printSonia Sotomayor has a “fail” on FICO. Unless Barack has intervened, her credit score is probably abysmal. How “wise” can this Latina lady be if she’s financially reckless? Moreover, and with all the talk of her extraordinary empathic powers, The American Thinker wonders how Ms. Sotomayor will be capable of “empathizing” with “tens of millions of Americans who do have investments, 401Ks, and personal savings,” since “after so many years of highly paid professional work, [she] has no savings or investments”:
“Sotomayor’s annual earnings come to $196,000 a year ($170,000 a year as an appeals judge and $26,000 for part-time teaching). She has served as an appeals judge for 17 years. This service was preceded by lengthy tenure at a corporate law firm of Pavia and Harcourt, where she was a partner, and presumably was well compensated.
Yet after a career that has spanned 25 years, Ms Sotomayor only has one thousand dollars in net savings. As reported in the New York Post, Sotomayor’s bank account holds $31,985. Her credit cards debts are $15,823, and she has $15,000 in unpaid dental bills. That leaves her with $1,162. Sotomayor’s total assets, revealed as $708,068, consist almost entirely of equity in her Manhattan apartment. The judge’s financial filing does not disclose what percentage of this figure is unrealized gain, but it must be sizable. In other words, other than home equity, Ms Sotomayor is essentially broke.”
I’m not sure whether any fair assessment can be made with just these cold numbers. As a prominent and well-paid Latina woman, maybe she’s victim of the ‘Big Woman’ phenomena, with a whole court of supplicants and relatives leaching off her ? So it might well be a ‘cultural thing’ that would thus be ‘good’ and off-limits to legitimate inquiry. Smile
People who cannot manage their money also make significantly worse insurance risks than those who do manage their money. Reckless in one area, probably reckless in another. And now she’ll be deciding Supreme Court cases. We are so screwed.
Unrealized gain?
More like realized loss if she has to sell it in this lousy market, especially an overpriced one like NY City.
She’s a bimbo.
Sonia earns more $$ than me and doesn’t have a kid to raise – she should be able to save money. On the other hand, considering the BATH that my assets have taken last year, maybe it is better to just spend it! Doesn’t she have a 401k with the federal thrift plan? Well, Thomas Jefferson was a financial deadbeat so perhaps we should hope that she uses his philosophy of government and liberty when she makes her decisions.
Do federal judges need to save? I believe that their salaries are the same as those of members of the House of Representatives, so they’ll certainly increase to keep pace with inflation. The Constitution says that federal judges serve “during good behavior,” but effectively a federal judgeship is a lifetime appointment. With a salary somewhere above the ninety-fifth percentile guaranteed for life, I wouldn’t worry about saving. Would you?
On the other hand, Ms. Sotomayor might have undisclosed savings offshore.