The Clinton Family Speech Factory

Unless the situation for Bernie Sanders changes markedly over the coming months or a dark horse candidate comes out of nowhere, it appears that our destiny is to have Hillary Clinton as the Democratic candidate for President in 2016.  With that in mind and her constant attempts to appeal to the "common man and woman", I wanted to post some details from her Public Financial Disclosure Report showing just how out of touch she is with the sweaty masses.

Here is a screen capture of pages 2 and 4 of the report which shows us the value of the Clinton's assets and income from those assets:

A substantial portion of the Clinton's assets are associated with the multiple books that the couple has written with Ms. Clinton's Hard Choices generating over $5,000,000 in royalties in 2014 alone.  Her other book, Living History, generated between $15,000 and $50,000 in royalty income in 2014.  The other three books that were written by her husband generated far less royalty income, totalling between $30,000 and $100,000 in 2014.

On page 4 we note that the couple has between $5,000,000 and $25,000,000 in a JPMorgan cash custody account which generated between $15,000 and $50,000 in interest income in 2014 and an additional $5,000,000 to $25,000,000 in a Vanguard 500 Index Fund.  It is interesting to note that, according to Open Secrets, JPMorgan Chase and Company has donated a total of $696,456 to Ms. Clinton during her political career.   Given that relationship, I guess that the least that she can do is give them $5,000,000 plus in business.

Now, let's look at where the really big dollars come into play.  The Clintons are both big deals on the speaking circuit.  Here is a list of speeches that Hillary Clinton gave during 2014 and the first part of 2015 along with the group/company that hired her and the size of her honoraria:

In total, between January 2014 and March 2015, Ms. Clinton raked in $11.878 million giving 51 speeches which works out to an average of $232,902 per speech.  In the month of March 2014 alone, she made $1.9275 million giving eight speeches for an average of $241,000 per speech.  As we know from a contract that was accidentally released to the public, Ms. Clinton's demands go far beyond the sizeable honoraria that she is paid for speaking as you can see here:

What I found interesting about Ms. Clinton's speeches was the fact that 10 of her 51 speeches were given to companies or groups in the health care business, a sector that has played an increasingly important role in America's political theatre.

Let's take a quick look at what former President Bill Clinton was up to in 2014 and early 2015.  He gave a total of 53 speeches between January 12, 2014 and May 14, 2015 earning a total of $13.46 million which works out to an average of $253,962 per speech.  It is interesting to note that President Clinton's honorarium was as low as $181,250 for each of four speeches that he gave between February 2 and 5, 2015, however, they were all given to MPSF Inc. in their annual "Speaker Series" at various locations in California so I guess it pays to get a bulk deal.

For giving a total of 104 speeches, the Clintons earned $25.338 million in 16 months.  That works out to $1.584 million monthly.

We also need to remember that former presidents are covered by the Former Presidents Act.  Under this bit of legislation which was enacted by Congress in 1958 thanks to President Truman's financial difficulties, Presidents are entitled to a pension that is equivalent to the pay for the head of an executive department ($203,700 in 2015) among other benefits as shown on this table:

In fiscal year 2015, Bill Clinton cost U.S. taxpayers $924,000, thanks to the Former Presidents Act.  

To close this posting, let's look at what has happened to real median household income in the United States since Bill Clinton took office in January 1993:

In real terms, over the 22 year period, real median household income has risen from $50,421 to $53,657 which works out to a raise of 6.4 percent over the two decade plus period.  Kind of puts things into perspective, doesn't it?