It’s not accurate to refer to the Clintons as one-percenters. Actually, they are in the fraction of one percenters who are far wealthier than just a person who makes into the one-percent. And now we learn that since 2001, the Clintons have been paid $153 million--$153 MILLION in speaking fees—including $2.225 million from Goldman Sachs alone.
From CNN:
Hillary Clinton and her husband, former President Bill Clinton, combined to earn more than $153 million in paid speeches from 2001 until Hillary Clinton launched her presidential campaign last spring, a CNN analysis shows.
In total, the two gave 729 speeches from February 2001 until May, receiving an average payday of $210,795 for each address. The two also reported at least $7.7 million for at least 39 speeches to big banks, including Goldman Sachs and UBS, with Hillary Clinton, the Democratic 2016 front-runner, collecting at least $1.8 million for at least eight speeches to big banks.
The ones who forked over that money?
Goldman Sachs: $2.225 million to the two of them for 12 speeches. We know that Goldman just recently paid a fine of $5 billion related to its role in the mortgage fraud scam—though Goldman CEO Lloyd Blankfein walks free and didn’t pay a dime of that fine.
UBS: $1.915 million for 10 speeches. UBS paid a $500 million fine in 2015 for its part in manipulating the currency markets and benchmark interest rates.
Bank of America/Merrill Lynch: 5 speeches for a total of $1.3 million. Bank of America paid a record $16.65 billion fine in 2014 to settle charges relating to toxic mortgages.
Nothing to see here.
“That’s what they offered”.
As I wrote the other day, being paid these sums is legalized bribery. Respectfully, and I would say this about virtually every politician I know and support, no politician’s speech is worth that money. Politicians are not Stephen Hawking, Marie Curie, Albert Einstein, Rosa Parks or other people who actually invented something new, advanced knowledge or have something to say that is unique. Most of these highly-paid speeches are pablum, recycled policy language.
The only reason someone is paid that sum for an hour speech (maybe it was shorter or longer by a bit) is to curry favor and gain access to the recipient. Every American understands that—especially, since most Americans would not earn that amount of money in 3 or 4 YEARS of working hard at a modest income real job.
When you become part of the system, when you are enriched and become part of the elite, you become blind to the obvious, either conveniently or because you no longer have a moral compass that can distinguish between right and wrong.
A friend today noted an interesting point: The Clintons have lived among the elite for the past two decades, flying around with billionaires in style. I think, then, that Hillary Clinton honestly finds the whole controversy around her Goldman Sachs speaking fees quite perplexing because, by comparison, when you see the wealth of a Warren Buffett or some oligarch who thinks nothing of dropping a seven- or eight-figure donation to the Clinton Foundation, $225,000 seems like chump change.
That’s fine.
But, that is not a comforting thought to the millions of Americans who struggle to get by and want a government free of corporate influence.
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