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The magnitude of speaking fees influential politicians can command once they're out of office is rather absurd. I don't like it, but I don't think it's changing anytime soon. I kind of think of them along the lines of professional athlete contracts - is the money commensurate with what they're being paid to do? Nope. But this is America, and it's one of the built-in inevitabilities of our free market system. I can't fault someone for accepting a paycheck once they're no longer in government.

 

I don't want to go down Whataboutism road here, but shouldn't we be much more concerned with the plain-as-day pocket-lining going on INSIDE the White House than what Obama chooses to do now that he's done?

 

I'll never understand the people who cry foul about the Dems being run by out-of-touch elites. Look at the alternative. To me, there seems to be a ground-up groundswell of support for honest, first-time politicians who are swearing off donor and SuperPAC money in the party right now. That offers a good deal of hope.

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Good context tweets here: http://www.dailykos.com/story/2017/4/27/1656797/-I-just-read-the-perfect-response-to-the-Obama-400K-BS-and-I-just-have-to-document-it

 

Bloomberg: https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2017-04-26/stop-bashing-obama-over-paid-wall-street-speeches

 

Which brings us to the second reason why Obama’s decision to speak at a Cantor Fitzgerald conference – if he sticks with it – is praiseworthy: Because the conversation between centrist politics and global finance shouldn’t be allowed to break down.

USNews: https://www.usnews.com/opinion/thomas-jefferson-street/articles/2017-04-27/democrats-need-to-calm-down-over-barack-obamas-wall-street-speaking-fee

 

Liberal politics have been about not making the possible the enemy of the perfect for so long that it's possible few politicians know what perfect looks like anymore.

Slate: http://www.slate.com/articles/business/moneybox/2017/04/barack_obama_is_taking_400_000_for_a_wall_street_speech_and_that_s_fine.html

 

But it should be obvious that Obama isn’t getting this absurd-sounding amount for reasons of crony capitalism: He was no friend to Cantor Fitzgerald while he was in office. And Cantor Fitzgerald isn’t a particular friend to Obama.

"If the only thing keeping progressivism afloat is the virtue-signaling of our best leaders, we're in trouble."

 

I agree with these articles much more than I agree with the vexation. It fits in our general pattern of angst against the wealthy -- whether it's NFL players landing big contracts or individual businessmen. Not only is the specific context (see first link) worrying, I find such angst to be lazy and misdirected -- and I am as strongly in favor of top-to-bottom wealth redistribution policies as anyone here. Lastly, we must take Obama for what he always was: a politician with both strengths and weaknesses, who should get credit for a progressive legacy but who always came from the 'establishment', as it were. That should not be a bad word, and the rage against this is destructive and inchoate.

 

The first link is nonsense. It presupposes that this is a criticism limited to Obama, and then goes on to say why that's bad. I thought the same thing about Hillary's Wall Street speeches that I do about Obama's. And Republicans have the same issue. I think all politicians should have their ethical game raised.

 

The second link misses the obvious counter-point that the conversation isn't stifled by not getting paid for speeches. Can't Obama give that speech without getting paid?

 

The third link equates criticizing Obama taking money for Wall Street speeches to a requirement for perfection. How are those things equal? The article even says, "None of this is to say that people on the left shouldn't be disappointed", so what is the point of the article?

 

And the fourth link makes this statement, "But it should be obvious that Obama isn’t getting this absurd-sounding amount for reasons of crony capitalism". It's not at all obvious. In fact, it looks like Obama is now being rewarded for not prosecuting anyone after the rampant fraud discovered in the 2007 collapse and not breaking up the big banks as he promised in his 2008 campaign.

 

I think Obama's own words from 2006 best describe his behavior now:

"And perhaps as the next race approaches, a voice within tells you that you don’t want to have to go through all the misery of raising all that money in small increments all over again. You realize that you no longer have the cachet you did as the upstart, the fresh face; you haven’t changed Washington, and you’ve made a lot of people unhappy with difficult votes. The path of least resistance — of fund-raisers organized by the special interests, the corporate PACs, and the top lobbying shops — starts to look awfully tempting, and if the opinions of these insiders don’t quite jibe with those you once held, you learn to rationalize the changes as a matter of realism, of compromise, of learning the ropes. The problems of ordinary people, the voices of the Rust Belt town or the dwindling heartland, become a distant echo rather than a palpable reality, abstractions to be managed rather than battles to be fought."

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The magnitude of speaking fees influential politicians can command once they're out of office is rather absurd. I don't like it, but I don't think it's changing anytime soon. I kind of think of them along the lines of professional athlete contracts - is the money commensurate with what they're being paid to do? Nope. But this is America, and it's one of the built-in inevitabilities of our free market system. I can't fault someone for accepting a paycheck once they're no longer in government.

 

I don't want to go down Whataboutism road here, but shouldn't we be much more concerned with the plain-as-day pocket-lining going on INSIDE the White House than what Obama chooses to do now that he's done?

 

I'll never understand the people who cry foul about the Dems being run by out-of-touch elites. Look at the alternative. To me, there seems to be a ground-up groundswell of support for honest, first-time politicians who are swearing off donor and SuperPAC money in the party right now. That offers a good deal of hope.

To the bold red.

 

Why do you even have an opinion either way on it? They are out of office and it literally doesn't affect you. Now, if they were still in office...I could see your point. I just don't ever get worked up about someone getting a big pay day that doesn't affect me. You are correct, it's like sports contracts. But, those don't affect you either....

 

To the bold black.

 

Isn't that "whataboutism"? The Dems aren't that bad, look at the other side.

 

The Dems get hammered by this because they try to come across as the party for the poor and down trodden. They try to come across as not wealthy powerful people. They are just there to fight for the common man. Which, is total BS. It's like Republicans trying to act fiscally conservative. They have just as big of deficits in their budgets as anyone else. The aura they try to put out to garner votes is nothing but hog piss.

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The ones that send me over the edge when I think about it are the Clintons when they left office. They put out this poor pathetic front trying to claim they were broke from legal fees and literally, common Americans forked out their own hard earned money to donate to them.........Meanwhile, they went on a speaking tour where they earned millions and they are far far far from being poor to this day.

 

But at the time....those poor little Bill and Hillary......

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If Trump's healthy enough after leaving office, there's no way he doesn't speak to Wall Street or anyone who's willing to pay him.

 

I don't understand the "elitist" angle. That's weird.

Obama is getting an absurd amount of money from an extremely wealthy person for giving a speech - how do you not see that as "elitist"? As in, that's the sort of thing that only happens by and for the elite. And it'd be the same if you replaced Obama with Trump or anyone else.

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I don't have a problem with ex presidents getting paid for giving speeches. Why should they speak for free? They've already done four or eight years of the hardest job they'll ever have. They have rate expertise and insight and should absolutely be able to speak about that.

 

There's a fine line between earning a fee commensurate with the service of giving that speech and post-presidency bribery, and that's where ethics watchdogs come in.

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I don't like people getting paid that much to speak, but it's out of all our hands. As Knapp said, they served their country in one of the hardest jobs of on the planet. I personally can't be bothered to care that much.

 

BRB, I have an opinion same as I do on athlete salaries. It's crazy that much money is spent on on person speaking for an hour or playing a game when we have people living in poverty or infrastructure that badly needs repaired or rebuilt. But I could say that about any number of transactions in life. You're right; it's probably not even worth the thought. It's more of a passing thought about what I personally view as some of the inherent flaws of our free-market capitalist system here.

 

To the black bolded, I realized I was treading close to blatant Whataboutism. What I was trying to say is that I think there is some hope for the party to get back to being a party of the people IF this wave of enthusiasm can sweep some new faces into power that didn't rise up through the typical party power structure. I was also trying to point out that the GOP allegiances matter more at the moment since enjoying almost full control of everything.

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I don't have a problem with ex presidents getting paid for giving speeches. Why should they speak for free? They've already done four or eight years of the hardest job they'll ever have. They have rate expertise and insight and should absolutely be able to speak about that.

 

There's a fine line between earning a fee commensurate with the service of giving that speech and post-presidency bribery, and that's where ethics watchdogs come in.

 

 

I still fail to see why anyone should have a problem with an ex-President getting a boat load of money to speak if someone is willing to pay it.

 

The concept baffles me.

For the same reason that I oppose the revolving door which allows people in positions of power in the government to oversee an industry then turn around and get hired by that industry. And in particular in this case, Obama made some pretty Wall Street friendly decisions. It's unethical for him to accept payment from an industry he previously oversaw and regulated.

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'Deference to newly-discovered sensitivities of economically vulnerable white people' is a generically nonsensical demand.

 

Can't Obama give that speech without getting paid?

Why on earth should Obama give this speech gratis? Who gets what out of this?

 

The resentment here is plain. Why do we resent Obama for making money? What exactly is the concern, or do we just prefer to see him work for free? This is the same confused sentiment that leads to assigning virtue to Trump for skipping on his salary. There is nothing inherently more moral about this.

 

The third link equates criticizing Obama taking money for Wall Street speeches to a requirement for perfection.

Yes, because it's an absurd demand. The man absolutely is in a position to sell books and take up speaking engagements. He needs to avoid this because _____? Even his personal politics aren't compromised for this, much less those of an entire party or movement. This is destructive internecine sniping for the silly reason that one man's behavior doesn't follow some absurd piety.

 

Of course, the argument is really "please legitimize the Sanders/Warren wing more." It's a power play by a wing of the party. Fine; I have some sympathies at least to that wing. But a summary of their political rhetoric is discrediting the "impure" in favor of their supposedly more pristine progressive street cred. Of course, such ideological rigor melts away outside of economic issues.

 

And the fourth link makes this statement, "But it should be obvious that Obama isn’t getting this absurd-sounding amount for reasons of crony capitalism".

This, and the following, seems like quite the specious argument. Obama is not running for public office again. Thus, your argument hinges on Obama basing policy on his personal desire to command speaking fees after his presidency concluded. He's a former US President -- he was going to command massive speaking fees, book fees, etc. regardless of what he did.

 

Not taking up a speaking engagement can be quite politically useful to some. Of course they'd like to milk this. And this is where my big problem with Bernie-ism starts. Feeding off public rage and enjoying the power to command and direct it wheresoever he pleases...one can get drunk on that sort of power. It doesn't strike me as a healthy indulgence.

 

Is there a better dialogue if Obama hangs back and demonizes bankers as his contribution to centrist-Wall Street conversation? That's not working to further the conversation, that's politicians trying to follow Bernie building up their brand for a future run.

 

There isn't a particularly credible ethics charge here. I do think people are free to like the man less than they used to for this -- although they were fooling themselves if they ever saw Obama as anything other than born of the establishment. U.S. Senators and Presidents are certainly of the 'elite'.

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There isn't a particularly credible ethics charge here.

I'll respond to what I've clipped your comment down to. The rest of your comments are strawmen of my position as I've quite clearly indicated I'd have the same response to Hillary, Trump, or another politician doing something similar.

 

I guess it all comes down to what a "credible ethics charge" is. As I mentioned previously, Obama made some pretty Wall Street friendly decisions. That he's now getting payment from that industry is unethical. If we'd like to be more precise, this is actually a healthcare conference, which Obama also had major decisions about during his presidency, so the same ethical issues apply.

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I don't have a problem with ex presidents getting paid for giving speeches. Why should they speak for free? They've already done four or eight years of the hardest job they'll ever have. They have rate expertise and insight and should absolutely be able to speak about that.

 

There's a fine line between earning a fee commensurate with the service of giving that speech and post-presidency bribery, and that's where ethics watchdogs come in.

 

 

I still fail to see why anyone should have a problem with an ex-President getting a boat load of money to speak if someone is willing to pay it.

 

The concept baffles me.

For the same reason that I oppose the revolving door which allows people in positions of power in the government to oversee an industry then turn around and get hired by that industry. And in particular in this case, Obama made some pretty Wall Street friendly decisions. It's unethical for him to accept payment from an industry he previously oversaw and regulated.

 

 

I get your concerns. They have merit and I'm not trying to dismiss them entirely.

 

Question is, with the vast influence of the presidency, what would you have them do after office so they don't have a seeming conflict of interest?

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I don't have a problem with ex presidents getting paid for giving speeches. Why should they speak for free? They've already done four or eight years of the hardest job they'll ever have. They have rate expertise and insight and should absolutely be able to speak about that.

 

There's a fine line between earning a fee commensurate with the service of giving that speech and post-presidency bribery, and that's where ethics watchdogs come in.

 

 

I still fail to see why anyone should have a problem with an ex-President getting a boat load of money to speak if someone is willing to pay it.

 

The concept baffles me.

For the same reason that I oppose the revolving door which allows people in positions of power in the government to oversee an industry then turn around and get hired by that industry. And in particular in this case, Obama made some pretty Wall Street friendly decisions. It's unethical for him to accept payment from an industry he previously oversaw and regulated.

 

 

I get your concerns. They have merit and I'm not trying to dismiss them entirely.

 

Question is, with the vast influence of the presidency, what would you have them do after office so they don't have a seeming conflict of interest?

 

Whatever they want. Obama, Clinton, Bush 1 & 2, etc. can all go out there and give speeches and do things they believe in, but don't take money for it if you had direct influence over it. I mean, if it's a matter of not having enough money, then let's pay them more. And I don't mean to make it sound like there's no shades of gray, so there's room to disagree on what is ethical or not.

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