There's a limited supply of living former presidents. Far fewer than the number of institutions looking to up their prestige by getting a former president to give a speech. How much do you think it should cost to get a former president to give a talk?
Here's another argument. Non-political celebrities also have very high speaking fees (or the equivalent). Yet obviously these celebrities aren't being tacitly bribed. What is your explanation for that?
That's not the right question. The question is whether ex-Presidents ought to accept these bribes. Compare the post-Presidencies of Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter, starkly different.
> Yet obviously these celebrities aren't being tacitly bribed. What is your explanation for that?
Celebrities aren't in positions of public service, so the whole concept of a "bribe" doesn't apply.
To add to this, we should also be holding Presidents to a higher ethics standard than, say, Kim Kardashian.
Celebrities are different because they make tons of money and are business propositions in and of themselves, meaning their star power could bring immense attraction to the event, which is part of what commencement speakers are for.
One could take this further and apply it to the entire concept of a revolving door; if an official can make a career out of lobbying and consulting after leaving public office, they'll be incentivized to prioritize future employers over the public interest.
Realistically, it's difficult to fully remove perverse incentives and still be able to attract talent (this applies to technical recruiting as well!). But there still need to be systems of accountability. Unfortunately, with two-party non-proportional representation, and a limited opportunity for voters to provide referendums on the corruption of party members separate from their policy viewpoints, there are many layers of insulation that prevent people from being held to account.
This is not necessarily true. The Clintons, Bushes, and Obamas are like one big happy family. Trump is the exception because he pissed off everyone, but even he used to be friendly with the Clintons.
Anyway this misses the point: in general, the system of buying political favors only works when political favors are repaid, and everyone operating in that system knows it.
https://www.thoughtco.com/former-presidents-speaking-fees-33... Former President Jimmy Carter "seldom accepts speaking fees," The Associated Press wrote in 2002, "and when he does he typically donates the proceeds to his charitable foundation."
> Clinton runs one of the most successful charitable orgs in the world.
So does Bill Gates. So what? Clinton also made more than $100 million for himself in speaking fees.
Public figures don't get paid for TV or newspaper interviews, journalistic ethics explicitly forbids it, because paying people for being the source of information is seen as inherently corrupting.
Presidents have a 200k/yr lifetime pension that's pegged to inflation, plus a $1 million/yr travel budget and a fully funded and staffed personal office. Bill Clinton has been paid over $20 million by the US government since he left office through these programs. While in office presidents earn 400k, with all their living expenses paid for separately, meaning they get about 1.6 million dollars per four-year term straight into their savings accounts. Many of them make millions from sales of their memoirs alone. There is no reason for them to be demanding additional millions in exchange for giving a ten minute pep talk to a hedge fund except as a backdoor for corruption.
I don't see how this follows from your argument. As you acknowledge Clinton has a massive platform whenever he wants his views aired, and plenty of normal people are willing to pay his publisher money to read his book. Why would he fly to some hedge fund's dinner party to talk to a handful of half cut money-movers for free? I'd say that would be more suspicious, frankly.
Like, the guy clearly doesn't need money, he can do whatever he wants. There is no opportunity cost for him, he doesn't need to make appearances to put food on the table, the financial difference between a $300,000 appearance at Goldman and a free appearance at a kid's birthday party is essentially nothing to him.
If he thinks it's fun to hang out with hedge fund managers, he can do that, good for him, who cares. But them giving him tens of millions of dollars, on top of the tens of millions of dollars that the US government is already giving him, (which by the way is supposed to exist to disincentivize Presidents from seeking gifts or employment after leaving office), is extremely suspicious especially in light of the fact that his crowning achievement in office was deregulating their entire industry.
Nobody who charges six figure fees for speaking engagements needs the money to put food on the table. Getting paid silly money for a night of patronising some organization you wouldn't otherwise care less about is an ego thing, and plenty of stupidly rich people enjoy their egos being stroked by speaking fees without having any other favours to offer. I mean, some stupidly rich people still enjoy making obviously corrupt manoeuvres too, but that's not necessary to explain why ex-POTUSes and Hollywood stars start being interested in being private party entertainment when the sixth zero is added to the bill.
And literally nobody would say "that's fine, he probably just thinks its fun to hang out with hedge fund managers" if the guy who repealed Glass Steagall insisted he was donating his time and reputation to helping hedge funds impress their LPs. Especially not if foreign telephone manufacturers wanting him to do a keynote speech were still willing to offer massive sums of money.
George Washington was a big supporter of canal-building. To honor Washington, the Virginia legislature decided in 1795 to gift him shares in two canal companies it had established. Washington agonized over what to do, because accepting the shares would give the impression that he was using the Presidency for his own personal gain, while rejecting them would be insulting. He also wanted to publicly show his support for the canal projects. He ended up requesting that the shares to be used to fund a university and a seminary.
Washington's status at this point was already secure enough that nobody would have seriously accused him of corruption, but he was extremely wary of doing anything that could in any way be perceived as self-interested. The fact that former politicians are taking massive speaking fees from businesses that their policies affected looks corrupt, and that in itself is already bad enough.
After their last term, their official political career is basically over and almost anything they know worth telling is classified.
It seems hard to justify increasing prices after the fact outside graft.
Also, Yellen isn't a former president, she is a former fed chair. It's not even remotely the same line of work.
Nothing. Or, on second thought, maybe a large donation to a children's hospital. I would expect a public servant from the highest office to be committed to public service. The presidency shouldn't be monetized, but if a former president really needs money they could always sell a book. That doesn't create any perverse incentives like speaking fees.
Celebrities are bribed, they're called endorsements. Former presidents are worth less and less as they lose their connections. Their price tag depends on how much power they still wield....which is why Clinton and Obama still command high prices.