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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

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.
  - btown 6y ago
    Even if an official seeks no further office and is "impotent" at the time of payment, the prospect of speaking fees can still be a perverse incentive. There's no evidence this is happening here, but theoretically an official could install policies favorable to a company, then be rewarded after leaving office with outsize speaking fees, and this would be a stable system of corruption because the company would have the reputation of following through on a practice of rewarding officials who produce favorable policies. One could take this further and apply it to the entire concept of a revolving door; if an official can make a career out of lobbying and consulting after leaving public office, they'll be incentivized to prioritize future employers over the public interest. Realistically, it's difficult to fully remove perverse incentives and still be able to attract talent (this applies to technical recruiting as well!). But there still need to be systems of accountability. Unfortunately, with two-party non-proportional representation, and a limited opportunity for voters to provide referendums on the corruption of party members separate from their policy viewpoints, there are many layers of insulation that prevent people from being held to account.
    - hooande 6y ago
      You realize that it's legal to form a political action committee and give literally unlimited amounts of money to any politician while they hold office, right?
  - fallingknife 6y ago
    But you aren't bribing the former president. You're bribing the current president by showing him what awaits after he leaves office.
- tootie 6y ago
  Carter has taken speaking fees and Clinton runs one of the most successful charitable orgs in the world.
  - _qulr 6y ago
    > Carter has taken speaking fees https://www.thoughtco.com/former-presidents-speaking-fees-3368127 https://www.thoughtco.com/former-presidents-speaking-fees-33... Former President Jimmy Carter "seldom accepts speaking fees," The Associated Press wrote in 2002, "and when he does he typically donates the proceeds to his charitable foundation." > Clinton runs one of the most successful charitable orgs in the world. So does Bill Gates. So what? Clinton also made more than $100 million for himself in speaking fees.
Nacdor 6y ago
> How much do you think it should cost to get a former president to give a talk? Nothing. Or, on second thought, maybe a large donation to a children's hospital. I would expect a public servant from the highest office to be committed to public service. The presidency shouldn't be monetized, but if a former president really needs money they could always sell a book. That doesn't create any perverse incentives like speaking fees.
- ballenf 6y ago
  Maybe your plan would work if we had a generous a pension plan that required a certain number of community service hours. One problem would be that most of these speeches are anything but public or open to the community.
  - syspec 6y ago
    Presidents do receive a pension, along with other benefits for life
- pfortuny 6y ago
  The expenses.
hannasanarion 6y ago
I don't know, seems to me that speaking fees are inherently corrupt. You shouldn't have to pay someone for the privilege of giving them a platform. Public figures don't get paid for TV or newspaper interviews, journalistic ethics explicitly forbids it, because paying people for being the source of information is seen as inherently corrupting. Presidents have a 200k/yr lifetime pension that's pegged to inflation, plus a $1 million/yr travel budget and a fully funded and staffed personal office. Bill Clinton has been paid over $20 million by the US government since he left office through these programs. While in office presidents earn 400k, with all their living expenses paid for separately, meaning they get about 1.6 million dollars per four-year term straight into their savings accounts. Many of them make millions from sales of their memoirs alone. There is no reason for them to be demanding additional millions in exchange for giving a ten minute pep talk to a hedge fund except as a backdoor for corruption.
- notahacker 6y ago
  > There is no reason for them to be demanding additional millions in exchange for giving a ten minute pep talk to a hedge fund except as a backdoor for corruption. I don't see how this follows from your argument. As you acknowledge Clinton has a massive platform whenever he wants his views aired, and plenty of normal people are willing to pay his publisher money to read his book. Why would he fly to some hedge fund's dinner party to talk to a handful of half cut money-movers for free? I'd say that would be more suspicious, frankly.
  - treis 6y ago
    I think the idea is for them to not fly to some hedge fund's dinner party.
  - hannasanarion 6y ago
    To avoid the appearance of a quid-pro-quo, at least? Like, the guy clearly doesn't need money, he can do whatever he wants. There is no opportunity cost for him, he doesn't need to make appearances to put food on the table, the financial difference between a $300,000 appearance at Goldman and a free appearance at a kid's birthday party is essentially nothing to him. If he thinks it's fun to hang out with hedge fund managers, he can do that, good for him, who cares. But them giving him tens of millions of dollars, on top of the tens of millions of dollars that the US government is already giving him, (which by the way is supposed to exist to disincentivize Presidents from seeking gifts or employment after leaving office), is extremely suspicious especially in light of the fact that his crowning achievement in office was deregulating their entire industry.
hajile 6y ago
Presidents give hundreds of speeches for the low, low price of $400k per year. After their last term, their official political career is basically over and almost anything they know worth telling is classified. It seems hard to justify increasing prices after the fact outside graft.
jb775 6y ago
It's nothing to do with "prestige", it's about return on investment. It's usually a payment for friendly behavior in the past, or to increase the likelihood of friendly behavior in the future (or to essentially tap into their personal network at some point in the future). Celebrities are bribed, they're called endorsements. Former presidents are worth less and less as they lose their connections. Their price tag depends on how much power they still wield....which is why Clinton and Obama still command high prices.
DiogenesKynikos 6y ago
This sort of monetization of the Presidency would have shocked 18th-Century sensibilities. An example: George Washington was a big supporter of canal-building. To honor Washington, the Virginia legislature decided in 1795 to gift him shares in two canal companies it had established. Washington agonized over what to do, because accepting the shares would give the impression that he was using the Presidency for his own personal gain, while rejecting them would be insulting. He also wanted to publicly show his support for the canal projects. He ended up requesting that the shares to be used to fund a university and a seminary. Washington's status at this point was already secure enough that nobody would have seriously accused him of corruption, but he was extremely wary of doing anything that could in any way be perceived as self-interested. The fact that former politicians are taking massive speaking fees from businesses that their policies affected looks corrupt, and that in itself is already bad enough.
totalZero 6y ago
The problem isn't bribes to former politicians, but rather bribes to future ones. Also, Yellen isn't a former president, she is a former fed chair. It's not even remotely the same line of work.

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.
- btown 6y ago
  Even if an official seeks no further office and is "impotent" at the time of payment, the prospect of speaking fees can still be a perverse incentive. There's no evidence this is happening here, but theoretically an official could install policies favorable to a company, then be rewarded after leaving office with outsize speaking fees, and this would be a stable system of corruption because the company would have the reputation of following through on a practice of rewarding officials who produce favorable policies. One could take this further and apply it to the entire concept of a revolving door; if an official can make a career out of lobbying and consulting after leaving public office, they'll be incentivized to prioritize future employers over the public interest. Realistically, it's difficult to fully remove perverse incentives and still be able to attract talent (this applies to technical recruiting as well!). But there still need to be systems of accountability. Unfortunately, with two-party non-proportional representation, and a limited opportunity for voters to provide referendums on the corruption of party members separate from their policy viewpoints, there are many layers of insulation that prevent people from being held to account.
  - hooande 6y ago
    You realize that it's legal to form a political action committee and give literally unlimited amounts of money to any politician while they hold office, right?
- fallingknife 6y ago
  But you aren't bribing the former president. You're bribing the current president by showing him what awaits after he leaves office.
tootie 6y ago
Carter has taken speaking fees and Clinton runs one of the most successful charitable orgs in the world.
- _qulr 6y ago
  > Carter has taken speaking fees https://www.thoughtco.com/former-presidents-speaking-fees-3368127 https://www.thoughtco.com/former-presidents-speaking-fees-33... Former President Jimmy Carter "seldom accepts speaking fees," The Associated Press wrote in 2002, "and when he does he typically donates the proceeds to his charitable foundation." > Clinton runs one of the most successful charitable orgs in the world. So does Bill Gates. So what? Clinton also made more than $100 million for himself in speaking fees.

Nacdor 6y ago

> How much do you think it should cost to get a former president to give a talk? Nothing. Or, on second thought, maybe a large donation to a children's hospital. I would expect a public servant from the highest office to be committed to public service. The presidency shouldn't be monetized, but if a former president really needs money they could always sell a book. That doesn't create any perverse incentives like speaking fees.

ballenf 6y ago
Maybe your plan would work if we had a generous a pension plan that required a certain number of community service hours. One problem would be that most of these speeches are anything but public or open to the community.
- syspec 6y ago
  Presidents do receive a pension, along with other benefits for life
pfortuny 6y ago
The expenses.

hannasanarion 6y ago

I don't know, seems to me that speaking fees are inherently corrupt. You shouldn't have to pay someone for the privilege of giving them a platform. Public figures don't get paid for TV or newspaper interviews, journalistic ethics explicitly forbids it, because paying people for being the source of information is seen as inherently corrupting. Presidents have a 200k/yr lifetime pension that's pegged to inflation, plus a $1 million/yr travel budget and a fully funded and staffed personal office. Bill Clinton has been paid over $20 million by the US government since he left office through these programs. While in office presidents earn 400k, with all their living expenses paid for separately, meaning they get about 1.6 million dollars per four-year term straight into their savings accounts. Many of them make millions from sales of their memoirs alone. There is no reason for them to be demanding additional millions in exchange for giving a ten minute pep talk to a hedge fund except as a backdoor for corruption.

notahacker 6y ago
> There is no reason for them to be demanding additional millions in exchange for giving a ten minute pep talk to a hedge fund except as a backdoor for corruption. I don't see how this follows from your argument. As you acknowledge Clinton has a massive platform whenever he wants his views aired, and plenty of normal people are willing to pay his publisher money to read his book. Why would he fly to some hedge fund's dinner party to talk to a handful of half cut money-movers for free? I'd say that would be more suspicious, frankly.
- treis 6y ago
  I think the idea is for them to not fly to some hedge fund's dinner party.
- hannasanarion 6y ago
  To avoid the appearance of a quid-pro-quo, at least? Like, the guy clearly doesn't need money, he can do whatever he wants. There is no opportunity cost for him, he doesn't need to make appearances to put food on the table, the financial difference between a $300,000 appearance at Goldman and a free appearance at a kid's birthday party is essentially nothing to him. If he thinks it's fun to hang out with hedge fund managers, he can do that, good for him, who cares. But them giving him tens of millions of dollars, on top of the tens of millions of dollars that the US government is already giving him, (which by the way is supposed to exist to disincentivize Presidents from seeking gifts or employment after leaving office), is extremely suspicious especially in light of the fact that his crowning achievement in office was deregulating their entire industry.

hajile 6y ago

Presidents give hundreds of speeches for the low, low price of $400k per year. After their last term, their official political career is basically over and almost anything they know worth telling is classified. It seems hard to justify increasing prices after the fact outside graft.

jb775 6y ago

It's nothing to do with "prestige", it's about return on investment. It's usually a payment for friendly behavior in the past, or to increase the likelihood of friendly behavior in the future (or to essentially tap into their personal network at some point in the future). Celebrities are bribed, they're called endorsements. Former presidents are worth less and less as they lose their connections. Their price tag depends on how much power they still wield....which is why Clinton and Obama still command high prices.

DiogenesKynikos 6y ago

This sort of monetization of the Presidency would have shocked 18th-Century sensibilities. An example: George Washington was a big supporter of canal-building. To honor Washington, the Virginia legislature decided in 1795 to gift him shares in two canal companies it had established. Washington agonized over what to do, because accepting the shares would give the impression that he was using the Presidency for his own personal gain, while rejecting them would be insulting. He also wanted to publicly show his support for the canal projects. He ended up requesting that the shares to be used to fund a university and a seminary. Washington's status at this point was already secure enough that nobody would have seriously accused him of corruption, but he was extremely wary of doing anything that could in any way be perceived as self-interested. The fact that former politicians are taking massive speaking fees from businesses that their policies affected looks corrupt, and that in itself is already bad enough.

totalZero 6y ago

The problem isn't bribes to former politicians, but rather bribes to future ones. Also, Yellen isn't a former president, she is a former fed chair. It's not even remotely the same line of work.