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On April 28 2017 06:21 LegalLord wrote:
He's definitely within his right to line his pockets right now. My opinion will change if he seeks another more active role in policy making or party organization right now.
Line his pockets. The man was the president of the united states, one of the hardest jobs in the world. And he got paid shit for it. Now he is going to pull in what a low grade CEO of a mid grade international bank makes.
I love how people get so bent out of shape about our public servants making money. Like they are taking advantage of something. I cheer them on when they can get banks like Wells Fargo to shell out 400K just to hear a speech. The man is literally never going to have another job forever, so why not make some money to send all your grandkids to college?
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how does this not look like a quid pro quo? who says that the money always come before the executive policy? it could just as easily be the ex post facto payout for his good service.
i'm not surprised obama is doing it. i don't know that i'd be able to turn down $400k for a single speech either. but that doesnt mean we shouldnt be disgusted by a politico-economic system that produces these flows of power/value
@plansix
this is why no one takes you seriously
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On April 28 2017 06:18 Plansix wrote:
He could become a lobbyist and pull in several million a year. Being a former president means you can make bank anywhere you want. He could also just make money and not tell anyone how much because liberals don’t own him. Don’t bitch about people making money after their time in office is over.
If they are still running for office, then the speaking circuit is a little weird. But no less weird than having a private sector job right up until you ran for office.
There's a lot of criticisms being lumped together making them incoherent. There are people who think principals shouldn't stop after you're done getting elected, but they are under the false idea that it violates who he is. Then there are people who are criticizing the optics independent of whether it is inconsistent with his tenure or independently disturbing. Then there are people who think that the "going rate" for speeches being $400,000 shows a grossly distorted value system where we think $2.13 plus tips for a working mother busting ass and $400,000 for some speech (admittedly whatever it is will be exponentially better than anything Hillary ever delivered) is the best the market can do, as if we can't/shouldn't say that's absurd.
I find myself in the latter, I don't care that Obama's doing it, I care that both sides have adopted the idea that there's nothing wrong with it.
On April 28 2017 06:26 Plansix wrote:Show nested quote +On April 28 2017 06:21 LegalLord wrote:
He's definitely within his right to line his pockets right now. My opinion will change if he seeks another more active role in policy making or party organization right now. Line his pockets. The man was the president of the united states, one of the hardest jobs in the world. And he got paid shit for it. Now he is going to pull in what a low grade CEO of a mid grade international bank makes. I love how people get so bent out of shape about our public servants making money. Like they are taking advantage of something. I cheer them on when they can get banks like Wells Fargo to shell out 400K just to hear a speech. The man is literally never going to have another job forever, so why not make some money to send all your grandkids to college?
This is the particularly silly defenses I was talking about. The guy's sitting on a $60,000,000+ from a book deal. That's enough for him and his children, and their children, and well, for their family to go to college in perpetuity. He doesn't need to take wheelbarrows full of cash from the people he refused to put in prison to feed his family.
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On April 28 2017 06:30 IgnE wrote:
how does this not look like a quid pro quo? who says that the money always come before the executive policy? it could just as easily be the ex post facto payout for his good service.
i'm not surprised obama is doing it. i don't know that i'd be able to turn down $400k for a single speech either. but that doesnt mean we shouldnt be disgusted by a politico-economic system that produces these flows of power/value
@plansix
this is why no one takes you seriously
there's raelly no way around the problem; preventing ex-public servants from being paid market wage creates distortions of its own, especially if it's far below their market wage.
i'd say flows of this scale are an inevitable consequence of scaling effects in a large society.
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For what it's worth, I'd absolutely take the money. The appearance of hypocrisy is worth financial security. Not even as bad as Trump's "petty corruption" much less betraying the government or something.
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On April 28 2017 06:30 IgnE wrote:
how does this not look like a quid pro quo? who says that the money always come before the executive policy? it could just as easily be the ex post facto payout for his good service.
This is a fair perspective that I hadn't thought of. In that regard, I would certainly not mind some kind of law preventing any senior member of our government from collecting x or y amount of money from industry post-service. I'd like to see Trump's lobbyist thing enormously expanded.
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How is it quid pro-quo? What the fuck does Wall Street get out of this? He can’t run for office and only has some influence with the DNC. No one is going to listen to Obama if he pushes for some pet project Wells Fargo wants.
@IngE - There are like two people in this thread I take seriously, so I'm not really concerned. We pay our politicians shit and then get shocked when they take high paying jobs to make up for the years of shit pay. Most of these people do not need goverment to make that type of money.
We could bar them all from getting lobbying jobs, representing any large firm or making these speeches. And I am sure a lot of the smartest people in the country would be like "Fuck civil service, I'm getting paid elsewhere". Because that is the exact problem every administration has had when they put a ban on becoming a lobbyist.
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On April 28 2017 06:36 GreenHorizons wrote:Show nested quote +On April 28 2017 06:18 Plansix wrote:
He could become a lobbyist and pull in several million a year. Being a former president means you can make bank anywhere you want. He could also just make money and not tell anyone how much because liberals don’t own him. Don’t bitch about people making money after their time in office is over.
If they are still running for office, then the speaking circuit is a little weird. But no less weird than having a private sector job right up until you ran for office.
There's a lot of criticisms being lumped together making them incoherent. There are people who think principals shouldn't stop after you're done getting elected, but they are under the false idea that it violates who he is. Then there are people who are criticizing the optics independent of whether it is inconsistent with his tenure or independently disturbing. Then there are people who think that the "going rate" for speeches being $400,000 shows a grossly distorted value system where we think $2.13 plus tips for a working mother busting ass and $400,000 for some speech (admittedly whatever it is will be exponentially better than anything Hillary ever delivered) is the best the market can do, as if we can't/shouldn't say that's absurd. I find myself in the latter, I don't care that Obama's doing it, I care that both sides have adopted the idea that there's nothing wrong with it. Show nested quote +On April 28 2017 06:26 Plansix wrote:On April 28 2017 06:21 LegalLord wrote:
He's definitely within his right to line his pockets right now. My opinion will change if he seeks another more active role in policy making or party organization right now. Line his pockets. The man was the president of the united states, one of the hardest jobs in the world. And he got paid shit for it. Now he is going to pull in what a low grade CEO of a mid grade international bank makes. I love how people get so bent out of shape about our public servants making money. Like they are taking advantage of something. I cheer them on when they can get banks like Wells Fargo to shell out 400K just to hear a speech. The man is literally never going to have another job forever, so why not make some money to send all your grandkids to college? This is the particularly silly defenses I was talking about. The guy's sitting on a $60,000,000+ from a book deal. That's enough for him and his children, and their children, and well, for their family to go to college in perpetuity. He doesn't need to take wheelbarrows full of cash from the people he refused to put in prison to feed his family.
That book deal was not 60 million. They estimated his net worth at 12 million.
http://time.com/money/4439729/barack-obama-net-worth-55th-birthday/
He can just retire off of that. But that isn't what people who wanted to be the president do. I guess he could take the moral high ground and never speak publicly again or only do it for free. If people demand that to trust a politician after they hold office, I guess I can see where they are coming from.
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Obama was criminally underpaid at $400k a year. He should have at the very least received $10 million a year in treasury bonds on top of that and be given the right to assign fake $90k/yr jobs to any family member throughout his terms.
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On April 28 2017 06:47 Plansix wrote:Show nested quote +On April 28 2017 06:36 GreenHorizons wrote:On April 28 2017 06:18 Plansix wrote:
He could become a lobbyist and pull in several million a year. Being a former president means you can make bank anywhere you want. He could also just make money and not tell anyone how much because liberals don’t own him. Don’t bitch about people making money after their time in office is over.
If they are still running for office, then the speaking circuit is a little weird. But no less weird than having a private sector job right up until you ran for office.
There's a lot of criticisms being lumped together making them incoherent. There are people who think principals shouldn't stop after you're done getting elected, but they are under the false idea that it violates who he is. Then there are people who are criticizing the optics independent of whether it is inconsistent with his tenure or independently disturbing. Then there are people who think that the "going rate" for speeches being $400,000 shows a grossly distorted value system where we think $2.13 plus tips for a working mother busting ass and $400,000 for some speech (admittedly whatever it is will be exponentially better than anything Hillary ever delivered) is the best the market can do, as if we can't/shouldn't say that's absurd. I find myself in the latter, I don't care that Obama's doing it, I care that both sides have adopted the idea that there's nothing wrong with it. On April 28 2017 06:26 Plansix wrote:On April 28 2017 06:21 LegalLord wrote:
He's definitely within his right to line his pockets right now. My opinion will change if he seeks another more active role in policy making or party organization right now. Line his pockets. The man was the president of the united states, one of the hardest jobs in the world. And he got paid shit for it. Now he is going to pull in what a low grade CEO of a mid grade international bank makes. I love how people get so bent out of shape about our public servants making money. Like they are taking advantage of something. I cheer them on when they can get banks like Wells Fargo to shell out 400K just to hear a speech. The man is literally never going to have another job forever, so why not make some money to send all your grandkids to college? This is the particularly silly defenses I was talking about. The guy's sitting on a $60,000,000+ from a book deal. That's enough for him and his children, and their children, and well, for their family to go to college in perpetuity. He doesn't need to take wheelbarrows full of cash from the people he refused to put in prison to feed his family. That book deal was not 60 million. They estimated his net worth at 12 million. http://time.com/money/4439729/barack-obama-net-worth-55th-birthday/He can just retire off of that. But that isn't what people who wanted to be the president do. I guess he could take the moral high ground and never speak publicly again or only do it for free. If people demand that to trust a politician after they hold office, I guess I can see where they are coming from.
He's got a new book deal
The bidding for the rights to books written by former President Barack Obama and first lady Michelle Obama has skyrocketed to more than $60 million, according to a report from the Financial Times. Source
Maybe it's only $30 or $20, but whatever. The stupid lines about "paying for college" are silly. As if he's not making $200k a year to do anything he wants.
It's this "so what if he gets $400k from the people he was supposed to put in prison!?, he could like totally use that to pay for his kids college, and you know it's funny getting money from banks". that is what's so incredible.
As if it's a struggle to make ends meet with 200k salary, multi milion dollar book dealS, so how can we be upset that he thinks he needs wheelbarrows full of cash from the crooks on wall street?
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New York City is set to begin giving body cameras to its police officers on Thursday.
Under the police department's pilot program, 1,200 officers in 20 precincts will receive the cameras. The officers will also be studied by scientists to see what effect the cameras have on policing.
As police don body cameras across the country, scientists are increasingly working with departments to figure out how the cameras change behavior — of officers and the public.
"Is the camera having an impact on the way officers use force? Is it reducing the number of citizens' complaints? Is it having a negative impact? All of those types of things I would like to know about these cameras," says Peter Newsham, the chief of police in Washington, D.C., where a similar study is just weeks from providing its first answers.
When officials in D.C. decided to deploy cameras a few years ago, the city happened to have a bunch of researchers who were just waiting to do a big, well-controlled study.
The researchers designed a field experiment to systematically compare cops wearing cameras to officers without cameras in one police force, in a major American city.
"We are a newer scientific team," says David Yokum, who works in the D.C. mayor's office. "We've got about 15 folks right now — Ph.D.s in psychology, economics, statistics, and so forth." Yokum directs the The Lab @ DC, which is an effort to bring the scientific method to government. Studying body-worn cameras is one of the lab's first projects.
"It's a massively important social issue," Yokum says. "Cameras are spreading across the country at a very rapid rate."
A recent nationwide survey found that 95 percent of police departments either have a body-worn camera program or plan to implement one. All of this is happening despite a real dearth of data on how those cameras will change policing.
"Technologies tend to always have intended and unintended effects and consequences," says Cynthia Lum, a criminologist at George Mason University.
She's reviewed studies of body-worn cameras and found about 40, but says that research offered no definitive answers. "We're just scratching at the surface to understand what the impacts of body-worn cameras are, either on the police or the people that they serve," Lum says.
For example, one widely cited study done in Rialto, Calif., suggested that cameras dramatically reduced police officers' use of force.
But a different study, published last May, found the story is much more complicated.
"When officers had more discretion as to whether they turn on and off their cameras," Lum explains, "this could potentially lead to increases in use of force."
In Washington, D.C., police officials let the researchers tell them exactly how to hand out the cameras to do the most rigorous study possible; as a result, not every officer got a camera right away.
"At any given period of time, people were randomly assigned to be either receiving the cameras or not," Yokum says.
What makes the D.C. study especially powerful is that it's one of the biggest police departments in the country.
"There's a lot of officers involved," Yokum says. "We're collecting a lot of data with 1,100 different cameras out on the street, and then 1,100 officers that don't have cameras. And so, just the numbers here are very large."
Previous studies have generally been done with smaller police departments, says Anita Ravishankar, one of the researchers on the science team.
Source
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On April 28 2017 06:55 LegalLord wrote:
Obama was criminally underpaid at $400k a year. He should have at the very least received $10 million a year in treasury bonds on top of that and be given the right to assign fake $90k/yr jobs to any family member throughout his terms.
That is 200K a year. His wife can't have a job while he is in the White House. He also can't manage his finances or investments because he is president. That seems like a lot, but he and his wife could have pulled in more just by being attorneys for 8 years.
If people don't like politicians becoming lobbyist and paid speeches, bar them and pay the politicians way more.
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On April 28 2017 06:41 Plansix wrote:
How is it quid pro-quo? What the fuck does Wall Street get out of this? He can’t run for office and only has some influence with the DNC. No one is going to listen to Obama if he pushes for some pet project Wells Fargo wants.
@IngE - There are like two people in this thread I take seriously, so I'm not really concerned. We pay our politicians shit and then get shocked when they take high paying jobs to make up for the years of shit pay. Most of these people do not need goverment to make that type of money.
We could bar them all from getting lobbying jobs, representing any large firm or making these speeches. And I am sure a lot of the smartest people in the country would be like "Fuck civil service, I'm getting paid elsewhere". Because that is the exact problem every administration has had when they put a ban on becoming a lobbyist.
are you fucking serious? are you really so mentally limited? the ex-president situation is just one highly visible example of the deep capture resulting from washington's revolving door politics
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On April 28 2017 06:41 Plansix wrote:
How is it quid pro-quo? What the fuck does Wall Street get out of this? He can’t run for office and only has some influence with the DNC. No one is going to listen to Obama if he pushes for some pet project Wells Fargo wants.
@IngE - There are like two people in this thread I take seriously, so I'm not really concerned. We pay our politicians shit and then get shocked when they take high paying jobs to make up for the years of shit pay. Most of these people do not need goverment to make that type of money.
We could bar them all from getting lobbying jobs, representing any large firm or making these speeches. And I am sure a lot of the smartest people in the country would be like "Fuck civil service, I'm getting paid elsewhere". Because that is the exact problem every administration has had when they put a ban on becoming a lobbyist.
Wall st got Tom Perez instead of Keith Ellison as DNC chair. This is the payment for services rendered.
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Two advocacy groups for the health care industry on Thursday came out against the new proposed amendment to House Republicans’ bill to repeal and replace Obamacare, arguing that the amendment could still put many Americans’ health coverage at risk.
The American Hospital Association said in a statement that the amendment would actually make Republicans’ legislation worse for patients.
“The amendment proposed this week would dramatically worsen the bill. The changes included put consumer protections at greater risk by allowing states to waive the essential health benefit standards, which could leave patients without access to critical health services and increase out-of-pocket spending,” the group said in a statement. “This could allow plans to set premium prices based on individual risk for some consumers, which could significantly raise costs for those with pre-existing conditions.”
The group also noted that the Congressional Budget Office has not yet determined how many people would lose or gain coverage with the new amendment. The CBO projected that the AHCA in its initial form would cost 24 million people their health insurance by 2026, and the AHA said that it’s “unlikely this amendment would improve these coverage estimates.”
“As the backbone of America’s health safety-net, hospitals and health systems must protect access to care for those who need it and ensure that the most vulnerable patients are not left behind. The AHCA continues to fall far short of that goal,” the AHA said in its statement.
The American Medical Association, the largest advocacy group for doctor’s in the United States, on Thursday sent a letter to House leaders expressing concern that the bill would still cost people their health insurance.
“As we have previously stated, we are deeply concerned that the AHCA would result in millions of Americans losing their current health insurance coverage. Nothing in the MacArthur amendment remedies the shortcomings of the underlying bill,” James Madera, CEO of the AMA, wrote in the letter. “The amendment does not offer a clear long-term framework for stabilizing and strengthening the individual health insurance market to ensure that low and moderate income patients are able to secure affordable and adequate coverage, nor does it ensure that Medicaid and other critical safety net programs are maintained and adequately funded.”
The amendment, offered by moderate Rep. Tom MacArthur (R-NJ) and backed by the conservative House Freedom Caucus, would allow states to apply for waivers from certain Obamacare mandates.
Madera wrote that the AMA is “particularly concerned” that the new amendment would allow states to apply for a waiver from underwriting that Madera says “protects individuals from being discriminated against by virtue of their medical conditions.”
“Prior to the passage of the ACA, such individuals were routinely denied coverage and/or priced out of affordable coverage. We are particularly concerned about allowing states to waive this requirement because it will likely lead to patients losing their coverage,” he wrote.
“Although the MacArthur Amendment states that the ban on preexisting conditions remains intact, this assurance may be illusory as health status underwriting could effectively make coverage completely unaffordable to people with preexisting conditions,” Madera continued. “There is also no certainty that the requirement for states to have some kind of reinsurance or high-risk pool mechanism to help such individuals will be sufficient to provide for affordable health insurance or prevent discrimination against individuals with certain high-cost medical conditions.”
The AMA previously came out against the AHCA in its original form due to “the expected decline in health insurance coverage and the potential harm it would cause to vulnerable patient populations.”
The proposed amendment to the bill has brought conservative members of the House on board, but moderate members have approached the new amendment with skepticism. Some moderates who supported the initial bill are now taking a second look with the new compromise.
Source
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On April 28 2017 07:01 GreenHorizons wrote:Show nested quote +On April 28 2017 06:47 Plansix wrote:On April 28 2017 06:36 GreenHorizons wrote:On April 28 2017 06:18 Plansix wrote:
He could become a lobbyist and pull in several million a year. Being a former president means you can make bank anywhere you want. He could also just make money and not tell anyone how much because liberals don’t own him. Don’t bitch about people making money after their time in office is over.
If they are still running for office, then the speaking circuit is a little weird. But no less weird than having a private sector job right up until you ran for office.
There's a lot of criticisms being lumped together making them incoherent. There are people who think principals shouldn't stop after you're done getting elected, but they are under the false idea that it violates who he is. Then there are people who are criticizing the optics independent of whether it is inconsistent with his tenure or independently disturbing. Then there are people who think that the "going rate" for speeches being $400,000 shows a grossly distorted value system where we think $2.13 plus tips for a working mother busting ass and $400,000 for some speech (admittedly whatever it is will be exponentially better than anything Hillary ever delivered) is the best the market can do, as if we can't/shouldn't say that's absurd. I find myself in the latter, I don't care that Obama's doing it, I care that both sides have adopted the idea that there's nothing wrong with it. On April 28 2017 06:26 Plansix wrote:On April 28 2017 06:21 LegalLord wrote:
He's definitely within his right to line his pockets right now. My opinion will change if he seeks another more active role in policy making or party organization right now. Line his pockets. The man was the president of the united states, one of the hardest jobs in the world. And he got paid shit for it. Now he is going to pull in what a low grade CEO of a mid grade international bank makes. I love how people get so bent out of shape about our public servants making money. Like they are taking advantage of something. I cheer them on when they can get banks like Wells Fargo to shell out 400K just to hear a speech. The man is literally never going to have another job forever, so why not make some money to send all your grandkids to college? This is the particularly silly defenses I was talking about. The guy's sitting on a $60,000,000+ from a book deal. That's enough for him and his children, and their children, and well, for their family to go to college in perpetuity. He doesn't need to take wheelbarrows full of cash from the people he refused to put in prison to feed his family. That book deal was not 60 million. They estimated his net worth at 12 million. http://time.com/money/4439729/barack-obama-net-worth-55th-birthday/He can just retire off of that. But that isn't what people who wanted to be the president do. I guess he could take the moral high ground and never speak publicly again or only do it for free. If people demand that to trust a politician after they hold office, I guess I can see where they are coming from. He's got a new book deal Show nested quote +The bidding for the rights to books written by former President Barack Obama and first lady Michelle Obama has skyrocketed to more than $60 million, according to a report from the Financial Times. SourceMaybe it's only $30 or $20, but whatever. The stupid lines about "paying for college" are silly. As if he's not making $200k a year to do anything he wants. It's this "so what if he gets $400k from the people he was supposed to put in prison!?, he could like totally use that to pay for his kids college, and you know it's funny getting money from banks". that is what's so incredible. As if it's a struggle to make ends meet with 200k salary, multi milion dollar book dealS, so how can we be upset that he thinks he needs wheelbarrows full of cash from the crooks on wall street?
I was not aware of the 60 million dollar book deal. That is more than enough and I can see why the extra 400K from Wall Street is bothering people. I strongly dislike Wall Street and the financial sector in general.
Do Wall Street's speaking fees differ that much form University speaking fees? I know those are crazy high too.
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On April 28 2017 07:09 Nevuk wrote:Show nested quote +On April 28 2017 06:41 Plansix wrote:
How is it quid pro-quo? What the fuck does Wall Street get out of this? He can’t run for office and only has some influence with the DNC. No one is going to listen to Obama if he pushes for some pet project Wells Fargo wants.
@IngE - There are like two people in this thread I take seriously, so I'm not really concerned. We pay our politicians shit and then get shocked when they take high paying jobs to make up for the years of shit pay. Most of these people do not need goverment to make that type of money.
We could bar them all from getting lobbying jobs, representing any large firm or making these speeches. And I am sure a lot of the smartest people in the country would be like "Fuck civil service, I'm getting paid elsewhere". Because that is the exact problem every administration has had when they put a ban on becoming a lobbyist.
Wall st got Tom Perez instead of Keith Ellison as DNC chair. This is the payment for services rendered.
Why wouldn't they just wire him the funds secretly or launder it through some other deal? This seems like a really dumb way to pay for political influence, it is super public.
Also, Tom Perez was Obama's attorney for civil rights and Labor secretary. I am truly shocked that he supported him over a Ellison. Shocking that he supported a guy that work for him over someone else. It must be the banks paying him off.
On April 28 2017 07:05 IgnE wrote:Show nested quote +On April 28 2017 06:41 Plansix wrote:
How is it quid pro-quo? What the fuck does Wall Street get out of this? He can’t run for office and only has some influence with the DNC. No one is going to listen to Obama if he pushes for some pet project Wells Fargo wants.
@IngE - There are like two people in this thread I take seriously, so I'm not really concerned. We pay our politicians shit and then get shocked when they take high paying jobs to make up for the years of shit pay. Most of these people do not need goverment to make that type of money.
We could bar them all from getting lobbying jobs, representing any large firm or making these speeches. And I am sure a lot of the smartest people in the country would be like "Fuck civil service, I'm getting paid elsewhere". Because that is the exact problem every administration has had when they put a ban on becoming a lobbyist.
are you fucking serious? are you really so mentally limited? the ex-president situation is just one highly visible example of the deep capture resulting from washington's revolving door politics
Historically presidents fade into political obscurity within a year of leaving office. Bill Clinton being the exception to this because of his wife running for office and the Clinton foundation. If the Obama foundation opens up and starts raking in cash from all over the world, call me. Other than that, Obama is likely to found a charity or work on combating gerrymandering.
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On April 28 2017 07:16 Plansix wrote:Show nested quote +On April 28 2017 07:09 Nevuk wrote:On April 28 2017 06:41 Plansix wrote:
How is it quid pro-quo? What the fuck does Wall Street get out of this? He can’t run for office and only has some influence with the DNC. No one is going to listen to Obama if he pushes for some pet project Wells Fargo wants.
@IngE - There are like two people in this thread I take seriously, so I'm not really concerned. We pay our politicians shit and then get shocked when they take high paying jobs to make up for the years of shit pay. Most of these people do not need goverment to make that type of money.
We could bar them all from getting lobbying jobs, representing any large firm or making these speeches. And I am sure a lot of the smartest people in the country would be like "Fuck civil service, I'm getting paid elsewhere". Because that is the exact problem every administration has had when they put a ban on becoming a lobbyist.
Wall st got Tom Perez instead of Keith Ellison as DNC chair. This is the payment for services rendered. Why wouldn't they just wire him the funds secretly or launder it through some other deal? This seems like a really dumb way to pay for political influence, it is super public. Also, Tom Perez was Obama's attorney for civil rights and Labor secretary. I am truly shocked that he supported him over a Ellison. Shocking that he supported a guy that work for him over someone else. It must be the banks paying him off. When open bribery is legal why bother to hide it? And people can be bribed for pathetically low sums of money, ad proven throughout history.
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United States44442 Posts
On April 28 2017 07:16 Plansix wrote:Show nested quote +On April 28 2017 07:09 Nevuk wrote:On April 28 2017 06:41 Plansix wrote:
How is it quid pro-quo? What the fuck does Wall Street get out of this? He can’t run for office and only has some influence with the DNC. No one is going to listen to Obama if he pushes for some pet project Wells Fargo wants.
@IngE - There are like two people in this thread I take seriously, so I'm not really concerned. We pay our politicians shit and then get shocked when they take high paying jobs to make up for the years of shit pay. Most of these people do not need goverment to make that type of money.
We could bar them all from getting lobbying jobs, representing any large firm or making these speeches. And I am sure a lot of the smartest people in the country would be like "Fuck civil service, I'm getting paid elsewhere". Because that is the exact problem every administration has had when they put a ban on becoming a lobbyist.
Wall st got Tom Perez instead of Keith Ellison as DNC chair. This is the payment for services rendered. Why wouldn't they just wire him the funds secretly or launder it through some other deal? This seems like a really dumb way to pay for political influence, it is super public. Also, Tom Perez was Obama's attorney for civil rights and Labor secretary. I am truly shocked that he supported him over a Ellison. Shocking that he supported a guy that work for him over someone else. It must be the banks paying him off.
Deniability? Surely if you sent him 400k by paypal people would go "okay, so that's earned income, how did he earn it?". If you pay him 400k for a speech then on the face of it you've done exactly that.
Either way though it seems to be pretty much the market rate. It's not like they charge lower fees when they're not on the take.
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On April 28 2017 07:11 Plansix wrote:Show nested quote +On April 28 2017 07:01 GreenHorizons wrote:On April 28 2017 06:47 Plansix wrote:On April 28 2017 06:36 GreenHorizons wrote:On April 28 2017 06:18 Plansix wrote:
He could become a lobbyist and pull in several million a year. Being a former president means you can make bank anywhere you want. He could also just make money and not tell anyone how much because liberals don’t own him. Don’t bitch about people making money after their time in office is over.
If they are still running for office, then the speaking circuit is a little weird. But no less weird than having a private sector job right up until you ran for office.
There's a lot of criticisms being lumped together making them incoherent. There are people who think principals shouldn't stop after you're done getting elected, but they are under the false idea that it violates who he is. Then there are people who are criticizing the optics independent of whether it is inconsistent with his tenure or independently disturbing. Then there are people who think that the "going rate" for speeches being $400,000 shows a grossly distorted value system where we think $2.13 plus tips for a working mother busting ass and $400,000 for some speech (admittedly whatever it is will be exponentially better than anything Hillary ever delivered) is the best the market can do, as if we can't/shouldn't say that's absurd. I find myself in the latter, I don't care that Obama's doing it, I care that both sides have adopted the idea that there's nothing wrong with it. On April 28 2017 06:26 Plansix wrote:On April 28 2017 06:21 LegalLord wrote:
He's definitely within his right to line his pockets right now. My opinion will change if he seeks another more active role in policy making or party organization right now. Line his pockets. The man was the president of the united states, one of the hardest jobs in the world. And he got paid shit for it. Now he is going to pull in what a low grade CEO of a mid grade international bank makes. I love how people get so bent out of shape about our public servants making money. Like they are taking advantage of something. I cheer them on when they can get banks like Wells Fargo to shell out 400K just to hear a speech. The man is literally never going to have another job forever, so why not make some money to send all your grandkids to college? This is the particularly silly defenses I was talking about. The guy's sitting on a $60,000,000+ from a book deal. That's enough for him and his children, and their children, and well, for their family to go to college in perpetuity. He doesn't need to take wheelbarrows full of cash from the people he refused to put in prison to feed his family. That book deal was not 60 million. They estimated his net worth at 12 million. http://time.com/money/4439729/barack-obama-net-worth-55th-birthday/He can just retire off of that. But that isn't what people who wanted to be the president do. I guess he could take the moral high ground and never speak publicly again or only do it for free. If people demand that to trust a politician after they hold office, I guess I can see where they are coming from. He's got a new book deal The bidding for the rights to books written by former President Barack Obama and first lady Michelle Obama has skyrocketed to more than $60 million, according to a report from the Financial Times. SourceMaybe it's only $30 or $20, but whatever. The stupid lines about "paying for college" are silly. As if he's not making $200k a year to do anything he wants. It's this "so what if he gets $400k from the people he was supposed to put in prison!?, he could like totally use that to pay for his kids college, and you know it's funny getting money from banks". that is what's so incredible. As if it's a struggle to make ends meet with 200k salary, multi milion dollar book dealS, so how can we be upset that he thinks he needs wheelbarrows full of cash from the crooks on wall street? I was not aware of the 60 million dollar book deal. That is more than enough and I can see why the extra 400K from Wall Street is bothering people. I strongly dislike Wall Street and the financial sector in general. Do Wall Street's speaking fees differ that much form University speaking fees? I know those are crazy high too.
Yeah I figured.
Former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton charged $300,000 to speak to students and faculty at University of California Los Angeles in March, even after school officials tried to negotiate the deal.
According to new documents obtained by the Washington Post under the Freedom of Information Act, the school asked for a reduced rate for public universities, but Mrs. Clinton’s representatives said that $300,000 was the “special university rate.”
Source
Both Bernie and Hillary are giving commencement speeches this year. Couldn't find any reports of how much they're getting paid though.
On April 28 2017 07:16 Plansix wrote:Show nested quote +On April 28 2017 07:09 Nevuk wrote:On April 28 2017 06:41 Plansix wrote:
How is it quid pro-quo? What the fuck does Wall Street get out of this? He can’t run for office and only has some influence with the DNC. No one is going to listen to Obama if he pushes for some pet project Wells Fargo wants.
@IngE - There are like two people in this thread I take seriously, so I'm not really concerned. We pay our politicians shit and then get shocked when they take high paying jobs to make up for the years of shit pay. Most of these people do not need goverment to make that type of money.
We could bar them all from getting lobbying jobs, representing any large firm or making these speeches. And I am sure a lot of the smartest people in the country would be like "Fuck civil service, I'm getting paid elsewhere". Because that is the exact problem every administration has had when they put a ban on becoming a lobbyist.
Wall st got Tom Perez instead of Keith Ellison as DNC chair. This is the payment for services rendered. Why wouldn't they just wire him the funds secretly or launder it through some other deal? This seems like a really dumb way to pay for political influence, it is super public.
You know Trump is president right? Like he is literally selling access to himself in Florida.
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