Politicians becoming millionaires

[Colibri]

Dang, sam beat me to it.

[Colibri]

@Drew_Kit

Tony Blair has ‘earned’ £20 million since leaving office. He made himself rich by opposing the majority opinion of his constituents and backing the Bush wars, claiming the UK had a blood debt to the US. His son Ewan however didn’t go off to Afghanistan or Iraq, he went to Yale and just got given a half million pound flat, by a father who earns more every day that British soldiers earn in a year.
Democracy is bought and sold on the futures market.

[Moderating]

This is inappropriate political commentary for GQ as well.

[md2000]

@Jim_s_Son

Sometimes they marry wealthy women (John Kerry, John McCain). Or their wife is capable of making big money too (Liddy Dole, Hillary Clinton). The pay is pretty decent, as are the pensions, medical care and other perks.

I’m not sure how far I trust Richard Nixon in his book “Six Crises”. But I throw this out as to how far things have changed.“After four years in the House, two in the Senate, and eight in the vice presidency, all that Pat and I owned was the equity in our Washington house. We owned no stocks or bonds, and we had just enough cash in the bank to take care of current expenses. My life insurance had been acquired so recently that its cash value was minimal. And as a former Vice President, under the law, I had no allowance for an office staff and no pension-except for the Congressional retirement plan to which I contributed to and for which I would not become eligible until age sixty-two. We had two girls growing up who would soon need funds for college. My problem, in a nutshell, was an acute one-I had to find a job and start saving money.”
Nixon goes on to say he had a number of well-paying job offers and his first year as a lawyer he made twice of what a vice president was paid.

I think it’s also easier to take a decent amount of money and turn it into a large amount legally than it was in the 19th century when you had politicians going broke with land deals and bad investments (US Grant, Thomas Jefferson). There are certainly scam artists and people who get greedy without investigating properly (one thing that caused the Clintons lots of grief was they never investigated the Whitewater investments properly before they bought). But you have to be a real numbnuts like Gary Coleman and his family to turn $19 million intro zilch nowadays.

IIRC Nixon also complained that all anyone remembered of the Checkers speech was that he used the little dog as a tear jerker. he used to complain that in fact he also trotted out all the numbers for disclosure and showed that although he had a decent slush fund for advertising and other campaigning expenses (a PAC by any other name) he never took a dime to enrich his own pockets.

I also read that he used his poker skills to get fairly rich while sitting around the south Pacific in the navy during WWII. Again, the type of smarts that work well for a politician work well for many other endeavours, and the connections and name he made in politics also, obviously, helped him get a very lucrative job when he needed one.

Plus he was golfing buddies with the guy who invented the spray can nozzle (Robert Ablanalp?) so I imagine his billionaire friend picked up the tab for a lot of their outings and vacations.