The Clintons and getting rich
This isn’t the sort of thing I normally get worked up about, but, I’m sorry, while I don’t expect Bill Clinton to conduct himself like Jimmy Carter, the money he has been raking in for speeches is nothing short of obscene. It’s also a little troubling when one considers that the special interests that have been paying him these sky high honorariums have, one might assume, not been entirely unmindful of the fact that his spouse (and the co-beneficiary of these payments) may soon be moving into the Oval Office herself.
I got onto this subject when I noticed, by way of Talking Points Memo, the interesting tidbit that Hillary Clinton has loaned her own campaign $5,000,000. The naïve soul I am, I found it a little surprising she could part with quite that much money (we’re not talking about good old $1.16 million per delegate Mitt Romney here, after all).
That drove me to look up her net worth at opensecrets.org. The Clintons have, shall we say, done well for themselves over the last few years, mostly from Bill’s speeches. He charges between $150,000 and $300,000 a pop and gives a lot of them (yeah, I know, good work if you can get it). Now, I had been aware generally that Bill has been pulling in a lot of green speechifying, but I’ll have to admit that when I saw it all laid out there in Hillary’s disclosure statement, speech after speech, day after day, it was sort of overwhelming. Check it our here (PDF).
I’m not sure that all this has any great relevance to the campaign, but to be honest, I find this level of raw greed (cashing in on an office which, after all, belongs to the American people) a little disconcerting.
Update and confession: I’ve been feeling uncomfortable about this post ever since I put it up. What Bill Clinton is doing here is no different from what every other recent president has done (though he’s doing it on a much grander scale), with the exception of Jimmy Carter.
I won’t back down on the fact that I find this sort of thing offensive (I’ve previously slammed Ronald Reagan for the same sort of thing). I want our ex-presidents to lead comfortable lives. There is just something wrong, however, when they cash in at obscene levels once out of office. There’s more important — and, yes, less crass — work for them to do. And, in fairness, Clinton is doing some of that other work.
Bottom line: I shouldn’t have made this as personal about Clinton as I did.
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February 7th, 2008 at 3:53 am
why? Because we should avoid the “envy debate”? Because each and every of the “strong”, who (at best) ignore suffering just because of some profits – tell us that it is “only envy” when we shake our heads?
nobody gets rich by hard work – old wisdom. Nobody means – not even Clinton! So if you got rich, you (at best) had a lot of luck and help of others – but nobody gets rich by caring for others, that’s “too expensive” – not worth the Divine Dollar…
so, yes, for me, it is personal “when they cash in at obscene levels” – looking at people who don’t know how to spend their “obscene” amount of money (think of the snow park in Dubai!), while the next news item shows me children of Iraq or Darfur…
that’s personal for me
when i listen to the news, where the “strong” and “successful” who “must be able to fire thousands because that’s how winners are” rule our fate so far away from humanity – i think of what the loss of jobs did to so many cities – and i think of the Chinese labor camps and the destruction of the (not only) Chinese environment just for profits and the poor Chinese slaves not able to visit their families – except once in a year and now waiting in the snow chaos of China for a train home
that IS personal
but, alas, our six-and-10-month-old babies are much wiser than we adults, who are so eager to ignore injustice – not because we are so generous, but to be honest: simply because we want to be injust ourselves without a bad conscience when/if we get the chance to grab more than we deserve…
because nobody gets rich by decency – but, sorry to say that, nobody survives by stupidity and the time has come to pay the price, it seems
so, for me it is personal – because injustice harms our ability to survive – harms MY ability to survive – because justice is not a thingi of the weak (aka the powerless, poor and decent), justice is the optimum of efficiency in an interacting system. That is the simple reason why Mother Nature is at all able to program six-and-10-month-old babies – without physical basis that would not be possible! There is no “creation” of anything beyond the Quantum Noise, especially not of wealth – only distribution, that’s what the conservation laws tell us
so it is personal for me when Clinton speaks for so much cash – because there are so many people, so many organisations working for our future NOT able to pay the price
- but, my bet, much more deserving any help
we should learn from our babies – because we should accept the fact, that physics doesn’t care about our “winner philosophies” – if we are not able to act in a physically reasonable way we will go extinct. If we are not able to understand the true nature of justice (just a boring physical optimum), we will die – and maybe even in the next decades
what can be more personal?
February 7th, 2008 at 9:36 am
I guess he doesn’t need his taxpayer funded retirement.
February 7th, 2008 at 9:48 am
Thank you, Again! I wish I could have expressed it as elegantly. I am so tired of the whole “you’re either the hammer or the nail” philosophy. Everytime I see that Cadillac commercial, my wife leaves the room ’cause she knows what’s coming out of my mouth next. If our entire society revolves around becoming the wealthiest SOB around, we have little hope for our children’s future. So few can make it to that level, and so many can feel as if they have failed. Yet, so many of our truly successful citizens (teachers, nurses, stay-at-home spouses) are never recognized and will never live in anything but fear of the next paycheck not being there.
February 7th, 2008 at 10:47 am
Out of the mouths of Babes…and Again.
Very well said, friend.
It is personal.