Big worries — and some investment advice

If a pandemic breaks out, but the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, on orders from the White House, refuse to publish data on its spread, will it still kill people?

Yes, of course. And that’s why I would be very cautious about buying TIPS — Treasury Inflation-Protected Securities.

Which brings me to TIPS. These are U.S. government bonds whose future repayments are indexed to the Consumer Price Index, just like Social Security checks. So TIPS protect investors against future inflation, which can erode the purchasing power of ordinary bonds.

But let’s be more precise here: TIPS protect you against future inflation that the U.S. government admits is happening. That has never been an issue in the past, because despite claims from right-wing conspiracy theorists, America has never cooked its economic books.

But there’s a first time for everything.