Payday for Vodicka

[RGV Pony]

http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent ... ff9eb.html

"I can retire if I want to"

"I can live off the interest for life"

says he.

[OR-See-Nee]

Interesting comments to the article.

[Junior]

Those condos were dumps when I lived there in the 90's. This guy was just grandstanding to make himself feel important and put himself in the spotlight.

[that's great raplh]

must have been a fotuen - givent hat interest rates are at rock bottom lows

i hope he gives his money to maddoff

[Longtime]

I guess it really wasn't all about the money....

You think he'll share his settlement with the other former condo owners?

[RE Tycoon]

Makes me so sad that jerks like this can pull this crap and profit.

I'm sure that money SMU spent on lawyers and settlements (around $10 million it sounds like, when you figure legal costs for SMU and $1 million plus settlements for each side), could have been better used on the University (or Moody!).

[RE Tycoon]

From D Mag Blog:

http://frontburner.dmagazine.com/2010/0 ... dicka-for/

How Much Did SMU Really Settle With Gary Vodicka For?

Gary Vodicka brags that he could live off the interest of his settlement with SMU. Really? REALLY really? I don’t think so. I asked someone who’s better with numbers than I to do the math. His back-of-envelope figuring:

The settlement it taxable - either as a capital gain (if it relates to damages to a capital asset, such as a house) or ordinary income (if it relates to, say, loss of income). Let’s give him the benefit of the doubt and assume that it’s taxable at the most favorable long-term capital gains rate of 15%. But first, we have to figure in the attorneys’ fees - of 40% of the recovery (after expenses). I believe that most people could live comfortably on $120,000 after taxes ($10,000 per month to spend), meaning that they would have to earn around $160,000 in interest (assuming an effective tax rate of 25%, figuring in the graduated rates), because interest is taxable as ordinary income. Finally, you have to calculate what the yield is on your super-safe, retirement-protected investment that produces your interest. The 10-year Treasury bond is yielding 3.8%. So working backward:

1. $160,000 / .038 = $4,210,526 in 10-year Treasury bonds.

2. $4,210,526 / .85 (the inverse of the long-term capital gains rate) = $4,953,560 in pre-tax, after-legal-fee recovery

3. $4,953,560 / .60 (the inverse of Friedman’s legal fee cut) = $8,255,934

I would be willing to bet $8,255,934 that he did not recover $8,255,934 from SMU in a settlement. Ergo, he can live on a whole lot less than $120,000 per year after tax - or he has no clue how much he’s going to have left after Larry Friedman and Uncle Sam take their cut, and he doesn’t understand how fixed-income-producing assets work.

[SoCal_Pony]

Makes me so sad that jerks like this can pull this crap and profit.

I'm sure that money SMU spent on lawyers and settlements (around $10 million it sounds like, when you figure legal costs for SMU and $1 million plus settlements for each side), could have been better used on the University (or Moody!).

Agreed.

The USA is in direct competition with China for world economic supremacy.

Business costs such as these put us at a severe disadvantage.

The USA, much like SMU, is operating on a broken ‘Model’.

It took SMU 20+ years to fix its Model.

The USA cannot wait 20+ years to fix its Model.

Hiring Obama only exacerbated an already difficult situation. It is the equivalent of SMU hiring Ken Pye 10 years into its DP.

[RumFirePony]

Maybe he will use the money to build June an indoor practice facility.

[ponyscott]

Total grandtstander and Dr Taifel is a [deleted] as well.....knew him back when and Taifel was always an ego with no character...

[EastStang]

Vodicka would not have had to pay a lawyer he represented himself.