I never understood how speech fees could be seen as anything else than direct bribes.
Look, there's some amount of money that's you're willing to spend on hearing someone you want to listen to speak/perform. Assuming you've ever gone to a concert or a show, that's true, so the rest is down to details. Would you pay $1 to watch former President Obama speak? $2? What's the cost of a dollar to you? If you're willing to spend $2 to see former President Obama speak, why wouldn't your rich friend spend $2, or their friend $4? If someone's got enough money that they're willing to pay a million dollars to hear someone speak, it's more a reflection on how much money they have and how little it means to them than anything else.
If I had a million dollars I'd spend it on other things but if I had a hundred million dollars, I'd totally spend a million to hear a former president speak, or have Taylor Swift play my birthday party.
Rich people spend their money differently than poor people, or are you too poor to see that?
I really doubt there is a quid pro quo here — “I’ll help you out now in exchange for paying me off after I’m done with the presidency”
The value is like the value of any high-end brand — it makes one look powerful.
Why does some generic reality TV celebrity or "influencer" make money from showing up at a party or turning on some Xmas lights? Surely no one really cares, there are 1000s of reality TV stars. But, it turns out some people do care, so cookie-cutter reality TV celebrity gets paid to turn up.
In "high net worth" (for want of a better term) social circles ex-Presidents are the reality TV celebrities, and the people who want them to turn up are rich, so they get paid a lot for the equivalent of turning on the Xmas lights.
I suspect its not really about the speech, it's about having them in the same room and giving your guests the chance at a face-to-face meeting.
Of course Obama may be more discerning with which events he attends, but the demand for people like him to turn up is certainly real.
> How can't you see for what it truly is??
Essentially implies it isn't.
If celebrity speakers aren't worth anywhere near that, what are banks and multinationals and industry events bribing ex-sports coaches and actors for?
And of course even the politicians get paid by a lot of entities that aren't obvious beneficiaries. Boris Johnson might be as sleazy as former PMs get, but I'm really struggling to understand any quid pro quo with the Indian newspaper or Portuguese TV channel that both paid him north of $250k for a single keynote, and I don't think he ever had much influence on insurance brokers in Colorado either
Regardless, on those examples you gave, I don't think it was a Portuguese TV channel, I think it was a global CNN summit which happened in Lisbon (but please correct me if I'm wrong).
Also, The Hindustan Times (which is the Indian newspaper I think you're referring to) is also not exactly a small media outlet with a circulation more than double that of the Times of London (based on the most recent numbers for The Times in 2020).
Additionally, a significant number of British citizens have family ties with India, and are likely to continue to follow English language news in India, so it's not simply 'some foreign newspaper'.
Some random backbencher isn't getting Johnson or Clinton sized speaking fees.
Johnson himself started his career as a journalist.
I'm well aware of Boris' journalistic career; I've even read some of his waffle. You share his flair for insinuation and missing the point so I wish you good luck with your own campaign to be PM ;-)
Sheesh. Not even worth debating.
Sheesh.... almost like you don't have any arguments for what Colorado brokers have to thank a former British PM for, never mind what favours Goldman Sachs got from David Beckham or LL Cool J other than a clearly very expensive speech
You're not thinking like a hacker at all if you can't concoct theoretical ways that rich and powerful people might find themselves unexpectedly interconnected, and able to non-obviously do each other favors - perhaps even in round-robin fashion at times.