Why are retired politicians able to command such substantial speaking fees?

[scottish]

As an example, I'll use Barack Obama's speaking fees on Wall St, reportedly at $400K for a one hour speech.  Linky:
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/01/opinion/the-cost-of-barack-obamas-speech.html

I don't mean to pick on Barack Obama in particular, I just have the link handy.

Do these organizations achieve some type of gratification by having a retired president come and talk at their venue?    I find it hard to listen to politicians when they're in power.   Once they've retired I'm happy never to hear from them again.

Is this a quid pro quo for some type of influence when they were in office?    For example, the Obama administration was responsible for bailing out a few large banks during the financial crisis.   Could this be a form of payback?     Or perhaps the organization is hoping Obama will use his influence for them in the future?

[sixwings]

I'm more skeptical of the quid pro quo but I don't think it's crazy to suggest.

Part of it, especially for really high profile people like a president, is prestige. Like the bank can tell potential new hires that this is a place to go for connections, they even had Obama drop by! What a benefit! Universities can show their prestige to current/future students by having Obama talk and meet a few token students afterwards, that sort of thing.

Prestige is basically consumerism for companies, they don't actually need it but they spend a lot of money on it to show their status over others.

[Paul der Krake]

Assume 20B annual payroll for all Goldman employees, and 2000 employment hours per year. That means one GS payroll minute is 10m. If you're cool with having your employees listen to someone for an hour at a cost of 10m, you can afford the extra 2 minutes or so of payroll it costs you to get the guy in question to show up.

[Davnasty]

Not saying I like it and I'm not sure how relevant this is, but if Kanye costs $400-600k...

https://variety.com/2014/music/news/degy-entertainment-breaks-down-artist-booking-fees-1201189498/

[gooki]

Legal bribes.

[scottish]

Legal bribes.

Yeah.   But I have to wonder, how do you bribe someone after they've done you a favour.   It could have been 2 or 3 years...

[MDfive21]

Legal bribes.

Yeah.   But I have to wonder, how do you bribe someone after they've done you a favour.   It could have been 2 or 3 years...

you say, 'hey mr president. do this for me now and when you're on your speaking tour, come by and i'll hook you up.'  and if the hookup does not occur, the hooker upper takes a hit in credibility.

i think there's another aspect which is that an out of office president or other politician can make introductions and continue to broker high level deals.  of course the most inconspicuous way to pay someone off while allowing him/her to be a neutral party is a speaking fee.  if the former office holder is brought in as a consultant or lobbyist, he/she becomes more associated with that corporation, tainting his neutral status.

notice a lot of them take lobbying positions as soon as they leave office because the still have the inside connections that they earned while in office.

[GuitarStv]

A former president still carries with him some followers and political power.  They're also well-known celebrities.  Celebrities tend to command high fees to show up somewhere: https://www.businessinsider.com/celebrity-booking-rate-list-2014-6 . . . apparently Obama is in the same celebrity crew as 50 Cent, Dolly Parton, and Kings of Leon.  And is worth 3-4 times more than William Shatner, or 40 times more than Bam Margera.

:P

[FIRE@50]

As an example, I'll use Barack Obama's speaking fees on Wall St, reportedly at $400K for a one hour speech.  Linky:
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/01/opinion/the-cost-of-barack-obamas-speech.html

I don't mean to pick on Barack Obama in particular, I just have the link handy.

Do these organizations achieve some type of gratification by having a retired president come and talk at their venue?    I find it hard to listen to politicians when they're in power.   Once they've retired I'm happy never to hear from them again.

Is this a quid pro quo for some type of influence when they were in office?    For example, the Obama administration was responsible for bailing out a few large banks during the financial crisis.   Could this be a form of payback?     Or perhaps the organization is hoping Obama will use his influence for them in the future?

Which large banks were bailed out during the Obama administration?

[scottish]

Bank of America
Citigroup
JPMorgan Chase
Wells Fargo
GMAC
Goldman Sachs
Morgan Stanley
US Bancorp
Sun Trust
Capital One
...

linky:   https://projects.propublica.org/bailout/list

[scottish]

A former president still carries with him some followers and political power.  They're also well-known celebrities.  Celebrities tend to command high fees to show up somewhere: https://www.businessinsider.com/celebrity-booking-rate-list-2014-6 . . . apparently Obama is in the same celebrity crew as 50 Cent, Dolly Parton, and Kings of Leon.  And is worth 3-4 times more than William Shatner, or 40 times more than Bam Margera.

:P

I have to wonder, will Trump get speaking gigs when he finally leaves the presidency?    He's not very articulate.     What would he say and who would listen?

It's interesting, people have mixed opinions on whether these are a way of paying for influence after the fact or are they just a status symbol for the organization booking the talk?     I'm looking for some evidence one way or another.   But if it was easy to get evidence then they wouldn't be a good way to bribe someone...

[GuitarStv]

A former president still carries with him some followers and political power.  They're also well-known celebrities.  Celebrities tend to command high fees to show up somewhere: https://www.businessinsider.com/celebrity-booking-rate-list-2014-6 . . . apparently Obama is in the same celebrity crew as 50 Cent, Dolly Parton, and Kings of Leon.  And is worth 3-4 times more than William Shatner, or 40 times more than Bam Margera.

:P

I have to wonder, will Trump get speaking gigs when he finally leaves the presidency?    He's not very articulate.     What would he say and who would listen?

There were enough stupid people in the world to allow Donald Trump to open "Trump University".  He has spoken at packed re-election rallies almost every week since he has become president.  So yeah, I'm pretty sure that people will listen.  Trump will say what he has always said . . . whatever he's decided is best for Donald Trump at that particular moment.

It's interesting, people have mixed opinions on whether these are a way of paying for influence after the fact or are they just a status symbol for the organization booking the talk?     I'm looking for some evidence one way or another.   But if it was easy to get evidence then they wouldn't be a good way to bribe someone...

As mentioned, the money that presidents get paid to speak is on par with the money that other celebrities get paid to speak.  I'm certain that there is some level of kick-back going on in some cases, but it's not particularly egregious.

[MDfive21]

A former president still carries with him some followers and political power.  They're also well-known celebrities.  Celebrities tend to command high fees to show up somewhere: https://www.businessinsider.com/celebrity-booking-rate-list-2014-6 . . . apparently Obama is in the same celebrity crew as 50 Cent, Dolly Parton, and Kings of Leon.  And is worth 3-4 times more than William Shatner, or 40 times more than Bam Margera.

:P

I have to wonder, will Trump get speaking gigs when he finally leaves the presidency?    He's not very articulate.     What would he say and who would listen?

It's interesting, people have mixed opinions on whether these are a way of paying for influence after the fact or are they just a status symbol for the organization booking the talk?     I'm looking for some evidence one way or another.   But if it was easy to get evidence then they wouldn't be a good way to bribe someone...

Plausible Deniability. hidden in plain sight.  speaking fees are transparent and above the table so they Must be legit, wink wink.

 I think the cat is out of the bag now so they will have to find another way to shuffle the money.

[Mississippi Mudstache]

Assume 20B annual payroll for all Goldman employees, and 2000 employment hours per year. That means one GS payroll minute is 10m. If you're cool with having your employees listen to someone for an hour at a cost of 10m, you can afford the extra 2 minutes or so of payroll it costs you to get the guy in question to show up.

This is the correct answer. I'm amazed by all the conspiracy theories when a more straightforward answer exists. There are a lot of people who aren't politicians who get paid exorbitant sums to speak in front of groups, simply because they're well-known. Twenty years ago, I went to the national FFA convention in Louisville, KY, and the organization had hired Danny Glover to speak for an hour for $45,000. It was a big deal, because he was a well-known actor, but his speech was so bad, people began filing out in droves after 20 minutes. He got paid anyway.

[nereo]

not pointed out so far is that these speaker fees for past presidents are not out of line with speaker fees for other well-known and sought-after people on the corporate speaker circuit (e.g. current/past execs of fortune 500 companies, efficiency/productivity gurus, lifestyle coaches, even celebs).  It's also in-line with what big-name entertainers will command to play similar private events

It's not uncommon for any of these to command 6-figure fees.  Also worth noting to this isn't really for just ~2 hours of their time, as preparing a proper seminar can take a week or more and involve several aids (so 40-100 work hours -- still incredible pay but ot quite as obscene as the '$200k for 2 hours work!' headlines make them out to be).

So in a very real way, past-presidents command high speaking fees because those are market rates, and investment banks like Goldman Sachs routinely shell out $1MM for 'talent' at theircorporate events.

[talltexan]

A former president still carries with him some followers and political power.  They're also well-known celebrities.  Celebrities tend to command high fees to show up somewhere: https://www.businessinsider.com/celebrity-booking-rate-list-2014-6 . . . apparently Obama is in the same celebrity crew as 50 Cent, Dolly Parton, and Kings of Leon.  And is worth 3-4 times more than William Shatner, or 40 times more than Bam Margera.

:P

I have to wonder, will Trump get speaking gigs when he finally leaves the presidency?    He's not very articulate.     What would he say and who would listen?

It's interesting, people have mixed opinions on whether these are a way of paying for influence after the fact or are they just a status symbol for the organization booking the talk?     I'm looking for some evidence one way or another.   But if it was easy to get evidence then they wouldn't be a good way to bribe someone...

We'll never find out because he will never be an Ex-President.

[FIRE@50]

Bank of America
Citigroup
JPMorgan Chase
Wells Fargo
GMAC
Goldman Sachs
Morgan Stanley
US Bancorp
Sun Trust
Capital One
...

linky:   https://projects.propublica.org/bailout/list

I see you are in Canada, so you may not realize that George W. Bush was potus in October 2008.
https://projects.propublica.org/bailout/initiatives/2-emergency-economic-stabilization-act

[Mississippi Mudstache]

not pointed out so far is that these speaker fees for past presidents are not out of line with speaker fees for other well-known and sought-after people on the corporate speaker circuit

Well, um, not to toot my own horn, but I did point it out in the post just prior to yours:

There are a lot of people who aren't politicians who get paid exorbitant sums to speak in front of groups, simply because they're well-known.

[nereo]

not pointed out so far is that these speaker fees for past presidents are not out of line with speaker fees for other well-known and sought-after people on the corporate speaker circuit

Well, um, not to toot my own horn, but I did point it out in the post just prior to yours:

There are a lot of people who aren't politicians who get paid exorbitant sums to speak in front of groups, simply because they're well-known.

ops, yes you are right.  Sorry I missed that Mudstache.

[scottish]

Bank of America
Citigroup
JPMorgan Chase
Wells Fargo
GMAC
Goldman Sachs
Morgan Stanley
US Bancorp
Sun Trust
Capital One
...

linky:   https://projects.propublica.org/bailout/list

I see you are in Canada, so you may not realize that George W. Bush was potus in October 2008.
https://projects.propublica.org/bailout/initiatives/2-emergency-economic-stabilization-act

Ok.   But Obama continued the programs didn't he?     Anyway, I wasn't trying to pick on Obama, I was just looking for a convenient example. 

I rather liked Obama.   There were many times when we were hoping to trade our prime minister for Obama, but he never went for it.  :-)

I think that these speaker fees are not a direct bribe.   There's just too much indirection and time involved between exercising influence and accepting compensation.

But I do think that these speaker fees act as a sort of lubricant.   They're telling current politicians, 'stay on good terms with us we'll take care of each other.'     

Also thanks for everyone who pointed out that the fees are roughly the market rate.   That was helpful.

[Cali]

People pay The Kardashians $100K to show up at a club opening for a couple hours. They pay millions for private concerts by top artists. I once attended a conference where Peyton Manning was a speaker. He was paid a fortune and he was excellent. Truly excellent. And I don’t give a hoot about football so there was no built in admiration there from me. If Peyton was that good I can only imagine how great a speech from an eloquent former world leader must be.