Anthony wrote:
Where can you safely get 5% interest, anyway? The 30-year bond is around 4%. Long-term municipal bonds are around 5%, but they're not totally safe nowadays. And this is, as Gregory pointed out, before inflation. The chance that the US is going to start adding zeros to its dollar bills in the next 30-years is non-negligible.
It's about time that the US abandoned $1.00 and $2.00 bills and just used coins instead.
The risk is to have a situation such as prevails in Egypt. In the two weeks that I was there at Wikimania time I only twice received coins in change, and thsat was from the cashier at official government tourist sites. Everything else was paper money down to the 25 piastres note worth about 5 cents. Carrying that in one's pocket creates a soggy mess.
Ec