Chris C

I was at my physician's office, and they had me blow into a device to measure the amount that I exhaled.

I didn't blow correctly the first time, since I didn't realize they wanted me to blow in a "sharp" manner (e.g. strong and quick exhale).

They took 3 readings, which averaged out to 565-570 ... and I wasn't sure what the units of measurement were. Although they said that this was well within range.

I'd ask my physician, but I'm sure they would rather focus on the patients in the office now, as opposed to asking what might be a silly question.

What is the device called, which I blew into? It seemed to work kind of like a tire pressure gauge with no electronic parts and not attached to anything else.

Well, the question pretty much says it all, aside from I'm referring to at retirement age (59 1/2 or older).

I'm trying to figure out what the tax implications could be (best and worst case scenarios) for choosing a basic brokerage account (which is after-tax money), over a retirement account such at a Roth IRA or Roth 401k?

If it will help, the following may be pertinent:

   In my own case, due to the various deductions that we are allowed (mortgage interest, property taxes, 4 eligible children, medical/dental taken out pre-tax, and FSA), my wife and I paid an effective Federal tax rate of only 4.25% last year on a low six figure income.

Those same deductions will not be large enough by the time I reach 59 1/2.

I may be wrong, but is the only difference that the withdrawals from a brokerage account are taxed at the basic tax rate that one is in at retirement, as opposed to a Roth IRA which wouldn't be taxed?

In this article: http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-jobless-bene...

   At the end of the article, the Wharton economists stated " Extending the program, will not contribute significantly to long-term deficits because its costs will diminish automatically as the economy recovers and unemployment returns to more normal levels. ".

   Well, that's not an automatic thing. The only way that it will not contribute significantly to long-term deficits, is if once the economy recovers and the unemployment returns to more normal levels, and 2+ years after that the gov't doesn't increase it's spending and use the increase in tax revenues to help pay down the deficit that was accrued while the jobless benefits were extended.

   Or am I missing something, since I'm not an economist or economics major?

Preface:

When I was young, I often watched scary movies. It wasn't abnormal for me to watch movies like "Friday the 13th", by myself, in the dark.

1) I had dreams quite a bit when I was young about snakes. One in particular sticks in my mind. I was near the edge of a cliff looking down to see what was over the edge. After several minutes, I looked down only to see a snak (because I felt something on my leg). I tried to get it off by kicking, but it didn't let go. Then it bit me. Just after that happened, I woke up and for several minutes afterward still had pain in my ankle as though the snake's fangs were still in there.

2) Another dream I often had was of me falling off of a cliff. My parents used to say "It's OK, just as long as you don't hit the bottom". Well, the funny thing is, after my parents said that, I stopped hitting the ground in my dream. When I hit the ground in my dream, it actually made my body ache even after waking up.

About 1 1/2 years ago, I got tired of looking at amortization programs, because I wanted to have the ability to calculate amortizations and other financial calculations quickly, and without limitations (i.e. I didn't have to have Excel, Open Office, or Crystal Reports, etc. installed).

So I wrote my own in C++.

My requirements were:

- A single executable that handled everything related to amortizations and other financial calculations (such as CAGR, compounding, etc.).

- Ability to graph.

- Ability to print reports.

- And of course the ability to save the data to disk so I can modify it without having to remember the various parameters, etc.

- Finally, No installation necessary.

Was it worth it? Yes. And it took only 3 months to write it. It exists on my thumb drive and is only 212kb in size (and it's not compressed). Compare that size to just Crystal reports being installed. :)

Caveats:

- The printing isn't 100% completed, since it doesn't work with smaller borders on some printers, etc.

- The graph isn't 100% completed, since I've noticed some minor glitches as I resize the dialog. The reason for this is that the graph has to change it's dimensions dynamically as I expand/contract the window.