For some reason, a few of the posts kind of remind me of a conversation I had years ago. I was talking with a geologist who used to work for some oil company, but had quit that job and hired on with Uncle Sam. He was complaining about the price of gasoline; he said a lot of oil companies had discovered or purchased oil fields years earlier, had already recovered their initial investments/costs, and were making big profits on the oil or gasoline they were selling. He said he hoped the federal government would impose a "windfall profits tax" on the oil companies, because he didn't think it was fair for them to be making so much money!
That kind of surprised me! I knew he had bought his home in Ventura 20 years earlier, when he first started working for that oil company, and about had it paid off. So I asked Frank (his name was Frank ;^):
"So, you bought your house years ago, you've already paid off your mortgage, and whenever you sell it, you'll get 3 or 4 times more than you paid for it - do you think it's fair for you to keep all that money, or should Uncle Sam put a 'windfall profits tax' on what you make when you sell your house?"
Man, was Frank pissed (you would have thought I had insulted his wife)! But when I pressed him for an answer, all he could come up with was "That's different!" Only difference I could see was that he was FOR taxing other peoples' profits, but AGAINST taxing his own profits.
And to this day, I don't think I've met anyone who's willing to sell anything THEY own, for much less than market price (except maybe to friends or relatives ;^). Everyone seems to want market price, when it comes to selling their own stuff!
As always IMHO, FWIW, YMMV, etc.
