The Clintons - Big Banks and Big Bucks

Since the beginning of the 2016 election cycle, the Clinton family speech-writing and speech-giving factory has been front and center.  While most of us are aware that the family has made more than $153 million since 2001 for their remarkable ability to speak in front of large audiences, it is less commonly known exactly how much they have made for speaking to Wall Street banks and their ilk.  Fortunately, I have been able to summarize all of the data onto one Excel spreadsheet.  As you will note, I have put Bill Clinton's speeches in blue and Hillary Clinton's speeches in red for your convenience:

In total, since 2001, the Clintons have made 39 speeches to six big banks including Morgan Stanley, Deutsche Bank, Bank of America, Citigroup, UBS and Goldman Sachs.  They have earned a total of $7.745 million for these speeches which averages out to $198,589.74 per speech.  Goldman Sachs has been their greatest benefactor, paying the couple a total of $2.225 million for 12 speeches, 9 of which were given by Bill Clinton.

Here's what Hillary Clinton had to say about her paid speaking engagements to Goldman Sachs during a televised town hall in 2016:

Let's look a little closer at the Clinton family ties to "big banks".  From the Clinton Foundation's donor report, we find the following big bank donations through to March 2016:

Barclays Capital donated between $1,000,001 and $5,000,000

Barclays PLC donated between $1,000,001 and $5,000,000

Citi Foundation donated between $1,000,001 and $5,000,000

HSBC Holdings donated between $1,000,001 and $5,000,000

Goldman Sachs Group donated between $1,000,001 and $5,000,000

Bank of America Foundation donated between $500,001 and $1,000,000

Citigroup Inc donated between $500,001 and $1,000,000

UBS Wealth Management USA donated between $500,001 and $1,000,000

That adds up to between $6.5 million and $28 million.  Surely that will curry some favour from a Clinton presidency!

Going back to Ms. Clinton's comments on her association with Wall Street in the video above, what do we really think the odds are that she's actually going to "shut them down"?  I suspect that we already have a pretty good idea of what will happen should Wall Street suffer a repetition of what happened during the Great Recession.  To think anything other than the obvious is showing a great deal of naiveté.