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Old 02-28-2013, 09:21 AM   #411
Figleaf23
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Default Re: Cost of living and Starting Wealth 20%/80%

Quote:
Originally Posted by Brett View Post
They get a pension equal to the salary of the head of an executive department ($199,700), Secret Service protection, "suitable office space", a salaried staff, an allowance for office expenses (paid for by the GSA), travel allowance, and free postage. (In 2008 that totalled $1,160,000 per year for Clinton's ex-presidential office.) If they establish a presidential library the National Archive assumes the expense of running it. They get free treatment in military hospitals; two-term presidents are entitled to buy very cheap health insurance from the government. And their entitlement to a state funeral amounts to free insurance of funeral expenses, while certain entitlements to their widows also amount to a small amount of free life insurance.
And we should add their claim to exclusive hospitality in DC, per sir_pudding, above.

Now then, to compare this package to the rulebook, b265-266:

(a) The $1.16M/year+ cost of the package on and annual basis puts it over the Status 4 ($720,000) range a little, but well short of the Status 5 ($7,200,000) level. Bearing in mind that some ex-presidents will also have their own wealth to spend on lifestyle as well, this seems like a good ballpark, within the multiplicative scale of resolution between SS CoL levels.

(b) Now to consider the lifestyle descriptions from B266:

i) Ex presidents are protected by the Secret Service, but of course the whole agency is not working on them alone. Status 4 provides "often including at least one bodyguard", while Status 5 provides "often including a team of bodyguards". The 'often' qualifier makes for a fair bit of interpretation within this range and I know nothing about the extent of service provided -- does anyone know how much protection it involves?

ii) Office staff -- Status 5 lifestyle includes "dozens of functionaries" while Status 4 has "many servants". Going by the annual budget number, I'd be inclined to say it's not enough to afford dozens of functionaries, so the Status 4 description is a better fit for this part.

iii) Vehicles -- Secret Service protection probably includes 24hr limosine service, approximating presumably "a limosine" provided for Status 4. No provision is made for the ex presidents for either "yacht or private light aircraft ... few luxury cars" (SS4) or "executive jet, a yacht, a small fleet of vehicles" (SS5).*

(iv) Residences -- ex presidents are provided nothing in the nature of a mansion of any size. The combination of the ex-president's club and "suitable office space" might be considered to amount to a reasonable interpretation of a secondary residence, but it doesn't cover the whole property component for either SS4 or SS5*.

(v) Entitlements -- no comparators for Basic Set.

(vi) Monetary benefits -- Items marked with an askerisk above are not provided directly by the government, but may be considered within the envelope of the money paid directly: travel allowance and pension of $200K. Without any real knowledge, I'm just going to guess that the travel allowance would probably equate better with the air service of an SS5 executive jet (albeit taken as first-class commercial much of the time) rather than the SS4 private light aircraft. That leaves a yacht and a mansion to cover with $200K/yr.

200K/yr puts you over the CoL of Status 3 which includes a small mansion and other properties and a small yacht, and so added to the items provided in i-v, it looks like the government is providing ex presidents a clear CoL commensurate with SS4, pushing SS5. Wealthier individuals' would top this up to their own expectations of course.

Last edited by Figleaf23; 02-28-2013 at 11:00 AM.
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