• Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.

Pres Obama now doing $400k speeches for Wall Street

Status
Not open for further replies.
M

midramble

Pizza, Bourbon, and Thanos
Is this why we lose? We've decided to demonize raising capitol for causes?

Republicans are building a diesel while we are arguing for water fueled and perpetual motion over hybrids.
 
J

Jimothy

Member
midramble said:
Is this why we lose? We've decided to demonize raising capitol for causes?

Republicans are building a diesel while we are arguing for water fueled and perpetual motion over hybrids.
Click to expand...

Nah. We lose because the Democrats haven't offered a viable alternative to the GOP's blatant pro-business, anti-labor platform.
 
E

Eidan

Member
Merchandise said:
I hate to say it, but that makes him smart. If Hillary had more (any) charisma surely she wouldn't have had to spend as much.
Click to expand...

Well I'll give Trump credit: part of his plan was always to take advantage of free media coverage. But the level in which he was successful in this regard was truly jaw dropping. By March 2016 the NYT had estimated that Trump's coverage came close to $2 billion in earned media coverage. It was remarkable.

https://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/16/...mps-mammoth-advantage-in-free-media.html?_r=0

And I'm sure any one of us can remember multiple occasions when one of the major news networks had their coverage dedicated to an empty Trump campaign podium while another candidate gave a speech at the bottom right hand corner of the screen.
 
Rentahamster

Rentahamster

Rodent Whores
Eidan said:
Well I'll give Trump credit: part of his plan was always to take advantage of free media coverage. But the level in which he was successful in this regard was truly jaw dropping. By March 2016 the NYT had estimated that Trump's coverage came close to $2 billion in earned media coverage. It was remarkable.

https://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/16/...mps-mammoth-advantage-in-free-media.html?_r=0

And I'm sure any one of us can remember multiple occasions when one of the major news networks had their coverage dedicated to an empty Trump campaign podium while another candidate gave a speech at the bottom right hand corner of the screen.
Click to expand...

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=1311258
 
N

numble

Member
This is the more appropriate thread for this, but I noticed the New York Times editorial board took a position against paid speeches to enrich retired politicians:

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/01/opinion/the-cost-of-barack-obamas-speech.html
“I found myself spending time with people of means — law firm partners and investment bankers, hedge fund managers and venture capitalists,” Senator Barack Obama wrote in his book “The Audacity of Hope.” “As a rule, they were smart, interesting people. But they reflected, almost uniformly, the perspectives of their class: the top 1 percent or so of the income scale.”

He wrote in 2006: “I know that as a consequence of my fund-raising I became more like the wealthy donors I met. I spent more and more of my time above the fray, outside the world of immediate hunger, disappointment, fear, irrationality, and frequent hardship of … the people that I’d entered public life to serve.”

Is it a betrayal of that sentiment for the former president to have accepted a reported $400,000 to speak to a Wall Street firm? Perhaps not, but it is disheartening that a man whose historic candidacy was premised on a moral examination of politics now joins almost every modern president in cashing in. And it shows surprising tone deafness, more likely to be expected from the billionaires the Obamas have vacationed with these past months than from a president keenly attuned to the worries and resentments of the 99 percent.

...

Indeed, it’s the example he set that makes it jarring to see him conform to a lamentable post-presidential model created fairly recently, in historical terms. Since Gerald Ford enriched himself with speaking fees and board memberships after leaving office, every former president but Jimmy Carter has supped often at the corporate table. It’s not beyond imagining that Mr. Obama could break with a practice whose ills he observed so astutely, and which contributed to the downfall of the Democrat he hoped would cement his legacy. The tens of millions that Hillary Clinton raised from speaking to corporate interests most likely haunts her now — or should.

The Obamas are starting a foundation whose work will include “training and elevating a new generation of political leaders in America,” Eric Schultz, an Obama adviser, said in a statement. “President Obama will deliver speeches from time to time. Some of those speeches will be paid, some will be unpaid, and regardless of venue or sponsor, President Obama will be true to his values, his vision, and his record.”

But why not elevate a new generation of political leaders and stay true to his values by giving his speech fees to his foundation and other charities focused on those goals?

The Democratic Party badly needs such an example to follow. As the presidential election clarified so painfully, the traditional party of working people has lost touch with them. In a poll released last week, more than two-thirds of voters, including nearly half of Democrats themselves, said the Democratic Party is out of touch with the concerns of the American people. For the first time in memory, Democrats are seen as more out of touch with ordinary Americans than the party’s political opponents. There’s little doubt that Democratic leaders’ unseemly attachment to the party’s wealthiest donors contributed to that indictment.

From Mr. Obama’s earliest days in government, he wrestled with what it means to be a representative public servant in an era of purchased influence. He didn’t always make the right decisions, he acknowledged. Now, as he commits to building future American leaders, we have the audacity to hope he’ll set a higher standard for past presidents.
Click to expand...
 
N

numble

Member
OG Shaka Zulu said:
He's dropping $2M helping Chicago youth get jobs. He used 9D chess to get Wall Street to help the disadvantaged by proxy.
Click to expand...
The NYT position seems to be that he should announce that this is his intention for speaking fees. From the disclosed Clinton tax returns, we know that less than 10% of their income was donated to charitable causes.

By the way, it is much more cost-effective to have people directly donate to a cause instead of paying the speaker first and having the speaker pay from after-tax-profits. And celebrities and retired politicians do do this by speaking at fundraisers.
 
N

nelsonroyale

Member
MisterShine said:
It's different among black americans I think. We're happy that at least some of us 'made it'. Speaking for myself and from what I've seen, of course.



That's a JPG file, it can't animate. Just your eyes playing tricks =)
Click to expand...

That is a pretty similar position to what many people in India (where half my family is from) seem to have. When have enough made it and not really looked back, or at least not worked for proper structural changes, that you move on to a more productive position?
 
R

RaidenZR

Member
Slayven said:
Could they really fuck with Obama's pension like that? I can't see them being able to grandfather something like that
Click to expand...

Considering the current trajectory, they can do whatever they want. Rules, integrity, accountability, and precedence are long gone.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.

Similar threads

POLITICO: Full transcript of Trump’s Wall Street Journal interview from July 25th
2 3 4
152
22K
SomTervo replied
  • Locked
Dem. presidential candidate Bernie Sanders on Wall Street Reform and Financial Policy
8
1K
sfedai0 replied
  • Locked
New Info: Trump's Ties to Sergei Millian, Russian Intelligence (& Detailed Timeline)
2 3 4
163
52K
NH Apache replied
  • Locked
Obama wrote secret letter to Iran Supreme Leader on fighting ISIS
25
4K
Metallix87 replied
  • Locked
VICE: Tim Geithner and The Con-Artist Wing of the Democratic Party
5
1K
linsivvi replied
Top Bottom