{"id":7597,"date":"2015-05-13T21:17:30","date_gmt":"2015-05-14T01:17:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/philip.greenspun.com\/blog\/?p=7597"},"modified":"2015-05-13T21:17:30","modified_gmt":"2015-05-14T01:17:30","slug":"angelika-graswald-life-insurance-versus-child-support-net-present-value-calculation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/philip.greenspun.com\/blog\/2015\/05\/13\/angelika-graswald-life-insurance-versus-child-support-net-present-value-calculation\/","title":{"rendered":"Angelika Graswald Life Insurance versus Child Support net present value calculation"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The New York Times reported that Angelika Graswald, the former Latvian au pair looking to profit from a third American marriage, &#8220;stood to gain $250,000&#8221; from a life insurance policy on her fiance Vincent Viafore (<a href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2015\/05\/14\/nyregion\/angelika-graswald-kayak-suspect-reportedly-felt-good-fiance-would-die.html\">story<\/a>), the victim of a kayaking accident. This is the motive that authorities are citing for Graswald to allegedly murder Mr. Viafore.<\/p>\n<p>However, a net present value calculation (<a href=\"https:\/\/docs.google.com\/spreadsheets\/d\/18840TkLSvl0lzqYAYv6AMSVUdcDpsrMPJaYbZ1Q6pZA\/pubhtml\">spreadsheet<\/a>) shows that\u00a0Graswald would actually have made $231,026 in additional profit if she had simply gotten pregnant and harvested the child support at New York rates (17 percent of Mr. Viafore&#8217;s pre-tax income, reported as $167,000 in 2009).<\/p>\n<p>Why would Graswald have incurred the risk of imprisonment if she could have made more money, on a net present value basis, as an unwed mother than as a murderess?<\/p>\n<p>[The assumptions that went into this calculation were the following:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>2 percent inflation rate<\/li>\n<li>4 percent discount rate for NPV (since Graswald could have invested the $250k to earn perhaps a 2 percent real return)<\/li>\n<li>constant inflation-adjusted salary for Viafore using his reported 2009 income as a basis<\/li>\n<li>costs of ownership for the cash-producing child: $4300\/year in 2015 dollars based on an analysis of U.S. government <a href=\"http:\/\/www.bls.gov\/cex\/\">Consumer Expenditures data<\/a> by UCLA professor William Comanor (<a href=\"https:\/\/philip.greenspun.com\/blog\/2014\/12\/03\/family-law-reform-conference-report\/\">previous posting<\/a>)]<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Related:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/philip.greenspun.com\/blog\/2015\/04\/29\/au-pair-to-green-card\/\">&#8220;Au pair to green card&#8221;<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.dailymail.co.uk\/news\/article-3065317\/Woman-accused-murdering-fianc-used-work-volunteer-gardener-near-stretch-river-claimed-disappeared-kayaking-accident-police-reveal-not-victim-s-body.html\">additional background with photos from <em>Daily Mail<\/em><\/a><\/li>\n<li><em><a href=\"http:\/\/www.realworlddivorce.com\/\">Real World Divorce<\/a><\/em> (contains data sufficient to calculate the profitability of pregnancy\/child custody in states other than New York)<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.google.com\/\/search?q=jimmy+reed+take+out+of+some+insurance\">&#8220;Take Out Some Insurance&#8221;<\/a> by Jimmy Reed (classic blues song)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The New York Times reported that Angelika Graswald, the former Latvian au pair looking to profit from a third American marriage, &#8220;stood to gain $250,000&#8221; from a life [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7597","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.2 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Angelika Graswald Life Insurance versus Child Support net present value calculation - Philip Greenspun\u2019s Weblog<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/philip.greenspun.com\/blog\/2015\/05\/13\/angelika-graswald-life-insurance-versus-child-support-net-present-value-calculation\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Angelika Graswald Life Insurance versus Child Support net present value calculation - Philip Greenspun\u2019s Weblog\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The New York Times reported that Angelika Graswald, the former Latvian au pair looking to profit from a third American marriage, &#8220;stood to gain $250,000&#8221; 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