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What If? Series
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Many many years ago, when I was a young kid and a collector of comics, there was a series called “What If?” that I loved reading. I never bought many of them but the premise was that a Watcher could see alternate universes and, for our entertainment, showed us these alternate universes. It was a fun time. I think it would be fun if we played a few “What If?” games.
When I started another similar “fun” series, the Devil’s Advocate series, I didn’t know how popular it would be with you guys and I’m hoping the What If? series is the same. The topic we’re going to tackle is one that the President’s Budget Deficit Commission set their sights on – the mortgage interest deduction. What if the mortgage interest deduction didn’t exist?
If there are any topics you think we should cover, please let me know!
(Photo: franmoff)
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 By Jim |
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Nothing bad would have happened. Fewer people would have bought homes that got them into too much debt.
More people would have paid down their mortgages, instead of falsely believing that paying interest is good for them.
Of course, this assumes it never existed in the first place, not that it would be suddenly taken away. The masses would not be able to comprehend the situation if they lost something they cherish. But if it had never existed, we would be in better shape.
Here are some ideas:
What if we added a $2 a gallon tax on gasoline?
What if oil goes to $300 a barrel? (Do people move to cities? Do houses in the suburbs drop in value? Do people start moving to warmer climates to save energy costs? Do Chinese goods become too expensive to ship?)
What if we switched purely to a national sales tax, vs an income tax?
What if the government required 2 years of service? (What would happen to retirement savings, college planning, family planning, etc?)
What if taxes increased, but all college tuition was free? (which would resemble K-12)
What if the US population starts to decrease? (What would happen to Social Security? What about our expected stock market returns?)
These sound like great “what ifs” to tackle. Hypothetical situations are fun!
If you have any other ideas, I’d love to hear them!
Agreed, these are great! Especially the one about making college tuition free.
this sound slike a great idea. im interested to see the entries in this series