over $150 in speaking fees since leaving the pre

• sixQuarks 6y ago
  I can’t believe you’re even questioning yourself on this. OF COURSE it’s legal bribing.
  • boston_clone 6y ago
    even in situations when you feel you may know all the facts, it's still healthy to doubt your conclusions!
    • sixQuarks 6y ago
      I don't claim to know all the facts, but at some point you have to stop being naive. It's obvious these companies expect some sort of political benefit for paying these outrageous speaking fees, the part we don't know is to what extent there is an "agreement". I will concede the agreements may not be communicated in any way, and just based on expectations. However, these fees would not continue to be paid if expectations did not continue to be mostly met.
• sdflhasjd 6y ago
  > over $150 in speaking fees I suppose that's technically true
  • tenaciousDaniel 6y ago
    lol
  • tenaciousDaniel 6y ago
    Yeah a bit of a low estimate there. I'd say it's as least twice as much as that.
• klyrs 6y ago
  I think your cynicism is warranted here, and this crap is a major reason I never wanted HRC for president. If you wondered why stories about trump's foreign emoluments, the Goya ads, etc. never went past some ragefests in left-leaning media... look no further than the politicians on both sides of the aisle drooling over their own future income. Not all on either side, but an overwhelming majority.
  • paulmd 6y ago
    Emoluments/Hatch Act violations would have been prosecuted if Democrats controlled the Senate. When there's zero Republican votes that can be peeled away even on existential charges like corruptions of the electoral and judicial processes (soliciting foreign nations to drum up charges to have political opponents jailed, organizing an insurrection against the capitol to prevent votes being counted, etc) then there's no point in bringing "minor" charges like corruption. This is very much an issue where both parties are not the same, Democrats do police their own and when they control the levers of power they do police the executive branch as well. House ethics investigations do happen all the time, and they would happen in the senate (and against hte executive) had democrats controlled the levers of power there too. The whole reason this controversy exists is because Biden is enforcing rules and Yellen is specifically asking for an exemption from the rules. This would have been business as usual under Trump. He didn't even bother to divest from his own conflicts of interest let alone anyone else's. Remember his secretary of transportation taking low-interest loans from the chinese government to help her shipping company, while she was in office, for example? But with republicans controlling the Senate there was nothing that could realistically be done about it, the constitutional remedy for improper behavior from a cabinet member is impeachment. "OK, these are the rules and this is maybe a little iffy, I'm going to document the conflict of interest and ask for permission" is how the system is supposed to work (at least according to the corporate/regulatory compliance training I periodically have to do), and that's hugely different from the "lol imma do it anyway" that existed under republicans. Pretending that's the same is not intellectually honest at all.
• leto_ii 6y ago
  > Perhaps I'm being too conspiratorial or cynical No need to doubt yourself on this one :D In a sense I feel like this kind of corruption is a bit like short selling. You perform a corrupt act in the present with a tacit understanding that, at some point in the future, the beneficiaries of that act will pay you back. The fact that this is a temporal play makes it seem like its not corrupt, but in fact all it does is put white gloves on the same kind of dirty deeds that happen in poorer countries all the time.
  • agency 6y ago
    In what way is that like short selling?
    • vmception 6y ago
      They’re referring to the temporal nature of the action in which profit is generated, not the populist misunderstanding and demonization of borrowing shares.
  • vmception 6y ago
    > all it does is put white gloves on the same kind of dirty deeds that happen in poorer countries all the time. Really its not different, you just choose to respect this process and choose to dismiss another country’s process as “corrupt bribery”. What’s happening in poorer countries is often just as roundabout.
  • cortesoft 6y ago
    Are you saying all short selling is corrupt?
    • leto_ii 6y ago
      Nope. My opinion on short-selling is, let's say, nuanced, but in this case I was making strictly a technical analogy. It feels to me like this type of corruption is a temporal play in which you "lend" your influence in the present to somebody. Using your influence they pass legislation/regulation etc. that yields them lots of money in the future. Once you leave office, the people that you lent your influence to will pay you back with the proceeds they obtained while they were making use of your influence. The more "standard" type of corruption (the kind people in nice suits usually think of when they say "corruption") doesn't involve a temporal play. You get money in the present for using your influence directly in order to benefit the people who paid you, also in the present/near future. Perhaps my analogy to short selling is not fully accurate, but this is kind of how it feels to me.
• trentnix 6y ago
  If you want to see something just as dirty, dive into the world of book deals for politicians.
  • ameister14 6y ago
    Perfect example - Newt Gingrich got a 4.5 million dollar book deal from Murdoch right before Congress was to hear about allowing Murdoch to purchase the Fox network. https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1994/12/23/gingrich-45-million-book-deal-draws-fire/b6f90dae-1171-4401-899a-d0b6ca3c0b7d/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1994/12/23/g...
    • trentnix 6y ago
      Yep. Like insider trading, it's a bipartisan scam.
• Aunche 6y ago
  If Yellen wanted to sell out, she would have worked in industry. Janet Yellen had the job of leading the most important bank in the world, yet her salary was that of an third-year at Citdadel. At the end of the day, a couple hundred thousands of dollars for a talk is nothing for Citadel. Companies will often spend more than that for private concerts.
  • _qulr 6y ago
    > If Yellen wanted to sell out, she would have worked in industry What do you think Yellen is going to do 4-8 years from now?
    • joshuamorton 6y ago
      Retire, possibly get a boardship or hot the speaking circuit again. She'll be eighty, she's not going to get an industry position.
      • _qulr 6y ago
        I would consider the speaking circuit to be an industry position. A very lucrative one.
        • joshuamorton 6y ago
          The comment you replied to presented an industry position as the alternative to what she was doing, speaking. So if you're going to reframe those as equivalent, you should have stated that originally.
      • juancb 6y ago
        Would sitting on one or more boards not be an option for Hellen and would those not be industry positions?
        • joshuamorton 6y ago
          I don't really consider a boardship an industry position. Like, you have executives at some companies serving on boardships in unrelated industries. They aren't working two jobs.
• fireeyed 6y ago
  Its called grift. You and I are not in the club. https://www.npr.org/2016/08/17/490102648/the-clintons-wrote-the-book-on-how-politicians-climb-out-of-middle-class https://www.npr.org/2016/08/17/490102648/the-clintons-wrote-...
  • war1025 6y ago
    Got a real kick out of this quote: > "The Clintons have always been very careful to walk about two inches inside the line,"
    • JMTQp8lwXL 6y ago
      If most politicians are willing to walk inside the line (which is a good thing), maybe we need to change where the line is, if it's not benefitting society.
      • jaywalk 6y ago
        Yes, I'm sure our politicians will get right on that...
  • hajile 6y ago
    A normal person's investments get around 4-6% increase per year. A politician's investments get 25-35% increase per year. It's hard to rationalize that happening across the board without insider trading. Obama very publicly "held politicians accountable" with the STOCK act and then very privately pulled it's teeth a couple months later (keeping it technically illegal while making it all but impossible to investigate). Politicians should not be permitted to pass legislation concerning their conduct. Perhaps it should be put to state and national ballots as appropriate with a direct vote from the people.
• deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
• nojito 6y ago
  This is a bunch of nonsense. The events that speakers are tied to would have zero attendees without big names attached to them. I don’t see hackernews decry tech speakers who get paid to speak? Without the ethics waiver there would be no hearing on Robinhood at all.
  • ameister14 6y ago
    Does a tech speaker have the ability to influence legislation or rule in a hearing about the company that is paying them to speak? If so, and if they don't recuse themselves, there would indeed be a problem. Fortunately, tech speakers don't have anywhere near that kind of direct power. If company y pays the manager in charge of purchasing at company x $600,000 to speak, then they bid on contracts with company x, there would also be a problem.
• IIAOPSW 6y ago
  I'll take a shot at arguing this. There's a limited supply of living former presidents. Far fewer than the number of institutions looking to up their prestige by getting a former president to give a speech. How much do you think it should cost to get a former president to give a talk? Here's another argument. Non-political celebrities also have very high speaking fees (or the equivalent). Yet obviously these celebrities aren't being tacitly bribed. What is your explanation for that?
  • economusty 6y ago
    Non political celebrities are actually entertaining or deliver actual information.
  • _qulr 6y ago
    > How much do you think it should cost to get a former president to give a talk? That's not the right question. The question is whether ex-Presidents ought to accept these bribes. Compare the post-Presidencies of Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter, starkly different. > Yet obviously these celebrities aren't being tacitly bribed. What is your explanation for that? Celebrities aren't in positions of public service, so the whole concept of a "bribe" doesn't apply.
    • wycy 6y ago
      > Celebrities aren't in positions of public service, so the whole concept of a "bribe" doesn't apply. To add to this, we should also be holding Presidents to a higher ethics standard than, say, Kim Kardashian.
      • Person5478 6y ago
        yeah, and that idea is so obvious it's a little difficult for me to understand why the original comparison was even made.
    • threatofrain 6y ago
      Presidents are different than Treasury Secretaries because historically they became impotent and sought no further office. A bribery scheme is hard to enforce when the president becomes impotent during the period they'd like to get payment. Celebrities are different because they make tons of money and are business propositions in and of themselves, meaning their star power could bring immense attraction to the event, which is part of what commencement speakers are for.
• slg 6y ago
  Isn't the fact that these speaking fees come largely after someone is out of politics a huge knock against this type of conspiracy theory? Don't get me wrong, these type of payments are ridiculous. But is there any non-circumstantial evidence that this is a direct quid pro quo?
  • guerrilla 6y ago
    Yellen is not out of politics and also no, why would that be a problem? We often pay bills after recieving service. Quite normal.
    • slg 6y ago
      >Yellen is not out of politics and also no, why would that be a problem? She was when she made those speaking fees. Do you know she planned to reenter politics? Did Reagan or Bill Clinton have plans to reenter politics after their presidencies? >We often pay bills after recieving service. Quite normal. Except we agree to those bills beforehand. This would require that these payments be guaranteed years before they are made. Often times the leadership of these companies changes so that expands the list of people who need to be involved in this conspiracy. When the number of people involved in a conspiracy go up, the likelihood of that conspiracy being revealed goes up. Once again I will ask is there any evidence for this conspiracy beyond these circumstantial connections?
      • guerrilla 6y ago
        > Except we agree to those bills beforehand. I'm sure those who paid them did too. > When the number of people involved in a conspiracy go up, the likelihood of that conspiracy being revealed goes up. And when they're all involved, nobody is left to care, investigate or prosecute. > Once again I will ask is there any evidence for this conspiracy beyond these circumstantial connections? The evidence is everywhere. They do favors for specific people and groups and get paid by those people and groups. It's really not complicated.
        • 6y ago
• wukerplank 6y ago
  I think the European equivalent is politicians "landing" a consulting job at Gazprom.
  • the-dude 6y ago
    In NL it is the other way around : our PM worked for Unilever and his only initiative has been a failed attempt at giving them a tax break.
  • odiroot 6y ago
    This is only a viable career for leading German politicians.
• fellowniusmonk 6y ago
  I've been in the speaking industry ever since I started working full time "illegally" when I was still a teenager for a politically focused speakers bureau. No doubt it my mind, WSB and other agencies are "laundering" political kickbacks through speaking fees. It's long been an open secret/assumption in the industry. I co-founded a startup that published speaking fees, the IASB tried to find an angle to come after us but failed. Eventually proxies came after us to try and intimidate us from publishing fee and speaking calendars for politicians and pundits.
  • armenarmen 6y ago
    > Eventually proxies came after us to try and intimidate us from publishing fee and speaking calendars for politicians and pundits. Wow. Can you tell more?
  • mensetmanusman 6y ago
    This is amazing, it deserves its own post describing the effort. Bright lights tend to disinfect. If something like this could be coordinated globally, it would be a great way to put pressure on power.
  • iso1631 6y ago
    > WSB and other agencies are "laundering" political kickbacks through speaking fees Wow what happened today, WallStreetBets is now an official agency paying kickbacks?
    • totalZero 6y ago
      Not the same WSB. https://www.wsb.com/about/ https://www.wsb.com/about/
• fredgrott 6y ago
  the diff here is they were former presidents giving paid speeches whereas Yellen gave paid speeches than entered into a Government position. VERY different!
• supercanuck 6y ago
  Tax the Rich. Problem solved. This wouldn't even be an argument if Citadel wasn't operating in the the market as if it were a casino. Yellen is extremely talented and an expert in her field. She should be paid for those skills and knowledge. This idea that public officials shouldn't be participating in the society that we have created and that they should be held up to the Standards of Mother Teresa or Ghandi is idiotic, IMO. The mere fact that we are even discussing this is ridiculous, and instead should be discussing what do we expect from our markets. Should they be a free market that should resemble the "fundamental" price of an asset or is it just a casino where everyone is in search of a greater fool and acting accordingly? It seems more and more likely that if we allow for it to behave like B, we're not going to get A.
  • riversflow 6y ago
    Yellen could have recused herself. All of this is kind of moot in the face of that.
    • supercanuck 6y ago
      Would that improve faith in the markets and government? I don't think so. I think this is a way to hold quote unquote liberals to a higher standard than everyone else.
• deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
• jb775 6y ago
  One benefit of all this is people coming together on a non-partisan basis. I hope this makes people realize that political ideologies (left or right) don't make a significant impact in our day-to-day lives, but that the tension is weaponized against us via divide & conquer...all so things like this get pushed under the rug. I'm aware the term "swamp" may stir up some Trump era animosity, but this is the definition of a member of "the swamp". They're literally everywhere in positions of power.
• NoOneNew 6y ago
  You seem to have fallen for being bashful to suggest people in power may be corrupt. Not harping on you directly, but I'm getting tired of the word conspiracy being thrown at everything. Politician/authority figure gets paid exorbitant amounts of money for inane services by entities who directly profited from contested policy enactments. That's not a conspiracy. That's just bribery with extra steps to make it "legal". Just because some people dont like it or embarrasses some authority figures, doesn't make it "some crackpot conspiracy". Just like throwing the word nazi around was a craze just recently for anyone that doesn't agree with your general life views. The people's responsibility is to point out conflicts of interest and potential corruption. No politician or authority figure should be safe from that, no matter their party or demographic.
• csours 6y ago
  > "I continue to be befuddled by the apparently common habit of using agricultural euphemisms to refer to illicit financial transactions. “Don’t call bribes chickens,” I suggested a while ago, after U.S. prosecutors charged someone with doing that. If your business has nothing to do with chickens, then when prosecutors see winking references to chickens in your email, they are going to know that you mean bribes, and a jury is going to agree. Much better to say “success fees,” so you have some argument that you were doing somehow legitimate transactions." https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2019-03-01/insurance-is-where-the-money-is https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2019-03-01/insura... Don't call your bribes 'success fees', call them 'speaking fees'.
• anthony_romeo 6y ago
  Perhaps. Cynicism is highly valuable -- a smell test. But cynicism is not conclusory. Others have responded noting examples and rationales as to why paid speeches are not necessarily bribes. I'll also note that you include a citation about the Clinton's speaking fees, you don't cite anything to support or argue that Clinton speeches led to the repeal of Glass-Steagall, despite your implicit connection there. I write this as no Clinton fan BTW, in part for this repeal. It's easy to get angry over the nebulous concept of creeping corruption in our political systems. This is because getting into the nitty-gritty details and actually determining which particular speech is a bribe and which is not is difficult and boring. In the long term, I suggest that this sort of anger can lead to a political apathy which is damaging to a functioning democracy. Now, with all that said, Yellen should probably recuse herself given the recency and amount of these talks. Independent of whether or not she was actually corrupt, it's a bad look.
  • syops 6y ago
    I definitely don't have proof. It's all supposition. Reagan going to Japan for $10 million was the first instance that I remember in my life. I think it was because he got rid of import quotas on Japanese cars. Clintons and Rubin got very rich shortly after the repeal of Glass-Steagall. Obama is rich now and his government famously never prosecuted or investigated the banking industry. Tyson foods was a relative unknown until Clinton became President. Halliburton benefited greatly with Cheney as VP. Ajit Pai will likely make a ton of money now that his chairmanship has ended. None of this is proof but to me it paints a clear picture of regulatory capture and corruption.
• MuffinFlavored 6y ago
  > over $150 going to guess you are missing the `m` from `$150m`
  • the8472 6y ago
    150 millidollar is a strange way to say 15 cents.
• iso1631 6y ago
  > The Clintons earned over $150 in speaking fees since leaving the presidency So have I, just in free beer!
• tootie 6y ago
  This is, in fact, cynical. Getting a luminary like an ex-president is a huge draw and extremely valuable to the institutions paying for them. Someone like Bill Clinton, took a lot of speaking fees _after leaving office_. Meaning, if someone was trying to bribe a president, maybe they shouldn't have waited until his terms were expired. What exactly is the quid pro quo that could possibly have transacted? When Hillary signed on as SecState, did she ever did a single favor for any of the place that paid her fees? She spent literal days in front of Congress testifying to political opponents. The Clintons are probably the literal most investigated people in the history of American politics. What actual conflict of interest has ever been uncovered? I can honestly with 99% confidence that these two are not at all corrupt. As a counterpoint, we have seen far worse corruption in broad daylight and it's not coming from people who took speaking fees. May I further suggest that the decades-long propaganda campaign against the Clintons has worked wonderfully and you are possibly a victim of it. And not just you, but millions of people.
  • syops 6y ago
    Rubin and Clinton passed the repeal of Glass-Steagall. Rubin goes on to make many millions of dollars at Citigroup and the Clinton make many millions of dollars in speaking fees for speeches at Citigroup, Goldman Sachs, and other places. These speaking engagements were not at venues for the general public and tickets were not sold for these speeches. These companies paid millions to have the Clintons speak at them. It may not have been corruption but it certainly has that appearance to me. The Obama administration famously never prosecuted the finance industry. He's now making millions a year. Reagan got millions to visit Japan shortly after leaving office. The leaders of our government are getting rich after being in government. I think it's corruption. Much of the investigations against the Clintons have been political theater. It's hard to prove the sort of corruption I'm pointing out. It's also in no politician's best interest to do so. They make millions after service so their economic interest is to investigate inane accusations rather than real corruption.
    • tootie 6y ago
      Glass-Steagall repeal had broad bipartisan support and was an act of congress that Clinton signed. I think it's kinda preposterous to think that Clinton pushed this bill past both houses or might have vetoed if he didn't expect to get paid speaking fees from Citi years later. More likely, he supported it because he thought it was a good idea at the time and Citi hired him to speak because he was very influential and knowledgable about economic policy. They've also given loads of speeches for public health groups, environmental groups, colleges, etc. More like they are supporting people who are ideologically aligned to their interests rather than anything resembling a quid pro quo. It's an extremely low bar for what you could consider corruption. Maybe coziness at worst. Like would these policies simply not have happened without speaking fees?
• smeeth 6y ago
  Public servants often do not make enough money in public service to make these kinds of ethically gray payments easy to turn down. I don't know about Yellen's personal finances, but the chairman/woman of the Fed makes $203k/yr. I bet 50%+ of the people reading my comment make more money than that, and unless my comment is graced by a well-known CEO I sincerely doubt any of you have as important a job. Maybe if we want to hold our public servants (generals, commissioners, congressmen, secretaries of x, etc) to higher ethical standards we should compensate them well enough that a speaking fee like this is "more money" rather than "help pay off my mortgage".
  • stainforth 6y ago
    The richer a public minister is, the more disconnected they are from the people they govern, plain and simple.
  • Aunche 6y ago
    I agree with the premise, but there's no way to please populists. If public servants got paid 7-figures, there would be even more outrage.
  • astura 6y ago
    > the chairman/woman of the Fed makes $203k/yr. I bet 50%+ of the people reading my comment make more money than that Unlikely, according to the BLS the 2019 Median Pay for software engineers in the US is $107,510 per year https://www.bls.gov/ooh/computer-and-information-technology/mobile/software-developers.htm https://www.bls.gov/ooh/computer-and-information-technology/...
• parhamn 6y ago
  Not disagreeing with the larger point, but, I think you would be surprised how many shops (think hedge funds, think tanks, etc), would easily pay a few hundred thousand dollars to have a big-wig visit for a few minutes and boost employee morale and do some handshaking. It’s major signaling that can easily amount to 10m a year.
• HotHotLava 6y ago
  People like e.g. Bjarne Stroustroup or Linus Torvalds are also paid 6-figure speaking fees depending on the venue, and they're far less-known names than Yellen or Clinton. And not because tech conferences are trying to bribe or corrupt their speakers (i hope), but because having a big name really drives attendance. It probably sometimes happens that speaking fees are paid as a bribe, but that's illegal and also not specific to speaking fees (similar popular schemes are to hire the person as consultant, or to buy something from him for a much higher price than the real value). It also raises the same red flags, when it turns out that the speaking fees were far above market value. Unless that was the case here (I don't know how much other speakers are paid at Citadel), it seems premature to assume nefarious behavior.
  • pfortuny 6y ago
    Yep, but then they are not supporting (say) Microsoft when asked about it, if Microsoft is who pays.
  • totalZero 6y ago
    > Bjarne Stroustroup or Linus Torvalds are also paid 6-figure speaking fees Can you give some examples?
    • ModernMech 6y ago
      I don't know anything about Stroustroup or Torvalds, but Wozniak wanted $80k to talk to my computing group at CMU back in the day. That's definitely 6 figures now.
  • 93po 6y ago
    Linus is also not making $10 million a year in speaking fees from industries that he vastly enriched while operating as an elected public servant.
    • Person5478 6y ago
      I understand and agree with your point, but I think the word enriched is too ambiguous here. He definitely enriched the software industry, just not monetarily.
• hooande 6y ago
  Logistically, this is the stupidest way to bribe someone. There is a clear paper trail and everyone knows about it. The wealthy have dozens of highly discrete ways to legally transfer money to each other. Also given the number of speaking engagements every year, how likely is it that all or most of them are "bribes"? Corporate speaking fees are Cameo for very rich people. They pay a less-than-rounding-error amount of money to have someone famous show up and interact with them. Similar to me paying Perez Hilton $50 on Cameo to record a message for my buddies. It doesn't make a lot of financial sense to pay someone famous to talk to you. but people do it anyway, because people pay for rare experiences. Brief association with fame has a direct financial value, it always has. You don't need a conspiracy to explain that.
  • adamnemecek 6y ago
    There’s a paper trail regardless. It’s not similar if the person in power enacts laws that directly benefit the person who paid for the speech. Association with fame has relatively small value.
  • jb775 6y ago
    Have you never watched a drug smuggler movie? Half the headaches are trying to launder the money. Speeches are the best way to bribe someone. Once they give the speech, it's "services rendered". There's no shady money transfers to explain, since it's all out in the open. There's no risk of fraud. There's no way to be caught in a lie, because the entire payment is pegged to physically speaking in front of a group, which they actually did do. The only questionable thing is the amount paid, which is subjective.
    • hooande 6y ago
      Discretion is part of a bribe's value proposition. The existence of this post is why public speaking fees are a horrible vehicle for corruption. You have people complaining and asking for recusal. It's negative publicity and a hindrance to corrupt acts. At Yellen's level, access to information is what has the most value. That's how I would bribe someone like that. No paper trail
• adamredwoods 6y ago
  Speaking fees are bribes? Someone tell Tony Robbins! It's a job that pays well, because the demand is there. I don't feel it's any different than writing a book. Bernie Sanders made good money off books: https://www.cnn.com/2019/04/13/politics/bernie-sanders-millionaire-book-sales-tax-returns/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2019/04/13/politics/bernie-sanders-milli... Bush's speeches, for reference: https://abcnews.go.com/Business/president-lady-bush-profit-speeches/story?id=9228038 https://abcnews.go.com/Business/president-lady-bush-profit-s...
• pfortuny 6y ago
  Even more taking into account that the true value of their information is not the one they are going to share publicly...
• naringas 6y ago
  I have thought for a while now that Lobbying[1] is legitimized corruption [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lobbying https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lobbying
  • 93po 6y ago
    We'd see a lot of this getting fixed with campaign finance reform and ending the ridiculous super PAC loophole
• jpalomaki 6y ago
  Those speeches can be also quite valuable, if you are for example running a conference. Few big name speakers can do a lot to attract paying visitors. Just a local example. Nordic Business Forum[1] has had for example Barrack Obama as speaker. They have maybe 7k visitors, ticket prices are around 1k-3k€/person. They tend to be sold out well in advance. Few years old list of per speech prices for high profile speakers [2]. For example Obama $400k, Tony Blair $200k. [1] https://www.nbforum.com/ https://www.nbforum.com/ [2] https://www.thestreet.com/investing/highest-paid-public-speakers-14315669 https://www.thestreet.com/investing/highest-paid-public-spea...
• tzs 6y ago
  > Reagan famously was paid around $10 million after his presidency to give some speeches in Japan. He got rid of car import quotas. ...and if Reagan had instead imposed tariffs on imported cars, he probably would have later been paid to give speeches by groups that liked the tariffs. That's how it will be for nearly every consequential Presidential decision other than those few that have broad bipartisan support and little controversy.
• Person5478 6y ago
  > The Clintons earned over $150 in speaking fees Man, a whole 150 dollars, those Clintons must be making bank! :P