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Reply to "We're doing a mortgage refi at 3.75% -- someone tell me why that interest should be deductible?"

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]
PP:  My biggest problem with your response and your original post is that it is lazy.  You say I am reading too much into your post, but I am reading this stuff thinking that these casual comments are nuts.   Don't say stuff like 'what happens if China dumps our treasuries?" and "looming crisis" when it won't happen and when we actually want them to sell some treasuries so their currency can appreciate.  Don't say "Romney pays enough".  What kind of tax plan is that?   Think through your comments and then defend them.  [/quote]

You're right.  I think and write in shorthand.  In my world, a comment about China dumping treasuries would be immediately understood as we've all read many stories about China redirecting their UST purchases--less from active selling and more from not rolling over maturities.  The China (and India and other developing world) central banks are ramping their gold purchases and hedging their USD exposure.  The benefits of the 20 year symbiotic relationship btw China and US is ebbing and they don't enjoy recycling their funds into a depreciating currency.  The debt ceiling crisis was a huge wake-up call to the developing world who, right now, have better balance sheets.

Similarly, "looming crisis" is also shorthand as I view that as conventional wisdom for those of us who read financial publications daily.  In my meetings we all understand this perfectly well--whether liberal or conservative.  Paraphrasing the mayor who said "there's no republican or democratic method to picking up the trash" there's also, in my view, no dispute about the upcoming crisis.  (Herb) Stein's law:  most things that can't go on forever--don't.  This was well presented in Reinhart/Rogoff's book "This Time is Different."

So I see the fussing about Romney's tax returns, who's presented what plan, etc as a side show--not unlike Germans whining about irresponsible Greeks while the entire Euro project careens into a ditch.

We've had it pretty good in the US over the past 60 years.  After WWII the rest of the world was flat on its ass while our factories were humming.  Then the cold war came along and cut off a huge % of the world's population from the global economy.  But now it's their turn--they're younger, hungrier, work their asses off, want their own chicken-in-every-pot and are on their way to getting it.  Meanwhile, we have these stupid arguments about extending retirement ages by 20 minutes and can't figure out how to get basic medical care to all.

Simply put--we're broke.  Why is that hard to see?  We're spending vastly more than we take in.  Add in state/municipal budgets and an honest actuarial accounting of pension obligations and the numbers are staggering.  There is simply no way to solve this off the backs of "those rich assholes."  The numbers do not work.

Ah..I'm done.  I'll keep doing these stupid refi's with free money and look forward to the inflation that's coming--which, btw, is wholly confiscatory.  I'll be fine.  Mitt will be fine.  Soros will be fine.  Warren too.  But the middle class is gonna get absolutely hosed--much more so than they've been over the past 5 years.  [/quote]

Really Germany is being silly for debating the extent to which it should sacrifice in order to solve another country's fiscal problems?  That's some nerve there. [/quote]

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