your comment nailed it.

Coming from a high-corruption country myself (Russia) the pattern is easily recognizable. It's also recognizable in the US, but people here seem to still believe, at least to some extent, that the politicians have something other than their own self interest in mind. A perilous belief, guaranteed to be proven wrong.

What's the pattern? People enter "public service" and then become rich or their lifestyle inflates to imply that?

At least in the US we can easily find out this information and vote on it.

People with $150-170K in yearly income living in DC (which has a very high cost of living) easily become multi-millionaires in a few short years, and so do their spouses and children. A crackhead son of a vice president gets paid more than an Exxon Mobil board member in spite of having no experience. He then also lands a gig running an investment firm in China with $1.5B under management. A very talented young man. Joe's brother, James Biden is also very "talented", and he somehow got a $1.5B construction contract in Iraq in spite of having no experience in construction. The fact that you didn't know anything about this until earlier this year tells you everything you need to know about the "free" press in this country. Moving _up_ the list: Obama gave Pearson $350M contract for Common Core textbooks, and Pearson paid him $65M for a book deal. This is the presidency which had "no scandals" at all. That's just _one_ example of many.

https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2019/08/02/joe-biden...

Dig just a little bit, and you'll find examples on nearly everyone who has been in DC for a while except perhaps Bernie Sanders who's "only" worth $3.5M.

"You can't get rich in politics unless you're a crook" said Harry Truman. This holds to this day.

Yeah but how do you not get preferential treatment when you have one of "the names"? If it doesn't end up influencing policy decisions and such, it may not be right but it is tough to stop. Should these brothers and kids of famous people not have jobs?

Obama, probably one of if not the most well-known person IN THE WORLD, wants to write a book. How could the deal not be worth a ton? Makes complete sense.

Also the book is just a book. If people buy it, then he should make money.

Sounds to me you're OK with pervasive corruption then. How many book deals do you know of that include a $65M payday? Especially a ghostwritten book which few people will ever read. Most book authors barely scrape by. Pearson will almost certainly lose money on this, if you exclude the Common Core contract.

Best thing would be if the president's family already had successful businesses and did not expand them thanks to "the name", which is what we have now. Mike Pence's family also didn't suddenly become "very talented" either it looks like, or we'd know about it already.

At a minimum, I want the "free press" and the various oversight bodies to scrutinize this shit with a magnifying glass and drag it into the open _irrespective_ of the political affiliation of whoever is in the White House.

Obama was the "Poorest" president in 50 years at only something like 4 Million to his name when he took office. It's also interesting to note he is from the most corrupt district in America. He is still a good example.

Do you remember all the freely available information that showed Banks, Oil companies and massive corporations all spent considerably more on Clinton's 2016 campaign, yet somehow the media tells us Trump is "Big businesses" guy those companies worked hard to get into office? Easily verifiable to you right now. Are you going to go check my work? Opensecrets.org

Cognitive dissonance is never so strong as when we are telling ourselves it's not cognitive dissonance.