Stocks, bonds and real estate are not inher-ently good or bad. What decides the issue is price. At today's prices, I believe, the Treasury's Inflation-Protected Securities are bad. Constant readers will detect a U-turn. Three earlier installments of this column sang the praises of TIPS. No security is, or ever was, perfect, the argument here ran, but TIPS―at the price―offered more reward than risk. No more. Today ten-year TIPS offer an inflation-proof yield of 1.58%. As recently as two years ago the ten-year fetched 3.5%. And not only is the rate lower, but also the risks are higher. One risk is that the government will revise the basis for calculating the Consumer Price Index. Alan Greenspan, in his Feb. 25 testimony before the House Budget Committee, urged Congress to reengineer the CPI to produce a lower inflation rate, the better to close the federal budget deficit.
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