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Comment by tomComb | Hacker News Reader

If they get rich by selling books and speeches I have no problem with that, and am surprised by the number that do. People might not like that, but it isn't corruption.

If, on the other hand, a president makes his presidency about doing favours for the rich and powerful then he won't have to write books and speeches afterwards.

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I have a problem with that. It shows moral corruption. It's not corruption in the legal sense but outlines the issue of why the pardons do not make sense.

ex-POTUS is still an influential individual and is just profiting after the binds of the position are lifted.

I think it would be a pretty nice decree to disallow the president to become extremely wealthy X years after presidency. Let the influence slowly fade and let's see if POTUS as an individual, after being elected to do public good, can produce some value outside of benefiting from being elected.

Honestly most former presidents do “good work” in this sense. The power is gone so now there’s less outside influence. This law seems arbitrary and has no purpose, there’s like 4-5 former presidents alive at a time? This “problem” is at the bottom of my list of problems that need solving.

Well, if a law was put I'd definitely include all of the public servants in executive positions, which includes congress, mayors and alike. It's going to be a much different crop of people wanting to work for the public, because eventually, now, they all become "consultants" for companies dealing with the public sectors, and enrich themselves.

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