- His disclosures, both from his final year in Congress and his time as Minnesota governor, also show no mutual funds, bonds, private equities, or other securities.
- No book deals or speaking fees or crypto or racehorse interests.
- Not even real estate. The couple sold their Mankato, Minnesota, home after moving into the governor’s mansion, for below the $315k asking price).
Investment isn’t necessarily about the accumulation of wealth. You need $1.33 today to have the same purchasing power you had with $1.00 ten years ago, so unless your total return on investment has been 33% or more over the last ten years, you have effectively lost money. You could get that rate of return with very low-risk investments like Treasury bonds.
But, again, why bother throwing away his good image of being a politician without anything incentivizing self-interests when he’s already set for life? If the guy lives another 25 years, and assuming the value of his $200k/year pension stays the same while the purchasing power of it is reduced to 1/1.332.5 (or about 50%), he effectively gets the equivalent of $100k a year in today’s money. That’s still going to be plenty to live comfortably.