Nor-LA-SD-GUY2 let me ask this, and I thought I asked it once but might have forgotten.

Let’s say I am going to purchase a house and I have a very stable job expected to last another 10 years (hypothetical for sure). Furthermore I need to extract some cash from 401k to cover some of costs. Let’s say my 401k is 100k and use a 50k loan to cover costs. Paying the loan back of course is after tax, and without getting into Amort tables, let’s just say I am paying back 50k at 4.5% for 6 years.

Technically I’ve borrowed money, that I must pay back with interest. A catastrophic firing, or losing my job in some way where I’d have to either pay it all back or take penalties, could happen but let’s say it doesn’t and in 6 years I’ve paid the loan off.

If the Fed is indeed basically an arm of the government as NON-conspiracy theorists would suggest, is the US Debt the same thing as the 401k loan? By the way too bad they couldn’t just kill Sallie Mae as a company and burn up the debt. Imagine the $$$ floating in the economy. Obviously there are actual investors involved in SM and you can’t do that, but damn I can dream once in a while.