[quote=BGinRB]
Ah, I see a straw man and possible ad hominem.
Ad hominem: “you will be able.”
Straw man: necessity vs. possibility of money being spent.

Since the future appreciation cannot be known there is no point in arguing about it.

[/quote]
The terms you used don’t seem to jive with the citations you made. Unless you 2 had a separate conversation that was not on the thread, I saw no personal attack be esmith on you (your ad hominem). Just using the second person does not generally qualify.
Also, making a competing argument is (necessity v possibility) does not a straw man make. I did not see her (I think its her) reduce your arguments to absurdity and attack them.

While we are bandying about debate club terms, your inapplicable use of “straw-man” and “ad-hominem” are “red-herrings”. It is a distraction from the primary debate and (while intention cannot be determined) they seem to be an intentional attempt to distract.

It seems like you are trying to throw her off her argument (which seems pretty strong).

I don’t generally agree with esmith. But her rent v buy scenario does seem to stand up here. Appreciation can never be known but trends and graphs that track rent to purchase can be obtained (and thus speculation can be made). Rich’s previous graphs about cash flow were very good for this purpose.