Kavanaugh's finances

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Even as an appeals court judge, he never would retire so didn’t really need retirement savings except to support his wife after he is gone. But I would never be that far in debt on credit cards. We pay off every month. Unless he was buying a big block of tickets for friends and waiting for them to pay him back, it’s stupid to buy tickets you don’t have cash for.

I sort of assumed he had family money—what did his dad do?

None of us can count on that. Senility, dementia, chronic disease - it is downright stupid to forgo retirement savings based on "never retiring."

I am boggled that anyone with his education would be so stupid. It tells us that he has terrible, terrible judgment.

None of those things will remove you from the bench. There are plenty of senile and very infirm senior status judges who still get paid. They get good clerks who push out the work and, if they are appellate judges, sit on panels where their colleagues cover for them. If I was guaranteed to be paid six figures until the day I dropped dead, regardless of how much work I did, I might also blow my retirement on fun stuff.

Have you ever cared for someone with Alzheimer’s, or significant dementia? Some people forget how to speak, do not recognize anyone, do not know/remember how to swallow.

My mother lived like this for years.

Have you ever spent time with a person with ALS? Or Parkinson’s? People in advanced stages of these diseases can barely handle the activities of daily living, much less a job. Of any kind. No matter how much support was built in.

There is absolutely no way that someone with that degree of infirmity could work. No way.

Typically, Alzheimer's is a very long, slow road. So there is quite a long time in many cases between forgetting and not being functional able to care for oneself. But sadly, I agree with the poster that you are responding to -- there are some judges with fairly serious memory issues sitting on the bench.

[Anonymous]

I have the same HHI as he does and I'm just imagining my husband telling me, "you know what, I decided against buying upper deck Nats seats for this weekend's game. Instead I took a loan from my TSP (401K) to buy box seats for the rest of the year".
This is insanity.

[Anonymous]

Don’t really care about Kavanaugh one way or the other, but TBH he sounds like MANY MANY of my attorney peers who are morons when it comes to anything involving numbers while having a keeping up with the Joneses problem. What happens then – well that’s how you end up being 53, having a 300k HHI, and having freaking 500-565k in retirement between you and your wife and 65k in assets with an 800k+ mortgage remaining and apparently 200k in other debt at times including 401k loans!? And these people aren’t spending 50k/yr per kid on private school – more like 10k/yr per kid on catholic school.

I realize a 401k doesn’t matter bc judges get a salary for life upon retirement anyway, so maybe they just aren’t putting money into retirement – but they sure as hell aren’t using it to save some cash/investments (as demonstrated by assets of 65k and CC debt) or pay down the 800k in mortgage they’re sitting on in their 50s.

He wasn’t biglaw for long looking at his bio – maybe from 1998-2001 at most and it’s even possible he was non equity for some/all of that time bc Kirkland has a 2 tier structure. But even not being a partner – come on. At an HHI of 240k and more like 300k with the wife working – they’re not saving bc they have judgment problems, like many lawyers I know in DC.

[Anonymous]

I presume everyone criticizing the finances realizes that the current pension is probably worth about $5,000,000 presuming relatively normal rates of return and retirement ages.

[Anonymous]

I posted this on the political forum before I realized there is a thread about his finances: The mishandling of his finances is a really big deal actually. Check out bar exam character and fitness requirements - and this is just to be admitted to the bar - we’re talking about the Supreme Court here

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I posted this on the political forum before I realized there is a thread about his finances: The mishandling of his finances is a really big deal actually. Check out bar exam character and fitness requirements - and this is just to be admitted to the bar - we’re talking about the Supreme Court here

As unimpressed as I am with Kavanaugh's personal financial decisions, it's not that kind of mishandling of finances. He's not defaulting on loans, passing bad checks, stealing client money or anything like that. He's just not being responsible with his family's financial security.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Don’t really care about Kavanaugh one way or the other, but TBH he sounds like MANY MANY of my attorney peers who are morons when it comes to anything involving numbers while having a keeping up with the Joneses problem. What happens then – well that’s how you end up being 53, having a 300k HHI, and having freaking 500-565k in retirement between you and your wife and 65k in assets with an 800k+ mortgage remaining and apparently 200k in other debt at times including 401k loans!? And these people aren’t spending 50k/yr per kid on private school – more like 10k/yr per kid on catholic school.

I realize a 401k doesn’t matter bc judges get a salary for life upon retirement anyway, so maybe they just aren’t putting money into retirement – but they sure as hell aren’t using it to save some cash/investments (as demonstrated by assets of 65k and CC debt) or pay down the 800k in mortgage they’re sitting on in their 50s.

He wasn’t biglaw for long looking at his bio – maybe from 1998-2001 at most and it’s even possible he was non equity for some/all of that time bc Kirkland has a 2 tier structure. But even not being a partner – come on. At an HHI of 240k and more like 300k with the wife working – they’re not saving bc they have judgment problems, like many lawyers I know in DC.

I know lawyers like this too. It's amazing the things fellow colleagues will let slip that will give you insight into their financial lives. And unlike this judge, they don't have the potential of earning their yearly salary in perpetuity nor can they get the types of speaking engagements and book deals he'll get as a sup ct justice.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Why do people keep talking like he spent his entire career in public service? The guy was a Kirkland & Ellis partner for crying out loud.

i don't think he was ever a K&E equity partner. big law associate salaries were not high in the 90s - starting salaries were WELL under 6 figures. They didn't start getting astronomical until 2000 - when one of the silicon valley firms raised salaries, and the other big law firms jumped in and started a wave of salary increases. so it sounds like he was only there for a short while before the gravy train salaries began.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Where are the reports that he tapped into his retirement fund to pay off his debts? I haven’t seen that anywhere.

The Washington post story for one.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why do people keep talking like he spent his entire career in public service? The guy was a Kirkland & Ellis partner for crying out loud.

i don't think he was ever a K&E equity partner. big law associate salaries were not high in the 90s - starting salaries were WELL under 6 figures. They didn't start getting astronomical until 2000 - when one of the silicon valley firms raised salaries, and the other big law firms jumped in and started a wave of salary increases. so it sounds like he was only there for a short while before the gravy train salaries began.

It looks like he was at Kirkland from around 98-2001. He’s a 1990 grad I think so he was likely hired out of the govt as a non equity partner bc KE has a 3 year non equity track but he left within 3 yrs and joined the Bush administration.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why do people keep talking like he spent his entire career in public service? The guy was a Kirkland & Ellis partner for crying out loud.

i don't think he was ever a K&E equity partner. big law associate salaries were not high in the 90s - starting salaries were WELL under 6 figures. They didn't start getting astronomical until 2000 - when one of the silicon valley firms raised salaries, and the other big law firms jumped in and started a wave of salary increases. so it sounds like he was only there for a short while before the gravy train salaries began.

To be fair though law school wasn't nearly as outrageously expensive back then as it is now.

[Anonymous]

I am the daughter of the judge. IMO this is a keeping up with the Joneses problem, which is easy to fall into in DC, especially with Big Law friends. Judges are in it for the title and prestige, not the money, but damn this guy is an idiot.

Looking at his reports I'm just glad my parents were very frugal and had outside investments other than the low judges salary we were living on.

[Anonymous]

We spend about 3K/year on really awesome Nats tickets. We are part of a group that spends a much bigger dollar amount in total. Someone puts that whole amount on a credit card and that gets paid back. I doubt he ultimately paid more than a few thousand for his own tickets.

Federal financial reporting for judges I suspect is a lot like reporting for SES level employees. You report your debt at a given point in time and it is in ranges. It is how much you owed that month. The debt could be $60K or it could be $200K, we do not know. And we do not know the amount or what the TSP loan was for.

FWIW, I am a long time fed, 53 years old with twice as much in my TSP (as does my DH) and a $350K HHI. We do not have kids in private.

He is not a financial genius, nor is he an idiot. This is what UMC living is like in DC for many.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I posted this on the political forum before I realized there is a thread about his finances: The mishandling of his finances is a really big deal actually. Check out bar exam character and fitness requirements - and this is just to be admitted to the bar - we’re talking about the Supreme Court here

As unimpressed as I am with Kavanaugh's personal financial decisions, it's not that kind of mishandling of finances. He's not defaulting on loans, passing bad checks, stealing client money or anything like that. He's just not being responsible with his family's financial security.

Agreed. His low net worth does not equal the financial malfeasance that would rise to a bar/ethics inquiry. More just bad money management.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I presume everyone criticizing the finances realizes that the current pension is probably worth about $5,000,000 presuming relatively normal rates of return and retirement ages.

He’s in the new system and it’s not that great. Not for someone who needs a certain standard of living...