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Yellen earned millions in speaking fees from Wall St, tech firms (2021)

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Re: Yellen earned millions in speaking fees from Wall St, tech firms (2021)

#81

Post by patrec »

ramphastidae wrote: post #62
patrec wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People like you are exactly the reason why we can't have competent politicians. Who apart from crazy ideologues, the crooked and those that can't hack it as anything else than demagogues do you expect to sign up for a job where you are a public punching ball on terrible pay and with limited ability to diverge from whatever party line or other contingencies dictate?

Can you explain why? Obviously the current system isn’t producing competent ones either.

Sorry, I edited my comment to add some context. It seems very likely to me that if we could increase pay of politicians by a factor of 10 (say), we'd get much much better performance at lower effective cost than we already pay for the soft corruption of "speaking fees" and suchlike.

Unfortunately that seems to be politically infeasible (not even competent autocratic regimes can get away with paying themselves above board).

Re: Yellen earned millions in speaking fees from Wall St, tech firms (2021)

#82

Post by lesuorac »

ramphastidae wrote: post #45
beeforpork wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is all true. But who wants to be a politician when they are public figures that are beaten, accused, humiliated by opponents, the public, and everyone really. You cannot do it right and most people will probably hate you, regardless of what you do. It's not a pleasant job. Unless you get money for all of this unpleasantness. And then, some entities have more money to give than others (you said that in your last…

We’ve know for decades - take money out of politics and make it about civil service. To do so requires campaign finance reform (limits on spending and sources of $) as well as making lobbying illegal

Well, I'm for campaign finance but not money out of politics.

The president should be getting like 400M/yr instead of 400k/yr. But also paying for their own trips/security/housing/etc and if it turns out 400M/yr isn't enough for that then it should be a higher number.

The fact that the "execs" of congress get paid so little in salary but make it out from outside employment (or by having the government itself pay for it) hampers the rest of the government since it limits what they can pay for every other role in government. Using your ability to run the country efficiently should be a highly paying job so it causes people to actually want to do it.

This is a capitalistic society, you want to have somebody that can estimate a project accurately? You'll need to pay.

Re: Yellen earned millions in speaking fees from Wall St, tech firms (2021)

#83

Post by mark_l_watson »

It would never happen, but I wish there were a central web site with accurate information of income sources for all people employed, or once employed, by the federal government.

It is fairly well known that high profile people like Bill and Hillary Clinton make a fortune giving talks to Wall Street insiders, etc. I think it is also important to know if lower level bureaucrats start getting lots of money from companies they steered contracts to.

This is not a Democrat or Republican problem specifically since politicians on both sides get campaign funding and support from the same sources.

Re: Yellen earned millions in speaking fees from Wall St, tech firms (2021)

#84

Post by hgsgm »

vuln wrote: post #51
boeingUH60 wrote: post #27

One of the most notable deals I heard about for a politician was Obama getting a $65 million book advance [1] shortly after leaving office. I get that Obama's books sell a lot, but damn, that's huge. It's obvious that once you become a high-ranking politician (especially President, VP, or a similar high-level position), wealth awaits you once you leave office. What's then the incentive to serve the people if you know…

Asking a question, not starting an argument. Is Trump the only President that didn't land in a pool full of cash when he left office and actually "lost" money / wealth while in office ?

Trump has been grifting his fans before, during, and after his Presidency.

Trump forced the government to spend money on his personal businesses during his Presidency.

Trump has been getting bribes before, during, and after his Presidency.

Re: Yellen earned millions in speaking fees from Wall St, tech firms (2021)

#85

Post by jefftk »

hgsgm wrote: post #78
jefftk wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How does earning money from selling a book hurt your incentives to do a good job as a politician? It seems to me it makes them better: there's less temptation to take money from industries you were involved in regulating, and your book will sell better if people think you did good work in office.

Buying books in bulk (not for reading) is a standard way to bribe a politician, by laundering campaign funds to personal funds, or even sloppy direct purchases. Several politicians have been caught, from local to national. One example; https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/media/gop-book-deal...

Wouldn't that make a large advance less concerning? At $65M it will be ~decades for him to earn out, which means the marginal book has ~no effect on his finances and isn't useful for bribing him.

Re: Yellen earned millions in speaking fees from Wall St, tech firms (2021)

#86

Post by TheCoelacanth »

m0llusk wrote: post #72
jongjong wrote: post #29

'Speaking fees' is a euphemism for 'after-office bribe'.

What evidence is there that Yellen's policies or speeches were influenced?

There doesn't need to be evidence of actual influence. The mere existence of such an obvious conflict of interest is itself corruption.

Re: Yellen earned millions in speaking fees from Wall St, tech firms (2021)

#87

Post by [deleted] »

starkd wrote: post #41
tannhauser23 wrote: post #15

Whenever I see a politician or regulator arrested for accepting bribes, I think, what an amateur. American elites have perfected the art of the grift: do a turn in government or academy, and then become a ‘thought leader’ or form an NGO and collect speaking fees from Wall Street and foreign powers. Wait for your party to get back in power, do another round in government, rinse and repeat. Even the Presidency and Prim…

The turning point was the Clinton administration. Before that, no former president would dare sully the office by accepting honorarium or speaking fees. At least, not nearly on the scale Clinton took it to.

[deleted]

Re: Yellen earned millions in speaking fees from Wall St, tech firms (2021)

#88

Post by kelipso »

lekanwang wrote: post #68

I like the Singaporean model of benchmarking high-ranking government salaries to a percent of the pay of top earners in the country ( https://www.dollarsandsense.sg/heres-much-singapores-preside... , https://www.psd.gov.sg/docs/default-source/default-document-... ), and pairing that with very active anticorruption enforcement. MPs get paid over $1M USD under this model, but it incentives are much more aligned under t…

We're talking money in the range of $100 million and upwards that these politicians make within a few years in office. The anti corruption has to be the primary focus because the incentive to make money even with $1M salary is huge.

Re: Yellen earned millions in speaking fees from Wall St, tech firms (2021)

#89

Post by vuln »

vlovich123 wrote: post #79
vuln wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know really. I didn't see a 65 million dollar book advance. He wasn't too quick to hit the paid speaking engagements. Never ending lawsuits, more lawsuits don't really seem to be making him money...

His money is tied up in his brand. Everyone constantly talking about him is his brand and he’s very much in the school of thought that “all publicity is good publicity”.

> he’s very much in the school of thought that “all publicity is good publicity”.

Yeah he is, but I just can't see it being profitable at this point. His base isn't THAT big is it? His base is the poorest amongst current and previous Presidents.

Re: Yellen earned millions in speaking fees from Wall St, tech firms (2021)

#90

Post by kelipso »

whoisthemachine wrote: post #9
realce wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Some estimates of the royal family's wealth measure their net worth at $1.4 trillion." A billion isn't worth losing sleep over here.

Basically the worth of a nation given to one family.

That's how monarchies work
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