Re: Inflation
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Another option to consider is investing in US Treasury inflation indexed securities. I believe they are called I-bonds or TIPS (Treasury Inflation Protected Securities)
Please correct me im wrong...
Kevin
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The main problem with TIPS is that their return is based off the CPI, which is a highly doctored statistic. The government uses things such as hedonic adjustments or outright manipulation so at the end of the day you have a nice small and steady figure. In my opinion the CPI is basically just another piece of government propaganda designed to keep the proles in the dark about how the government is sticking it to people.
The government tells us that inflation has been steady at 3% a year or whatever, but the fact of the matter is most important expenses such as housing, energy, education and healthcare have been skyrocketing over the past several years. If you had been invested in TIPS for the past five years, saving for a house, your kids college education, or your retirement, you would have gotten completely owned by inflation.
Remember inflation is just another way for the government to steal your money. You would be wise to keep your money in countries whose cnetral banks are fiscally responsible and whose leaders are not financial buffoons.
"By a continuing process of inflation, governments can confiscate, secretly and unobserved, an important part of the wealth of their citizens... Lenin was certainly right. There is no subtler, no surer means of overturning the existing basis of society than to debauch the currency. The process engages all the hidden forces of economic law on the side of destruction, and does it in a manner which not one man in a million is able to diagnose. " - John Maynard Keynes
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