MURDER, POLITICS, AND THE END OF THE JAZZ AGE
by Michael Wolraich
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What Hillary Clinton should say — but can’t — about her Wall Street speaking fees
By ocean-kat on Fri, 02/05/2016 - 1:55pm |If Clinton was really being forthright about the speeches, here’s what she’d say:
You want to know why they paid me hundreds of thousands of dollars to give a speech? It’s because I’m famous and important, and the people who have that kind of money like to brush up against famous and important people. The executives want to get their picture taken chatting with me so they can put it up on their “brag wall.” They want to tell their buddies on the golf course, “Well here’s what I told Hillary Clinton …” It feeds their egos. And the money? Yeah, it’s hard to turn down that kind of money. So I go, I talk for an hour about the complex challenges America faces in an ever-changing world, blah blah blah, do the grip-and-grin and get a six-figure check. You would too, if you could.
URL:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2016/02/05/what-hillary-clinton-should-say-but-cant-about-her-wall-street-speaking-fees/
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Comments
Something humorous about a guy making $11 million a year plus bonuses because he's a Vanderbilt and has blue eyes asking the former First Lady, Senator & Secretary of State and leading contender for President whether it was okay for her to earn $600K with a few speeches. Seeing he can say some of the stupidest clueless deer-in-headlights things on TV and still get paid....
Hillary can leech a few hundred K off bankers who are normally going to $2000 wine bars and dropping a grand or two to hookers for a lap dance, or she can get a few million college kids to pool their $50 off their student loans to tell them how she'll get the money out of government and stop trade deals and institute the perfect health care system and make college free. And then if she raises the needed billion and gets elected, see if she can actually deliver.
It's a Quid Pro Quo - you pretend to tell the truth, and I'll pretend to believe you. Or else you tell a rough intention, and being an adult I estimate how likely it is to happen and what percent, what pieces have a chance of getting done. We both end up happy, right? and then we feel vaguely satisfied and content knowing it's half bullshit sucking up to and somehow paying off connected people and half hard work rolling a rock uphill to achieve part of the puzzle, and as long as it's split that way, it's a better average than baseball.
Yeah, the things I wish they'd say....
by PeraclesPlease on Fri, 02/05/2016 - 4:48pm
Are you arguing that we should elect Clinton because sucking up to Goldman Sachs and taking its money is better than sucking up to college kids and taking theirs? This seems plausible as far as it goes. Of course, it goes much farther. Bernie really will try to make things better for college kids, and seniors, and workers, and middle-class Americans and Hillary really is likely to try to keep things as cushy as possible for the bankers and wealth managers and hedge fund managers who have enriched her, empowered her, and whom she has likewise helped enrich and empower.
Re: Anderson Cooper. The internet says he's worth about $100 million. Billary likewise have about $111 million all of which they must have pocketed since 2001 if Hillary's claim that they were broke when they left office is to be believed. I'm not prepared to believe that big corporations simply handed her and Bill $100 million without relatively strong assurances that the investment would be worth it. So basically both our media and Democratic establishment politicians are utterly removed from the travails of most Americans and are benefiting huge from economic injustice. Not so good is it? Maybe we should try to change the system huh?
Finally, you may intend your cynicism to come across as elegant world-weariness. But what it really reflects is satisfaction with a truly unjust system and justification for voting to perpetuate it.
by HSG on Fri, 02/05/2016 - 5:09pm
Al Gore's worth a few hundred mill by now. John Kerry & John McCain married rich women. John Edwards made millions as a trial lawyer. The Kennedys made their original money bootlegging and extended it through other business & politics. LBJ had all sorts of crooked shit going on from his radio/TV chain to what not. Harry Truman was bought and paid for by a Kansas City rackateer. FDR had other family money.
Bill Clinton was a star of a generation, from my perspective a much more moving speaker than Obama. I don't know what you can't figure out about people paying to hear speakers - why do you think Johnny Carson and Jay Leno and Dan Rather and whoever are rich? Peter Jennings, we just creamed over his smooth accent - he didn't have to write anything - he just had to impress us as erudite. Same with Ted Koppel. Christiane Amanpour, and so on - I think Greta whats-her-name cut her teeth on the OJ trial. They\re all fucking millionaires, and you're bitching about he Democrats' most talented stars making too much money. Sorry, I'm a capitalist - if people are throwing around money, well, I don't blame people with talent for getting some. Yes, I'm concerned about legality, but I also don't have to chase conspiracies down. A top lawyer can make $5 million a year, and Bill's been out of office 15 years - so about $65 mill - he's at $80, so not much off. Hillary's been out only 3 years, so $15 million, which is roughly her net worth (the $30 million figure is inflated by averaging minimum with maximum possible in her bracket, not actual wealth). There you go. Our most talented Democratic star makes less than half of what Anderson Cooper makes, and I'm supposed to be outraged about her? Let's compare her with Oprah who was making $290 million a year - is she a bad person? Does she owe someone for her wealth? Sorry, I'm not into all this class warfare like you are
by PeraclesPlease on Fri, 02/05/2016 - 6:04pm
I think it's outrageous the enormous gobs of money that our public servants rake in when they leave government. There's no question it's a corrupting influence. Simply put, many many politicians are soft on corporations because corporations have made them rich or in hopes of enriching themselves contemporaneously or in the future.
Yes I've voted for Clinton, Gore, and Kerry. In this election cycle, I have the opportunity to vote for a guy who's never used his government connections for his own gain and is not wealthy due to some other reason. Middle-class status is hardly the only reason or even a particularly good reason to choose one candidate over another. With Bernie, however, we have a candidate who appears committed to reducing corporate influence and he certainly appears not to be under the influence of corporations. His financial probity is a good reason to believe him.
by HSG on Fri, 02/05/2016 - 6:25pm
Now that he's learned to rake in $20+ million a month, he doesn't need financial probity anymore. Bet he wishes he'd done this *years* ago.
by PeraclesPlease on Fri, 02/05/2016 - 6:57pm
No. People are contributing to his campaign not to him. That is very different from the speaking fees the Clintons have been collecting during times when they haven't been running for office. In addition, Sanders is not beholden to any specific individual or special interest group for the money allowing him to compete - except arguably nurses. That is again very different from Clinton whose campaign is relying upon hedge fund managers, among others, for support.
by HSG on Fri, 02/05/2016 - 7:25pm
But wait, you said $$2 billion money contributed to the Clinton Foundation was going to Hillary. I'm so confooosed.
by PeraclesPlease on Sat, 02/06/2016 - 4:59am
Evidently.
by HSG on Sat, 02/06/2016 - 8:11am