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