Forbes: The Mystery Of Hillary's Missing Millions

[snagglepuss]

Last edited Sun Jan 31, 2016, 03:31 PM - Edit history (1)

Since Bill and Hillary Clinton left the White House in 2001, they have earned more than $230 million. But in federal filings the Clintons claim they are worth somewhere between $11 million and $53 million. After layering years of disclosures on top of annual tax returns, Forbes estimates their combined net worth at $45 million. Where did all of the money go? No one seems to know, and the Clintons aren’t offering any answers.

From 2001 to 2014 the power couple spent $95 million on taxes. Hillary’s 2008 presidential run cost her $13 million. Their two homes cost a combined $5 million, and the Clintons have given away $22 million to charity. All of this is according to FEC filings, property records and years of tax returns. Add it up and you get $135 million. If the Clintons made $230 million, spent $135 million and have just $45 million left over, what happened to the other $50 million?

“That’s kind of strange,” says Joe Biden’s accountant, Walter Deyhle. “You have to report all of your assets. You have to report assets that are owned by your spouse.”

It seems unlikely that the Clintons could have spent all of it. Over 14 years $50 million averages out to $3.6 million in extra expenses per year, or $9,800 per day.




http://www.forbes.com/sites/danalexander/2015/09/29/the-mystery-of-hillarys-missing-millions/#504b51b75505




In another 2015 Forbes article, Agustino Fontevecchia writes how financial transparency is an illusion in Washington.


As my colleague Dan Alexander explains in his well-researched piece, Bill and Hillary left the White House essentially broke in 2001 (note that our valuations include spouses’ assets as well), only to make an incredible $230 million over the next 14 years through speaking engagements, book deals, and consulting gigs. To our own astonishment, their latest public disclosure lists a maximum of $53 million in assets (we valued them at $45 million). The Clintons make it crystal clear that despite disclosure requirements by the Federal Election Commission and the Office of Government Ethics, and even adding voluntarily revealed tax filings, the relationship between money and power remains fraught with obscurity. To a certain extent, financial transparency is an illusion in Washington. Leaving the highest offices a public servant can aspire to, such as the Presidency or the State Department, can be exceptionally fruitful.




http://www.forbes.com/sites/afontevecchia/2015/09/29/the-richest-and-poorest-presidential-candidates-from-hillarys-millions-to-marco-rubios-debts/#1286398a4070




Edited to add the following link which shows how the Clintons amassed $230 million after leaving the White House.


http://www.democraticunderground.com/12511103620

[Empowerer]

1. We're now citing Steve Forbes' magazine as a source? Welcome to rightwingunderground.com

[Autumn]

9. Check out this disgusting OP

http://www.democraticunderground.com/1251941346 I bet Steve Forbes magazine will never call Hillary

"Killary Rotten Clintscum"

as this one posted by a Hillary supporter. They actually linked to this site that called Hillary that.

http://tomatobubble.com/sanders.html

http://www.democraticunderground.com/1251941346



I'm sure you're appalled by that one. I know I was.

[beam me up scottie]

11. Yep, linking to an anti-Semitic article from a Holocaust denier's website

It doesn't get any lower than that.

And a jury let it stand.

[ChisolmTrailDem]

10. So, how do you figure the math to challenge Forbes? Did their books balance after your...

...accounting of their financial situation?

Did they have $50Million left over in your accounting?

[libdem4life]

13. That's what I was wondering. You can kill the messenger, but what about the message? True? False?

We know about the righteous indignation of a RW reporter, whatever. But again, we need to know what the Republicans are going to throw at her, right? Democrats are understandably queasy about this stuff. The Republicans, not so much.

[PoliticAverse]

2. "financial transparency is an illusion in Washington" - Indeed, just ask Clarence Thomas. n/t

[Empowerer]

3. What is the source for the $230 million in income claim?

The piece just throws that out there, but offers no support or source for it.

How did these authors determine that the Clintons earned $230 million in personal income?

[snagglepuss]

21. Glad you asked, it reminds me that I need to create new thread but you can have the info now.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/danalexander/2015/10/13/how-the-clintons-made-more-than-230-million-after-leaving-the-white-house/#45fe4a7e791e

[bigtree]

4. where's they get the $230mil figure from?

...they could be wrong about actual earnings.

[snagglepuss]

22. Here's how

http://www.forbes.com/sites/danalexander/2015/10/13/how-the-clintons-made-more-than-230-million-after-leaving-the-white-house/#45fe4a7e791e

[bigtree]

39. they could have easily overestimated the earnings

...based on erroneous info.

It's more than a little self-serving for them to claim that it disappeared. The most obvious answer would be they're wrong about their figure. Stretching their own accounting to make this point is slippery reporting.

[snagglepuss]

40. As stated he requested numerous times for a response from the Clintons but got nothing.

Have you read the link I added showing how the Clintons made their fortune?

[bigtree]

43. they don't appear to be more expert on the Clinton's finances than the Clintons

...speculating they've done something wrong without proof is slippery journalism.

Hanging your hat on this is a dubious exercise is sure to get cheers here from rivals, but not what I'd call responsible reporting.

[HassleCat]

5. So, what is the problem?

They just have so much money, they can't keep track of it all. Kinda like the military.

[notadmblnd]

6. I'm guessing- Swiss bank account.

[Empowerer]

7. That's the problem with this whole discussion - its just guesses with no facts to back it up

[notadmblnd]

8. I'v noticed there's plenty of guessing done by all here

Including you.

[snagglepuss]

25. You asked and I gave you the link below.

[FlatBaroque]

12. Hillary Helps a Bank—and Then It Funnels Millions to the Clintons

This was a Swiss bank.

http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/07/hillary-helps-a-bankand-then-it-pays-bill-15-million-in-speaking-fees/400067/

Then reporters James V. Grimaldi and Rebecca Ballhaus lay out how UBS helped the Clintons. “Total donations by UBS to the Clinton Foundation grew from less than $60,000 through 2008 to a cumulative total of about $600,000 by the end of 2014, according to the foundation and the bank,” they report. “The bank also joined the Clinton Foundation to launch entrepreneurship and inner-city loan programs, through which it lent $32 million. And it paid former president Bill Clinton $1.5 million to participate in a series of question-and-answer sessions with UBS Wealth Management Chief Executive Bob McCann, making UBS his biggest single corporate source of speech income disclosed since he left the White House.”

CORRUPT TO THE CORE

[notadmblnd]

14. I saw that.

[ChisolmTrailDem]

15. EXCUSE ME! Does ANYONE here have any figures with which to counter this? Huh? nt

[SheilaT]

16. No one saves or invests every penny they earn.

My guess is that they've spent an awful lot. Flying in chartered jets is not cheap, and I'm pretty sure neither one of them has set foot in a commercial plane in decades. When they go somewhere they're not staying at a Motel 6, or even a Holiday Inn. They're at very high end hotels in the most expensive and lavish suites. And they don't eat out at Applebee's, either. Heck, I know how much I spend when I'm travelling and I'm doing it on a relative budget. They will be spending many multiples of what someone like me spends.

So while the "missing" money is quite a large amount, as a percentage of what they've raked in, it strikes me as an amount they could easily have spent over the years.

[Zynx]

19. I bet their daily burn rate is pretty impressive.

[snagglepuss]

35. Over 14 years $50 million averages out to $3.6 million in extra expenses per year, or $9,800 per day

[LiberalArkie]

28. People loose money in their sofas and in their cars all the time. When you have that much

money do you bend over and pick up that $1000 bill you dropped. And then there is the walking around money and paying people to not remember anything, that has to be quite a bit when you are wealthy.

[SheilaT]

29. Yep. I'll be nit-picky and point out that

$1000 bills are not in circulation, but I recognize the gentle sarcasm.

At a slightly more serious note, the amount of cash money needed to maintain a merely adequate standard of living sometimes takes my breath away. I'm not talking about the "In New York you can't possibly survive on less than a quarter mil a year", but just paying the rent or mortgage in the hinterlands, buying basic food, putting gas in the car, and so on. Then there's things like a cell phone, a computer, the internet, cable or satellite TV, things that most of us consider necessities. If you've never read the Laura Ingalls Wilder books, I will strongly recommend them as they shed some light here. The Ingalls family survives reasonably well with almost no cash outlay. There's a scene in one where Ma, Laura, and Mary pool their money and come up with twenty-five cents, which is spent on a Christmas gift for Pa. Suspenders, if I recall correctly. Of course, they lived in a time when most people had very little money and survived that way. They weren't surrounded, as we are today, buy a mass media whose sole purpose is to encourage us to buy, to spend, to want more and more.

The Clintons simply have a lot more than most of us, and so they spend a lot more than we do.

[LiberalArkie]

31. I do pretty well on $1000 a month social security, directv and iPhone and satellite internet etc.

But then I do not go out to eat, I have a 2003 Cavalier with 250,000 miles on it and I do have 3 2012 Macs. I guess it is where you want to spend it.

[SheilaT]

34. I don't know exactly how it feels to you,

but a thousand dollars a month is in some ways a lot of money. In others, not very much at all. My monthly income is somewhat more than yours. My car is a year younger, with 214,000 miles on it. My computers (desktop and laptop) are newer. I choose not to have TV or cable, but have internet and a cell phone, a dumb one.

You are absolutely right about where any of us want to spend our money.

[snagglepuss]

36. Over 14 years $50 million averages out to $3.6 million in extra expenses per year, or $9,800 per day

[FreakinDJ]

17. Oh Shit - this is just a Warm-Up of things to come in the GE

[Zynx]

18. I bet it's fairly simple. They spend a lot.

I think they live very high and have a high burn rate.

[UCmeNdc]

20. Well are you sure you accounted for all of their assets?

Do you really have all of the records or are you missing something?

Forbes is trying to mind other people's business and when you look at other people's business you most likely do not have a complete picture. Try to account for all of Donald Trump's wealth. Or look at all of the Bush family's wealth. I bet you cannot account for all of Bush's money.

[Vinca]

24. Grand Cayman? LOL.

[Jarqui]

26. Maybe the St Kitts passports Lanny Davis was peddling was for them!

http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1280&pid=105804


There was a bunch of undisclosed revenues in the Clinton Foundation financial disclosure. They had to do them again.

[Karma13612]

27. This is where I draw the line:

I am a Bernie Sanders supporter.

I care about Hillary's bad judgement regarding a private email and email server.
There is something there that needs discussing. And it is being investigated.
It isn't a conspiracy.

But, as far as what she does with her money, I could care less.
If she has reported all income, and paid her taxes as she should, and it is all above board, I seriously don't give a hoot what she does with her money.
If she is hiding income and not claiming it on taxes, then go after her.

If the money is being used for an illegal purpose, then throw the book at her.

But, If she wants to spend what's left of her money (that has properly been reported and taxed first) on blue eyed, purple coated Pandas, I seriously do not care. It is none of anyone's business how she spends her money if it was legal.

[snagglepuss]

30. If the Clintons had left politics, niether of them ever to comeback, you may have a point

however since Bill left the WH everyone knew Hillary's ambitions so every corporation hiring Bill, donating to the Clinton Foundation did so with expectations that their largesse would be not forgotten.

[FreakinDJ]

32. Its not bad judgement - its the Clinton Sleaze factor

That old meme of playing on words has once again come home to roost

[grasswire]

33. do you not care about the apparent corruption between...

...the Foundation and Hillary's SoS position? Where lucrative contracts were dispensed to entities that donated millions to the Foundation?

There is plenty to be investigated regarding the Clintons' finances.And we can be sure that if she is the Democratic nominee, Republicans will have already done the research and destroy her with it.

She's simply too flawed to represent Democrats.

[Karma13612]

41. I do care about corruption, "proven" or "being investigated" corruption.

Sanders supporters are always criticized when we criticize Hillary on the email issue.

I can't stand her affiliations and alliances, and all the other (stinky) stuff that seems to follow the Clinton's around.

And as I said, if she has done anything illegal, throw the whole book at her (figuratively of course).

But, I hate when people start slicing and dicing her net worth and how much she makes and spends and reports and pays taxes on, etc.

When it's legal, its none of our business.

[snagglepuss]

44. It's shocking that some dems blow off this level of greed and sleeze.

[Skwmom]

37. Hmmmm....Well, you could ask what some other rich people have been doing with their money?

That might provide you with some possible answers....

[speaktruthtopower]

38. Trust

Maybe they put it in a trust for Chelsea. ??

[wyldwolf]

42. DAMN!

I wish I'd made $230 million, all legally, like they did. Based on the number of people who play the lottery each week, I'm not alone.