Interesting Numbers.

UW Law Professor Victoria Nourse's net worth?
Would you believe ... $20 million?

Now I ask, all these well-to-do social justice people: what if you forgo the "public servant" route -- whether it be teaching at a public law school or working to effect social justice as a potential judge candidate -- and instead took your private money into the private sector to form private philanthropies where you could put your public policy preferences into practice? On your own private dime?

I'm often thought Ezra Klein should get out of the public sphere, and take his taxpayer-money-costing big ideals into private practice, where he could use private dollars to either sink -- as it seems the healthcare overhaul he and Krugman championed on the private Jourolist is doing now, at major cost to the economy -- or swim. Paddle, paddle, paddle ... and get somewhere on the strength of his own efforts.

Keep the taxpayers out of this private do-gooder secular religion. It's the only chance we got now, of getting out from under and remaining competitive before the Well To Do simply wipe out the middle- and working-classes.

I know they mean well, but these numbers just aren't adding up.

7th Circuit Nominee's Net Worth: Nearly $20M

Victoria Nourse, a nominee for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit, would likely leap into the ranks of the wealthiest federal judges if she is confirmed.

Nourse reported a household net worth of $19.8 million in a financial disclosure required as part of the Senate confirmation process. That’s exceptionally high for a federal judicial nominee, even compared to those who come from private practice. Nourse has been a law professor at the University of Wisconsin in Madison since 1993.

The disclosure report doesn’t ask nominees where their wealth comes from, but Nourse’s husband, Richard Cudahy Jr., is descended from the founder of meat processor Patrick Cudahy Inc. He works at the investment firm Robert W. Baird & Co.

(Nourse’s father-in-law, Richard Cudahy Sr., is a senior judge on the 7th Circuit. He is expected to retire if Nourse is confirmed, according to her answers to a separate Senate questionnaire (PDF).)

Most of the couple’s investments are held in seven separate family trusts, according to the disclosure report. The investments include a wide variety of stock in publicly traded companies, mutual fund shares and bonds. Their largest single investment, valued at $1.3 million, is in a fund run by GMO LLC., a mutual fund company with offices in Boston and San Francisco.

In 2009, Nourse made $198,291 as a law professor, spending the year as a visiting professor at Emory University. She also made $809 in book royalties.

I'm guessing: she gets tax help to "hide" some of the profits of those book royalties. Still, shouldn't she be home, helping to raise some Cudahy heirs? (I sexistly joke! Like Barry O. !)

And hey,
didn't Blago get his political job too, based on the power and wealth of his father in law? Anybody remember how well that one turned out?