- 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).
Maybe he doesn’t want to be wealthy but only wants to live comfortably? It’s not a common way of living, but it’s far from unimaginable.
If someone doesn’t intend to live beyond reasonable means and has an emergency fund and income that will last until they die, they don’t need to invest in anything. Money doesn’t follow you into the grave, and wealth accumulation ror the sake of wealth accumulation benefits nobody.
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.