I’ve been thinking about this since Saturday’s debate. Bernie did a great job of reminding people of the outsized influence of Wall Street, but he needs to connect it directly to Hillary when she denies being influenced. The perfect illustration is the three separate $200,000 speeches to Goldman Sachs: two by Hillary and one by Bill before Goldman lobbied Hillary's State Department:
Mother Jones: Hillary Clinton's Goldman Sachs Problem
International Business Times: Goldman Paid Bill Clinton $200,000 For Speech Before Bank Lobbied Hillary Clinton
Bernie should bring this up at the next debate, asking Clinton what Goldman Sachs thinks they were getting for that kind of money. Are her and Bill’s words of wisdom really that valuable? He should point out that the $600,000 they received for 3 speeches is more than the average American earns in 20 years (median wage in the U.S. is under $30,000). This is why people believe, correctly, that the system is rigged in favor of the rich and powerful.
He should also point out that Goldman Sachs was a major contributor to the financial crisis with traders who were selling subprime mortgage backed securities to clients while betting against them in the market! This is, of course, exactly what Bernie means when he says that Wall Street’s business model is fraud.
Of course, it’s not just Goldman that has been paying the Clintons megabucks for speeches, but that all-too-prevalent firm is the best illustration of the problem.
CNN Money: Wall Street has made Hillary Clinton a millionaire
In an editorial this weekend, The New York Times called Hillary out on this (bolding is mine):
Since 2001, she and Bill Clinton have earned more than $125 million for speeches, many of the most lucrative made before financial groups. That does not account for the millions given directly to her campaign, and to political action committees backing her. Nearly 15 years after the 2001 attacks, Mrs. Clinton was earning more than $200,000 for a 20-minute speech.
Of course, the other problem is what Hillary says to the banksters in these incredibly lucrative speeches:
Clinton offered a message that the collected plutocrats found reassuring, according to accounts offered by several attendees, declaring that the banker-bashing so popular within both political parties was unproductive and indeed foolish. Striking a soothing note on the global financial crisis, she told the audience, in effect: We all got into this mess together, and we’re all going to have to work together to get out of it. What the bankers heard her to say was just what they would hope for from a prospective presidential candidate: Beating up the finance industry isn’t going to improve the economy—it needs to stop. And indeed Goldman’s Tim O’Neill, who heads the bank’s asset management business, introduced Clinton by saying how courageous she was for speaking at the bank. (Brave, perhaps, but also well-compensated: Clinton’s minimum fee for paid remarks is $200,000).
If anyone reading this has connections to the Sanders campaign, I hope you will pass this suggestion along. This could be the subject of a devastating TV ad, but we know Bernie won’t go there, so it needs to be brought up in the most public forum possible, i.e., the next debate.
The next debate, December 19, is also four days before the movie version of Michael Lewis’s The Big Short opens in theaters. Bernie should recommend seeing the movie (or reading the book) for a perfect illustration of just how corrupt Wall Street is and why we need to get these people out of our politics instead of controlling them, especially now that the “big banks” mentioned in the movie are larger now than they were then!
The Big Short trailer