Reading about Obamas' financial calculations while making decisions about running is a reminder of how precarious the positions of many politicians are in this country. Unlike India where elected office seems to lead to wealth way beyond the salaries, US pols have to work for it.

And book deals and speaker fees are often the only ways for them to provide for their families if they don't come from wealth. Ulysses Grant resisted book deals for decades, considering it undignified. But in dying days, finished one just to leave money for his family.

In India, politicians seem to be exempt from even the basic questions about how their wealth seems wildly disproportionate to their incomes. No one, from any party, gets asked this. Where the huge houses and multiple cars come from.

In the US, ethics rules and norms make it difficult for a politician to just nakedly profit, unless you're shameless and evil about it like Trump. In fact many wealthy candidates go out of their way to NOT profit, through blind trusts etc. Hope Trump is an aberration.

It is sobering and oddly reassuring to read that someone still paying off student loans could become president. Or after almost 40 years in the Senate and 6 as VP, Biden still struggled a bit to pay for his son's funeral and almost had to borrow money.

The fact that Trump got away with never releasing his taxes shows how widespread and common it was and still is for politicians to release their tax returns. As a basic hygienic thing almost, to show, hey, I got nothing up hide. No one thought to make it legally mandatory.