Based on your analysis, people who are famous as former holders of prestigious political positions, but who are not likely to hold such positions in the foreseeable future, cannot possibly receive similar speaking fees, right? Because the amount of influence being bought would be at most a fraction of what can be gotten from someone with actual authority, there would be little interest in bribing such people. Such as, say, Al Gore, Ben Bernanke, and Timothy Geithner, each of whom received hundreds of thousands of dollars for individual speeches after their respective terms (and in Gore's case, long after his presidential run)...

http://qz.com/441327/yes-hillary-clintons-speaking-fees-are-...

You know, every time I hear that claim about Clinton's speaking fees - originally from Bernie Sanders, of course - it comes in the form of a sarcastic comment about the content of the speech being incredible to justify the price. I think the sarcasm, the leaving of accusations to implication, makes it easier to make things sound bad without properly addressing the question. Why do those organizations pay people such high amounts for speeches? You listed banks, corporations, and foreign governments, but as the article above notes, one big source of public speaking payments is universities, for things like commencement addresses: why would they in particular, despite being relatively cash-strapped (only relatively! but still-), desire so strongly to make bribes?

President Obama recently gave a commencement address at Rutgers. Being in office, he presumably did not charge for it, but the address came after Rutgers "delug[ed] him with petitions" for "three years" [1], so they certainly would have paid. Is this because of the boundless wisdom imparted by that speech? Was the speech, as Sanders said, "written in Shakespearean prose"? If Obama had handed the same speech to a famous orator to deliver in his place, would that have been equally good?

Of course not. Well, actually, people probably did value, in terms of pure informational content, hearing the president's opinion about Donald Trump, political correctness, equality, etc. But not enough to care much about learning that information on that particular day, in person, as opposed to watching any other speech of his on YouTube, some other day. To state the blindingly obvious, they valued the speech mostly because of the fact that Obama was standing there and speaking to them. Star power, being honored, whatever you want to call it.

Someone who's 'just' a former first lady, a former and (then-)future presidential candidate, and one of the most famous politicians in her party doesn't, of course, have quite as much star power as a sitting president. But she has a lot, and then $225,000 is not a large sum for most of the organizations you mentioned - or even for Hillary Clinton, for that matter. The law of supply and demand is in effect as always. (Members of this site should be well reminded of that by the exorbitant figures involved in famous startup acquisitions.)

I am not claiming that influence is not being sought and perhaps obtained, though honestly I suspect it would be more related to psychology than the actual cash payments. But I do claim that it is only one of many reasons she has been sought as a public speaker. It is those who see no alternative between boundless wisdom on one hand and corruption on the other who betray a lack of critical thinking.

[1] http://www.nbcnews.com/feature/college-game-plan/meet-grandm...