I don't think Obama, centrist Democrat, has much difficulty getting laid.

Nor Bill.

I'll admit Hillary/Perez/Pelosi are less attractive.

This thoughtful and mature position is simply a reflection of your inability to convince people to like you.

/lol-o-cratic

It's called hustling.

Since when did getting paid by someone to speak mean, unequivocally or even in part, that you agreed with their message or couldn't still critique your hosts?

I guess there are so few on the left that can understand this, and so many on the left that are easily BETRAYED, that your point about it making him useless on the campaign trail is not entirely without merit.

It is still wrong, of course. And I strongly suspect that the vast majority of Democratic candidates for office would welcome Obama to speak on their behalf.

Why? Because he's a facile simple man when it comes to matters of political art.

Politicians are supposed to exist as public servants. They are not supposed to be rewarded by private business. These speaking gigs appear to be a loophole. There is no difference between getting $400k for this speech and just having Goldman Sachs cut him a check with "Good job son!" in the for column. It is very problematic and unethical. Donate that **** to charity.

You wouldn't have a problem if regular Joe the plumber invited ex-president over for a backyard barbecue as a photo op, just to thank him from saving joe's family from the perils of unemployment. Obama's thing is a lot like that for the very top earners with a better open bar and obama also gets to ask for donations for his anti gerrymandering cause. I mean Obama didn't seem to me like a guy who in the back of his mind thinks how he pulled a fast one on poor people.

Well this is kind of nonsense. If the auto industry wanted to pay Obama for giving speeches would you say it's because he was beholden to big auto, or that they're happy he helped save their industry?

What's the functional difference between "offering money as thanks for helping our industry" and good old-fashioned kickbacks?

There is none. If the Dems don't get it through their heads that the interests of a large portion of their base are diametrically opposed to Wall St's they are going to be finished as a party.

Seems like we should just tax Wall Street enough to where they don't have 400k to spend on speeches.

like someone else mentioned earlier itt, the issue here is optics. the other day obama returned to chicago to speak out about special interests dominating washington only to then turn around and take 400k from the special interests dominating washington.

the man will never again be a politician, so he has every right to earn a living any way he sees fit; however when one of the current leaders of the democratic party is touting him as the leader of the party, taking this money at this moment in time is not a good look.

if anything, it further proves just how insulated washington and both parties are from the rest of the country, if a man as sharp as obama wasn't able to foresee that a giant wall street payday wasn't going to create some sort of backlash.

kickbacks tend to require someone to have some actual authority to provide improved outcomes for the kickbacker, no?

Why in the **** would the auto industry give a $400k thank you? Do they like lighting money on fire?????

Or, might the real purpose in your hypothetical be that they're seeking to give off the impression to future presidents that they take care of those who help them?

Given how much $$$ Wall Street has been paying people like the Clintons for post-office (or pre-attempted-office) speeches, clearly they've already succeeded at generating that impression. The Vox article makes a good point about why Obama should have turned it down.

Okay, but you're kind of making my point. No matter who he helps, be it the auto industry or wall street or anyone else, if he does something good for someone in the country with a lot of money, they'll want to lavish him with speaking fees.

So if he's going to get paid no matter what he does, then the prospect of unfairly helping one industry or company over another makes no sense.

I'd rather he donate the speaking fees or not accept them, but this isn't some revolving door from government into industry back into government or whatever the traditional role is.

Why would they want to lavish him with speaking fees? That's money they don't get to keep. Don't they have a fiduciary responsibility? Is lavishing gifts to people who don't need the money and where there is a suggestion of impropriety good for their image?

I'll much sooner buy them just being a bunch of stupid MBAs who are willing to waste a lot of money because it's cool and makes them feel important.

What??? No, stop, answer the question I asked you: WHY would they want to lavish him with speaking fees? He already helped them, there's no reason for them to do that, it's lighting money on fire! Unless...it's not?

the difference is judgement. if you think an open payment of $400k to give a talk is corruption, then i would argue there are whole private-public industries that command a lot more money, are not only more corrupt but also criminally harmful, and currently enjoy a lot less transparency. but hey, emails amirite?

this is silly. i've been at several companies who paid upto $100k for speakers to come in speak to their workforce, without quid pro quo. the motive was to give the employees some education/perspective/offsite time.

the reason why it's $400k rather than only travel expenses and per diem is because you don't disrespect the guy who saved the jobs of everyone in the room.

Emails and $22 million for speeches.

"Speakers are always expensive" is a far, far better argument than the one LK is making, and yet still we have...

What on earth is disrespectful about paying someone a year's ~top 25% income for an hour of their time, that you need to add $300k that you're lighting on fire to make sure they feel good about it?????

Because obama probably had about 20 offers for $100k already. Are you asking him to figuratively set the money on fire by accepting a smaller offer?

Yes!!!! Or even better, don't accept at all! Go home and ca$h those book checks for millions, he'll be fine and won't damage democracy in the process. Or if you have your choice of speaking gigs, go do it for charity groups or some ****, or donate the fees to charity. Why on earth after the 2016 campaign went down the way it did would you go to Wall Street?? Maybe he racked up some CC debt with all that jetsetting he's been doing the last few months, or maybe he just stopped giving a ****.

Goofy, normal people don't deal with these amounts. It's disrespectful to offer a speaker like the president the same amount of money as some tech-evangelist or tony robbins gets. It's also stupid for obama to accept less and cheapen his own image. I am sure he'll do a bunch of talks for free like he did the day before and a few for half a million per pop, and message will likely be similar to both audiences.

Think of your outrage as a limited resource. How much of it do you want to waste on obama's appearance fee vs something like a trade war with nafta, which is something wall st happens to like pretty passionately? Stay outraged, but don't blow it all on our past democratic leaders.

idk when outrage has ever been required to respond to bad arguments on the internet (much more LK's than yours). This isn't something I'm super up in arms over regardless of how my posts may appear, it's just something where I think the right answer (it's not a great thing for presidents to do their time in office knowing the gravy train of Wall Street speaking fees is ready to set them for life even more than they're already set for life, as long as they play ball) isn't that difficult to arrive at.

i think the right answer is that it's a lot more important what obama does with the opportunity to speak, than whether the amount is an outlier on some hypothetical scale.

my reasoning on the matter is that it is obvious we need democratic leaders to engage with those who have social influence. that means both, large communities of working/poor/middle/retired class and those who work in finance. the message should be the same to both groups, advocating towards improving the social contract, and how that means relinquishing power back to workers/consumers/regulators/voters.