4475

Being a celebrity is not unethical as long as everyone knows it only a celebrity interaction. It only becomes unethical if the buyer gets a meeting with Biden or gets his agenda into government action somehow.

4476

Yep, and the fact that buyer knows it’s a Biden painting but Biden doesn’t know who bought it, well that’s the plan designed to avoid that very issue.

4477

The concern people have is that the person would bought it could easily take a picture with it and send the picture to Biden, thus showing they bought it.

In my head if that happens Biden should report it to the FBI as a bribery attempt or the like, though I’m sure nothing would come of it unless they were dumb enough to send explicit bribery crap with the email, it seems the right path to take.

I feel like it’s a scenario that could be worked around without too much work.

But then again art auctions are basically money laundering.

4478

Some good anecdotes in this old piece from 2006.

4479

But that person can simply SAY they bought it. Having the seller keeping that information from Biden doesn’t accomplish anything, because it doesn’t actually keep that information secret.

I would actually say that this is unethical, on it’s face, not for Joe, but for Hunter. But this is more because I feel like it’s unethical on some level to exploit this kind of inherited celebrity. Hunter Biden didn’t actually do anything to earn his celebrity in this case. Again, this is not some huge thing, but it is scummy, at least to me.

But the problem we will have, is that this will no doubt create the appearance of impropriety. That’s actually the reason for many of the ethical rules the white house normally followed prior to Trump. It creates a potential for a conflict of interest, because people are funneling money to Biden’s son, based on nothing more than because he is Biden’s son

Now, Joe can’t really do much to stop this (although he could say that any person who bought such works would be prohibited for any kind of government work or dealings), which is why I’m not really faulting him. I’m faulting Hunter for putting his father in this position.

4480

You want me to be outraged about something that not only hasn’t happened but may never happen.

Hunter can paint if he wants. Idiots can pay him whatever they want for those paintings. If there is ever a line crossed… call me. Until then, Hunter is a citizen who has a right to paint if he wants to.

4481

I’d agree with that.

Then again, it’s Hunter Biden, so it’s kind of expected at this point, at least for me.

4482

Yeah, that’s kind of why it’s absurd… you would have though he would have learned his lesson on this by now.

But it turns out, the lesson he learned was “exploit being the son of Joe Biden to get people to give you unearned money”.

Classy dude.

4483

I assume you hold the Kardashians to this standard? By this metric, there are a whole lot of people who shouldn’t be profiting from celebrity.

4484

I mean there’s a larger discussion here that is kindof implicit in the subject: should the President’s children and immediate family be able to earn money? If so, are there limits to that?

I think it would be silly to suggest that the President’s kids should have to quit their jobs. Should they be able to accept new job offers while their parent is the President? There’s certainly the potential for that to be abused, but we don’t seem to have a problem with it.

Should the President’s children be able to earn money by writing a book? If so, why is that different than selling paintings, especially if nobody even knows who the buyer is?

Personally I’d prefer to not have to worry about this by electing Presidents young enough to not have adult children.

4485

Yeah, they are pretty trash too.

4486

Better yet, let’s only get people who are not married in case their spouse somehow benefit. Or what about people without families, don’t want anyone with the same last name or anyone tied with the same last name to get a chance to maybe be invited to some party they wouldn’t have and hear a conversation they shouldn’t have heard or maybe get more feet in the door of their floral arranging business just because they’re the great great grandson of some elected official.

Perhaps we should just Rimworld the hell of out our elected officials, only people grown in vats with no connections to the outside world can safely assume office.

4487

I think the answers are clearly “yes” and “yes”.

If hunter Biden was ALWAYS a painter, that would be fine.

If hunter Biden had some other job, and continued to do so, that would also be fine.

Now, of course, I would say that even in those cases which are “fine” there would still be limitations put in place to prevent the creating of the appearance of impropriety. If someone paid such a kid, I would not allow that corporation is person to benefit from government contracts, and other such limitations.

But in this case, hunter Biden suddenly decides he wants to be a painter, essentially deciding that he wants to collect checks from people based on LITERALLY nothing more than the fact he is Joe Biden’s son.

That’s the part that makes this crossing the line for me. The fact that you have a member of the first family directly profiting based on his membership in the first family.

4488

I don’t think (and correct me if I’m wrong) Timex is saying “this is bad and Hunter should not be allowed to do this”, or “…and should be punished for it”, he’s saying "this is bad and Hunter is a bad person for doing this.

To which I agree. This is clear grifter behavior. There’s nothing to stop him, but if he isn’t destitute and desperate for money to survive, it’s a shitty thing to do.

It’s not even to say that the valuation is “wrong”. There’s lots of other ways to also be a grifter in the fine art market. I think most people involved there are kinda shitty, too, to various degrees.

4489

Would you be equally upset if he wrote a book? Plenty of celebrities profit from memoirs that sell mainly because they are famous. Including political leaders.

4490

Yes, this is exactly it.

Now, i think the white house could have handled this better. As painter pointed out, full transparency would be better than this false secrecy.

But the real criticism here is leveled at hunter for being scum.

4491

Yeah, fair enough. I don’t disagree that the guy is shady in a lot of ways.

4492

I would think that such a thing would generally be ok to do AFTER Biden left office.

But honestly, I would be less critical of that either way, as a book would have some actual value to readers perhaps… Now, if the book sold for $10,000 per copy, that would probably be a bit sketchy.

4493

Yep.

There are a lot of people who make money doing things that have nothing to do with merits, like what most of the celebrity children who get their foot in the door because of mom or dad, or the rich who get to stand in front of angel investors because again mom and dad. I mean… it’s not even uncommon. This definitely be a 4-5-6 roll on a d6 kind of thing. And again, they have a weak ass attempt to at least try and disconnect the office from this.

President or no president. Joe’s a dad. I am sure he just wants his kid to succeed regardless of how others feel about it.

4494

This isn’t “success” for Hunter Biden.

This is him selling paintings for dramatically increased prices, because of who his dad is.

It’s grifter behavior. Hunter Biden is a grifter.

And honestly, is a shitty thing to do TO HIS DAD. We’ve already been through this crap. He’s already created flack for his father from doing exactly this kind of crap. And now he’s doing it more. He’s a shitty son.