A bit less, as the Javitz center gets some of the money too, there are promoters and organizers, advertising expenses…. I’d guess the bigger names are getting more like one million than three. Still, not bad.

“I’m a big fan of Clinton’s. But can he be this desperate for money and/or attention?”

You have to be not merely “not desparate” but pretty astoundingly blase about money to turn down $1,000,000 for one night’s work. I’m sure Clinton’s well off, but even at the Bill Gates level $1,000,000 isn’t pocket change.

These people “stand up on a stage and tell you how to run your lives”

The reality:

Most of these people stand up on stage and share something from their lives. A story, a bit of philosophy, something that made a lasting impression on them.

In lieu of an actual day-in, day-out mentor, I can see the clear value in understanding what drives people who have achieved great success (they can say what they will about Clinton, but in many ways he’s the poster child for the American Dream) or have been in situations you’ll never find yourself in (that’d be your Bianca Jagger).

I could do without the John Grays or the psychics, but I’d view them as the “bad” you take so you can get the “good.”

That said, I probably wouldn’t attend something like this myself, but I can understand the value.

I say it’s the attention Clinton craves not the money. He can’t stand being irrelevant.

I was wondering who the hell would pay these exorbitant prices. How could anyone so obviously lacking in anything resembling a life, have enough money, or the will to spend it, on this stuff.

But I sense a meta agenda.

Hold a glitzed up event like this, get a list of all the companies stupid enough to pay this kind of money for nothing worth having; then make a bundle shorting them all.

i don’t even care if people worship the almighty dollar — at least in theory they are trying to achieve material comfort. but the endless reinforcement of the primacy of the arisctracy of celebrity — and the endless success of that reinforcment — makes me despair, profoundly.

jeff — still wonder why we can’t seem to recognize truly evil bad guys when they blow themselves up in our faces? maybe because we have traded in our souls (or spirits or whatever) for a dollop of pseudo proximity to celebrity, and so have disabled our moral compasses

John Gray is not from Pluto. He’s from the circus – He wears more makeup than a clown and uses an even foggier lens filter than Barbara Walters. What a freak.

And Dr. Phil is just an idiot. I wonder if Oprah is rueing the day…

ABC sends preview copies to right-wing blogheads in hopes of spreading lies and Jarvis has nothing to say. (No surprise! Nope none at all!)

ABC denies request by the ex-president to see this mockumentary which contains scenes “shameful” “straight out of disneyland” about his presidency and Jarvis has nothing to say. (No surprise. Nope none at all.)

Saint Rudy Guiliani has been a frequent shill for these kinds of motivational shows ever since he became a “hero” on 9/11 and Jarvis has failed to say one negative thing about it but he jumps at the chance to bash the ex-president for doing a similar thing. (No surprise. NONE AT ALL.)

And as to ‘* Sir Richard Branson (is he not rich enough yet?).’ – what do expect from some one named after Branson, MO?

I prefer the whole bunch of the above to any televangelist offering to sell you a pre-blessed prayer rug for, say, $50, that will give you undying faith in whatever else he offers for $ and oh, by the way, prosperity.

And why haven’t you heard of them Jeff? It’s really no different when we watch the news and someone we’ve never seen nor heard get the pretty little title of “Terrorism expert” and some of us actually believe it. Which is more outrageous, people who you never heard of giving speeches no one will ever remember or having a “expert” on tv telling us what’s happening?