Obviously call them out. Also important not just to focus on POTUS but lots of others as well. Cabinet members, highly visible regulators, perhaps Congress. The President provides a valuable, easy to understand anecdote but it's bad when guys like Geithner and Greenspan and HRC are getting gobtons of checks for speeches when out of office too.

And re: the bolded, that threat becomes much more credible if the pension is more valuable.

The argument that's being made is that if Obama were paid a huge pension, he'd have less incentive to speak for Wall Street. Wow, no kidding!

But you have to ask if there are negative consequences to making such payoffs (there are) and whether there are better ways to disincentivize such behavior (there are).

Such as?

Negative Consequences: The obvious that the taxpayers will be footing these bills, but more importantly attracting an even greater number who are in politics for the money.

Better Ways: Laws and aggressive stigmatizing.

In this context we should argue about whether a board of directors setting CEO salary should be called a market or not instead of whether they are erroneously or irrationally determining value.

The graph of pay vs. corruptability is probably not linear. Shoeless Joe made the equivalent of $144k/year in a career with a very short duration and no special prospects for even a decent job after it's over. That's not abject poverty, but it's not a very secure position. It's a long way off from the absolute guarantee of upper middle class income for life that the retiring potus and most retiring top government officials get.

I wouldn't predict any advantage of $2m/year over $300k/year as far as corruption goes.

Agree with DVaut, but still prefer the Obama method to the Lyndon Johnson / Dennis Hastert program.

This. Not sure if there's no advantage, but it seems clear there will be diminishing returns.

OK let me try to get this from a different angle.

If you credibly want to position yourself as a power broker for the liberal/left, if you want to credibly cast yourself as an advocate for the poor and middle class and environment...

Wall Street shouldn't WANT to hear what you have to say. The issue isn't just that Obama said yes, the issue is that he was even asked.

Someone said earlier that it's not like he was talking to ISIS or the Klan. True, true. But take away the money entirely. Let's say he was doing it for free. Wall Street ain't the Klan, but it's on the bad side of the morality ledger.

We light up right wingers for giving talks to insane Bircher and neo-Confederate groups, justifiably, because speaking at a conference for a group implies ideological support for that group. And those groups aren't the Klan or ISIS, and they generally don't have $400k to pay, but all the same that is an absolutely valid hit.

Both good points. For the record there is no doubt CEOs are radically over-paid and income inequality is the biggest time bomb in the middle of economy right now.

Worth noting for this argument that Obama agreed to speak at Cantor Fitzgerald despite ALREADY having a 60 million dollar book deal.

This is a truely self-defeating position which is based on left wing religion and not facts in the real world.

The financial sector is not entirely fillled with cartoon villains trying to **** over the world. They are people driven by incentives just like everyone. There are good people and bad people with the former vastly outnumbering the latter.

There are huge problems with the financial sector, and they need more not less regulation, but the left needs to stop acting like the core of the global economy is an untreatable cancer.

Re fly's point

That's an issue too. It's not something that should be punished, but it's very fair to say "wtf?" if a Democrat is the darling of Wall St. going into and coming out of office.

That doesn't even necessarily hold only if Wall St. is immoral. There's something about balance. Having two business parties and no labor party is an objective problem.

No sane person would become President for the money, no matter how much the job pays. It's way too hard, and anyone smart enough to be president can make millions in half a dozen other ways without a sweat. People become president because they want power, but if they want both power and money, it would be nice if they could get enough money to satisfy their desires without compromising policy.

World War II broke the seal on the necessity of having women to work. However you are correct that the prevelance and almost requisite two income families came about due to wealth inequality and relative ability for one earner to support a middle class family.

Our society would be much better off if parents with children could successfully support their household with a single income, and it doesn't have to be the man.

I thought the discussion was paying a broad class of politicians more, not just Pres. Clovis mentioned making more money than his Congressman.

Someone not satisfied by the retirement package of the potus plus the book deal (and they can just have someone else write the book) will never be satisfied by any amount of money.

In a Beijing ballroom, Kushner family pushes $500,000 ‘investor visa’ to wealthy Chinese

It was and I think all politicians should be paid more.

Also I have a Member of Parliment (MP), not a congressman.

The financial sector is 100% professional rent seeking. Their personal character is irrelevant, he's not accepting a personal invitation from a guy who happens to work in finance.

How often are Warren or Sanders asked to speak to Wall Street groups, do you think?

This is crazy. So Obama of one of these "people who will never be satisfied by any amount of money"?

Of course not. By every measure he is one of the most moral presidents ever yet here he is reacting to the very incentives you are claiming don't exist.

This is just a religious belief. We might as well argue over the temperature of burning bush from the Book of Exodus.

If I had to guess, pretty often, especially recently.

Clovis,

Goalpost shift.

but he is using those points to argue for stuff like lifetime caps and essentially argue for death panels.

the fact is that we do have the resources. if canada and euro countries can do it, then we certainly can too.