Personal position: 25% tax bracket. I'm asking these questions because the CPA I wanted to use for my 2006 tax return is a leetle busy.

Convinced my marginal tax rate will rise -- think it's too small anyway, 34% would be better, am hoping for a state income tax. I am very very very unlikely to rise to a higher tax bracket unless the tax code changes significantly -- I'm not privy to the ways of a 60% return on my annual income and at my tax bracket I'm not likely to become privy.

Considering Yanks are living longer, and the attempt to salvage Social Security will be made, and the attempt to pay for the war and to pay down the deficit will also be made, should I be expecting a 50-60% tax rate in my golden years? Is it stupid of me to be contributing to a 401(k) account while I have a 25% tax bracket if chances are very good I will be in a 50% or greater tax bracket when I withdraw my 401(k) funds?

If making significant contributions to tax-deferred retirement accounts place me in a lower tax bracket currently, doesn't that reduce the value of mortgage interest? Should I also then be working to prepay my mortgage? If Social Security isn't going to be around for me when I retire, does that mean I don't have to be worried about a substantial increase of funds and benefits that become subject to federal income taxation?

If homeownership w/mortgage interest payment deductions, and the tax exemption for having a kiddie are reduced when my tax bracket is low in my child-raising years, am I a sucka for contributing as much as I do to a 401(k) plan? Should I just back off enough to get the employer match and grab the energy tax credit instead?

Which is better: living in a currently low-tax country for forty years where I'll have to eventually pay twice as high a marginal rate, or moving to a wealthy, industrialized, resource-rich country ten years from now where I can expect to pay 38%?

How horribly unfair would it be to have a Roth IRA with no annual caps on what one could contribute to it, for a worker who earned under $50,000 a year?

Should I ease off the retirement contributions, currently 10% 401(k) and $4000 Roth IRA, to build the emergency fund and enough resources to adequately start a taxable investment (with margin) account?

Oh yes, the

source of my anxieties: "Who Gets Paid to Save?"

It's rough to challenge the popular belief that you'll be okay if only you'd make a 10+% contribution for your retirement, yet we have faithfully done that, and our liquidity is constrained. And don't tell me my liquidity is constrained because of my mortgage, because renting a house where I am is $150/month extra beyond my utilities, principal, tax, interest and insurance, and I'm paying $27 less than what I was prior to refinancing.

Another tough question: how does an Economics Ph.D., no sorry, make that SENIOR ECONOMIC ADVISOR TO THE FEDERAL RESERVE BANK OF CLEVELAND, or perhaps TENURED PROFESSOR AT BOSTON UNIVERSITY make it through twenty-three years of English-language schooling without knowing the difference between the verbs 'lose' and 'loose'? My mother and father never made it through high school and they knew better.