The amount of s--- that has been thrown at Sonia Sotomayor is truly amazing.
Now we have another entry in the "most unfair attack on Sonia Sotomayor" sweepstakes...
Greg Mankiw writes:
Greg Mankiw's Blog: SCOTUS nominee is a spender: [T]here are two types of people: Some save and intertemporally optimize their consumption plans, while others live paycheck to paycheck.... Some people with low incomes manage to scrimp and save (I always think of my grandmother), and some people with high incomes spend most everything they earn. Apparently, the new Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor is an example of the latter. The Washington Post reports that the 54-year-old Sotomayer has a $179,500 yearly salary but on her financial disclosure report for 2007, she said her only financial holdings were a Citibank checking and savings account, worth $50,000 to $115,000 combined. During the previous four years, the money in the accounts at some points was listed as low as $30,000. My grandmother would have been shocked and appalled to see someone who makes so much save so little...
Sonia Sotomayor has a large defined benefit pension with a current market value of roughly $2.5 million.
Sonia Sotomayor has roughly $1 million in equity in her Greeenwich Village condo.
Sonia Sotomayor has no descendents to bequeath wealth too.
I bet Greg Mankiw's grandmother would indeed be shocked and appalled--but not at the fact that Sonia Sotomayor is a millionaire three times over with a 20:1 wealth-to-income ratio.
