Looking at two recent news stories…
“Ex-SEAL Member Who Wrote Book on Bin Laden Raid Forfeits $6.8 Million” (nytimes) indicates that the total pre-tax income for writing a bestselling non-fiction account of the death of Osama Bin Laden was roughly $6.7 million. This compares unfavorably with the minimum of $7 million post-tax that Amber Heard obtained by being married to Johnny Depp for one year (see previous posting and also the comments in which I note that there is no way to know if the $7 million payment we’ve read about is the complete financial transfer from defendant to plaintiff; if Amber Heard had wanted to make a $7 million charitable contribution and be divorced from Depp it would have made a lot more sense to donate from a joint checking account and then sue Depp only for divorce without seeking alimony, property division, legal fees, etc.).
A good example of how thoughtfully working the U.S. family law system is more lucrative than achieving success in the non-sexual part of the economy. (Mr. Bissonnette now finds himself stripped of the entire $6.7 million, so his success was unfortunately fleeting.)
Related:
Hillary forfeited nothing, by the way.
Reading your review-slash-comparison of these two news stories (and discounting for a moment the snafu with the book’s author not seeking Pentagon’s permission to publish), I get an impression that, for Mr. Bissonnette to make any real profit out of it, he should have married Bin Laden on the spot, then done the job, then sued OBL’s dynastic family for… posthumous palimony? Sued in American court, of course, in a suitably chosen state known for LARGE awards in such cases. Of course, I could have misread your juxtaposing these two positions.
ianf: To make money via having sex and/or having children, Mr. Bissonnette could have simply stayed in his home state of Alaska where men are able to get 50/50 shared parenting of children. See http://www.realworlddivorce.com/Alaska for the history. A Congressional Medal of Honor-winning Marine had sex with Bristol Palin and has sued for child support profits (see http://blog.seattlepi.com/seattlepolitics/2016/01/07/bristol-palin-being-sued-for-child-support-by-ex-fiancee-and-medal-of-honor-winner/ ).
Alternatively, he can go to one of the better Lower 48 states (e.g., California) and marry a high-income spouse, wait 10 years and then collect alimony. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x0gaYyNk7QA explains the 10-year rule.