Do T-Bills Keep Up with Inflation?

Discussion of the Cash portion of the Permanent Portfolio

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mathjak107
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Re: Do T-Bills Keep Up with Inflation?

Post by mathjak107 » Fri Feb 21, 2020 7:37 am

dualstow wrote:
Fri Feb 21, 2020 6:13 am
Thank you, jak. So, FSRRX - I’ll take a look. (Ooh, that’s a hefty ER).

I have a kind of t-bill addiction now, tempted to participate every time there’s an auction.
There are worse addictions. At least it’s not cocaine.
it has a .83 expense ratio but it is a far better choice if inflation is in the air compared to tips . i don't care about the fund expenses being less than 1% if i am being compensated for it compared to other alternatives in that class . i have fidelity total bond fund , it has a much higher expense ratio than say vanguard ... but the actively managed ftbfx beats vanguards index version over almost every time frame after expenses .

so i judge by performance vs er. there are not many inflation oriented income funds i can think of that you can compare to.

fidelity's strategic real return income fund is tips , floating rate loans , income from mortgages and then a portion has gov't securities linked to a commodity index .
Last edited by mathjak107 on Fri Feb 21, 2020 9:53 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Do T-Bills Keep Up with Inflation?

Post by mathjak107 » Fri Feb 21, 2020 9:53 am

dualstow wrote:
Fri Feb 21, 2020 6:13 am
Thank you, jak. So, FSRRX - I’ll take a look. (Ooh, that’s a hefty ER).

I have a kind of t-bill addiction now, tempted to participate every time there’s an auction.
There are worse addictions. At least it’s not cocaine.
what happens when you work for pepsi but test positive for coke ?
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Re: Do T-Bills Keep Up with Inflation?

Post by dualstow » Fri Feb 21, 2020 1:32 pm

O0 O0
Sam Bankman-Fried sentenced to 25 years
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Re: Do T-Bills Keep Up with Inflation?

Post by sophie » Sat Feb 22, 2020 9:56 am

from dualstow's signature: Gold has passed 1645/oz

Thought this was worth recording permanently because...Geez. What is going on with gold? Is this maybe about the coronavirus? Then again...who knows. It's all crowdspeak.
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Re: Do T-Bills Keep Up with Inflation?

Post by vnatale » Tue Oct 19, 2021 5:13 pm

dualstow wrote:
Sun Feb 02, 2020 10:35 am

Recently I checked on the inflation rate for the first time in a long time: 2.3%, higher than I'd imagined. I was only paying attention to interest rates for the past few years.

I'm pretty sure MachineGhost once said something about t-bills keeping up with inflation. He may not have. Let's say one-year bills. Not TIPS, but ordinary T-Bills.

Have they generally kept up? If yes, do you think they will continue to do so?


Just reread what you wrote above and all the responses that you received.

Most of the responses seemed to indicate that they did over a period of time.

However as you can see from the below...now is definitely NOT one of those times.

I'm sure that you did not need me to tell you that. Question is for how long we will have to wait until they will again roughly equal inflation.

https://fixedincome.fidelity.com/ftgw/f ... Selected=H

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https://cpiinflationcalculator.com/2021 ... ed-states/

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Above provided by: Vinny, who always says: "I only regret that I have but one lap to give to my cats." AND "I'm a more-is-more person."
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Re: Do T-Bills Keep Up with Inflation?

Post by seajay » Wed Oct 20, 2021 5:36 pm

jalanlong wrote:
Mon Feb 03, 2020 5:49 pm
This discussion brings up my recent thoughts of just going all Treasury Bills or cash. My grandfather lived a sort of Dave Ramsey existence. He never borrowed money, never had credit cards and paid cash for all of his vehicles. The amount of interest he saved over his lifetime must have been staggering. That allowed him to have a very comfortable retirement despite never making more than $60k in any given year. He never invested in "the market", only kept his money in cash and cds. Of course he never had to deal with Central Bank ZIRP either.

I sometimes wonder if I go that route and concentrate on minimizing debt and expenses if I can just put my money in a basic cash management account (currently paying 1.80%) and forget about it and never have to worry about markets again. Maybe have a few gold coins on the side. I know a lot of people here say the PP gives them peace of mind. But I still worry. What if bonds AND stocks go down? What if my ETF goes bust? What if there is a market freeze ala 9/11 and I cannot reach my money for quite a time. So many ridiculous scenarios I worry about!
Reminded of the Talmud advocated thirds each in-hand, buried, commerce, which might be interpreted as T-Bills, gold, stock thirds. Physical gold in your possession/hidden, TBills are fully guaranteed no matter how much is deposited (state can always print money or increase taxes rather than being seen to default). Unlike TBills alone that can see 10+ years of negative real outcomes the trio tends to more consistently offset inflation. Good for a 2.5% SWR (PWR) and still tends to see real growth on top. For some with 'enough' that can be both good enough rewards and SWAN (sleeping well at night). Strictly the translation is buried in land, some however have interpreted the advice as being thirds land (i.e. home), stocks and gold (or treasuries). Jakob Fugger, a massively wealthy individual in the 1500's, was said to have advocated quarters of land, stocks, gold, bonds (lending) - but finding a actual reference of when/where he might have said that is illusive.
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