Means nothing. People take cash-out refi's all the time, to pay for
accumulated debt or to splurge on a home entertainment system. I saw a
poster the other day advertising a bank offer of 125% on your home's
appraised value.


Maxprop wrote:
Not here. We have a 15 year fixed rate mortgage loan that's 2/3 paid up.
No re-fi.


Refinancing isn't necessarily a bad idea, just like gov't
deficits. It all depends on where the money goes. I wouldn't
touch an ARM myself. We refinanced our house at 4.5% but
didn't max the cash out... it was tempting to do so & invest
the cash in bond funds & REITs paying 9% and up, but I
(well, both of us) resisted the temptation.



What did I say, exactly? Anything that implied what your investment income
is (or is not)?


I have no investment income. It is reinvested.


Ahem. It may be reinvested... it may even be qualified (tax
sheltered). But it is still income. I hope your accountant
knows the difference.



Did you choose to be a neo-conservative so that you could be the sole
voice of fiscal reason in the group?


I didn't know I was one until you labeled me so.


You're not a conservative, for sure.



They've already assumed the pensions for at least one major company, and I
have no doubt they will do so for GM as well in the future.

Yep. The PBGC ballon gets bigger every week.


... And when the
day comes that SS is defunct, and it will come

Wrong.

Why do so many people have the misconception that Social
Security is an investment program?

Social Security cannot go bankrupt. It is a gov't agency. It
can only go bankrupt if Uncle Sam folds up too.

Now, what the issue really is: what happens when Social
Security starts paying out more in retirement benefits than
it is taking in in taxes? That day is definitely coming.
It's a long way in the future (~ 40 years). Of course,
raising the ceiling on the SS tax would push that day
decades further into the future, but that idea is anathema
to the "conservatives" who can easily push the country into
record deficits for no structural reason and no
accountability but cannot stomach the idea of rich people
paying their share of taxes..





... it's doubtful the
politicians will allow people to die in the streets from starvation.

Really? I can imagine some politicians letting that happen
quite easily.


... As for driving the middle class into poverty and
tanking the US economy, you give the gummint far too much credit. Many
factors outside the influence of the government affect such things.

Agreed, but the real problem is the long arm of the IRS and
the current tax structure, which favors those with high-paid
lobbysists at the expense of everybody else.


....And
frankly I'm not interested in living in a nanny-state with the government
wiping my ass and brushing my teeth for me.

Did I suggest that?

... The US government is hardly
omnipotent--hell it screws up nearly everything it does now. How do you
expect it to fix the ills of an economy that can't compete on a global level
any longer?

Says who? If you believe that America & Americans are
somehow inherently inferior, then maybe you can justify your
belief that the American economy can't compete on a global
level.

I believe it can, but we must be given a fair chance. Right
now, the playing field is skewed very badly against the
average citizen.


... And the rich will always get richer--that's axiomatic.


So let's make sure that we have a plutocracy, gov't run by
rich in their own interest, and let the U.S. turn into a 3rd
world mud hole. It's predestined to be so!





Actually, it's somewhat unfair to say "the gov't" is doing this, since
it's really the fault of the politicians currently in charge; who are not
only executing short-sighted & selfish policies but also replacing
functioning departments with patronage dependent partisan lackeys.


While I don't agree that such politicians have achieved that solely by
themselves, I do agree that they are doing little to correct the problems,
not that they are capable of doing so.


They are capable if the U.S. voter takes control of the
gov't again. Last I looked, votes still counted. If every
single incumbent was turned out of office for a couple of
election cycles, things would change for the better.

The problem is that politicians have discovered advertising,
advertisers have discovered behavioral psychology, and
business has discovered that handing politicians huge
amounts of money for advertising gets them guaranteed profits.

If you spend enough money on advertising, you can convince
people to vote for their own flaying. And that's what is
happening. Gerrymandered districts with statistically safe
voter populations and huge campaign budgets have made our
professional politicians (remember when most politicians had
a real job before they went into politics?) believe that
they can do anything at all and make the voters swallow it.
And so far, they're right.





Every house of (credit) cards gets knocked down eventually.


Yep. The only question is, when?

DSK