Everything depreciates; even the IRS realizes this truism. They realize that your rental property is falling apart as time assaults its clapboard shingles. Even our bodies lose value, though the taxpeople grant no deductions for our annual, inarguable loss of strength, stamina, beauty, or the mental assets whereby we make our living.
Wouldn’t it be a political masterstroke for the Obama healthcare crazies to add that earmark to their bill — bodily depreciation? Rental houses decline, and so do structures of bone and flesh. You don’t believe me? Take a good look at Nancy Pelosi.
Consider your shiny new car — drive it a year and it has lost 30% of its value. And how ’bout your new $40 sweater? At the garage sale you’ll be lucky to get five bucks. And let’s not even talk about underwear. One day’s use and it’s worthless. Oh, maybe five cents as a rag.
But of all the products of our civilization, nothing loses monetary value like books. I learned this lesson in economics at our Charlotte branch library. Books initially listed at 25 bucks could be purchased for a mere quarter of a dollar. What a remarkable decline! And think of it. Unlike the car, TV, sweater, or underwear, the books are functionally brand new — just as useful as the day they were printed. Sometimes they're even more so, with helpful notes that some previous reader scribbled in the margin. And better yet, if you're really lucky, sweet little notes and inscriptions: “Christmas 1945: Rob, Hope you return by June." "This book — see page 6 — expressed my feeling for you! All my love, Betty.” I often wonder why Betty didn’t save $19.95 and enhance her poetic reputation by simply copying page 6, changing a few names, and sending Rob a handwritten note.
You never know what you’ll find. I had an overnight guest who searched my library for bedtime reading and randomly picked the “bank” where we kept stray greenbacks for a household emergency. He didn’t get to finish the book, he said — could he borrow it? We switched him to a safer book.
Everything depreciates, including — it hurts me to say this — love, though nobody has calculated a percentage acceptable to the IRS. Too many variables. The only exceptions may be wine and super-aged antiques. I guarantee you that my iMac, 50 years hence, will gain additional value (the patina of age, you know), as compared with the items in my kitchen pantry: green cheese, curdled milk, and purple veal chops.
And then there are cars. First, a giant decline in value, beginning with the drive out of the showroom; then a continuing decline as you pile up miles. But somewhere in its automotive lifecycle, a car becomes a nonpareil gem, worth more than you paid for it. Buy and hold.
