Tonight the former US president, Mr Bill Clinton, will make a speech at a Morgan Stanley Dean Witter convention in Boca Raton, Florida, his first since leaving office, for which he will receive $100,000.
That's about the same amount paid to ex-President George Bush snr for his first post-White House appearances, and it pales into insignificance compared to the $2 million Mr Ronald Reagan received from a Japanese company for delivering two speeches.
But Mr Clinton's personal finances have become a matter of such intense public debate that his plans to raise money on the lecture circuit have become a subject of much critical comment. The controversy began over the disclosure that just before leaving the White House he and his wife, Mrs Hillary Rodham Clinton, accepted $190,027 in gifts from friends and supporters for their New York state home at Chappaqua, and that Mr Clinton is renting an 8,300 sq ft office in Manhattan which will cost taxpayers $624,000 a year - more than the annual rent of the offices of the previous four living ex-presidents.
The gifts included: two coffee tables and two chairs worth $7,375 from Mrs Denise Rich, former wife of the fugitive commodities trader, Mr Marc Rich, whom Mr Clinton pardoned on his last day in office; china valued at $4,920 from the Hollywood director Steven Spielberg; a pants suit and sweater costing $585 from Ms Margaret O'Leary of San Francisco and a $350 golf driver from the actor Jack Nicholson.
In an attempt to assuage mounting accusations of tawdry behaviour - they were accused by the New York Times of a "grasping approach to money and political favours" and of amassing a "distasteful glut" of free home furnishings - the couple rushed to limit the damage.
On Friday evening they issued a statement saying they would reimburse these and 24 other donors who gave gifts totaling $86,000 in 2000 (leaving Mr Clinton $14,000 ahead on today's speech).
Mrs Clinton in particular had come in for considerable criticism for rushing to acquire donated household items before taking her seat in the US Senate where there is a $50 ceiling on the value of gifts accepted.
"I believe the step we are taking today reaffirms that I am fully committed to being the best senator I can possibly be for the people of New York," she said. Mrs Rich, who claimed that the gifts were solicited to help furnish the Clintons' five-bedroom home, said yesterday she would pass her cheque from the Clintons to earthquake relief in India.
The former First Lady has also been criticised for refusing to disclose details of an $8 million book contract with Simon & Schuster, which is part of Viacom, a company with an interest in Senate decisions.
Regarding his new work space, the former president announced that his philanthropic William J. Clinton Foundation will pay $300,000 of the $624,000-a-year rent on his 56th floor office overlooking Central Park in the "white-glove service" Carnegie Hall Tower between the Russian Tea Room and Carnegie Hall.
"I don't want the taxpayers to be taken for a ride on the lease," he said, pointing out that high rent is "part of being in New York".
Every US president is entitled to publicly funded office space on leaving the White House and Mr Clinton said that his would cost little more per square foot than taxpayers pay for the office of Mr Reagan in Century City, California.
Settling into the start of his new career in New York at the weekend, Mr Clinton met Indian-American businessmen to organise a fund-raising drive for victims of the January 26th earthquake in India.