On the heels of news that former President Barrack Obama is making $400K per speech, people are starting to wonder just how much the Obama’s are worth (in money of course) and how much they’ll be making in the near future.
According to Go Banking Rates, the Obama’s are probably set for quite a while:
A little more than a month out of office, former president Barack Obama and former first lady Michelle Obama have signed a book deal with Penguin Random House.
The terms of the agreement were not disclosed; however, The New York Times reported that publishing industry executives said it probably stretched well into eight figures. Executives who followed the bidding process said that opening offers for Obama’s book alone were in the $18 to $20 million range, according to The New York Times.
CelebrityNetWorth.com reports Barack Obama’s current net worth as $12.2 million and Michelle Obama’s net worth as $11.8 million. According to data collected by Analytics@American, the online business analytics degree from American University, the Obamas could make as much as $242 million post-presidency.
If Obama’s current trajectory continues, they may well be the most highly paid former President in U.S. history. According to Business Insider, The Obamas are getting a record-setting book deal worth at least $60 million while the rights to books written by Bill Clinton and George W. Bush sold for $15 million and $10 million, respectively.
Please don’t get the impression that I’ve got anything against capitalism or someone making money by just about any means available to them. The problem comes in when this is a guy who thinks that the wealth of others should be redistributed, and his own left alone.
I’m sure lots of people would have better health care if the Obamas personally paid for it instead of trying to get the rest of the country to do it. I guess to our former Command in Chief, socialism means that he should horde all the money he can and let us divvy up the rest. That seems fair.
(H/T: Go Banking Rates)