I have seen a lot of people complaining that President Obama is profiting from Wall Street with the speech he is giving later this year. I have seen very little about what the speech is going to be about or who he is giving the speech to.
Here are the details I have been able to find.
It looks like he is giving the speech at the Cantor Fitzgerald Healthcare Conference. This looks to be the 3rd annual conference they have hosted. It looks like it is meant to bring together executive managers from public and private companies involved in biotechnology, pharmaceuticals, medical technology, healthcare facilities and services, and life science tools and diagnostics. It looks like it focusses on what issues face this industry and to allow these executives to see what other groups in the industry are doing and what they see as issues and solutions moving forward.
It makes sense to me that the President, whose signature success in office was the ACA, would be asked to speak at an event such as this. I do not see anything sinister in this conference or in the act of giving a speech. I also do not see a reason for President Obama not to be paid whatever is appropriate for a speech like this, $400,000 seems reasonable for a former President with high approval ratings to get since this will involve a fair amount of time crafting the speech, above and beyond giving the speech.
I have seen many progressives say that this gives the appearance of corruption, a payout from the industry to the President. I do not see it that way at all. We must be willing to get in front of people like this and make sure they hear from Progressives when discussing issues like Health Care. I cannot think of a better representative than President Obama for this type of issue. I also do not think that $400,000 will be enough money to have a corrupting influence on him, considering that it will be a drop in the bucket compared to what he will be making for future books.