Fellow investors, I just bought more Treasury Inflation-Protected Securities. Last week, I put a substantial part of my IRA into TIPS at real yields of up to 3%, earning as much as 3% above inflation for as long as 20 years. I bought individual TIPS on the secondary market, not a TIPS ETF or mutual fund.

TIPS are the closest thing to a risk-free investment, but they aren't as close as they used to be. U.S. gross debt surpassed $40 trillion earlier this month—approaching its highest level as a percentage of GDP since shortly after World War II. Net interest payments rose from 1.3% of GDP in 2016 to 3.2% of GDP in 2025. With bond yields at their highest in nearly two decades, the interest burden is almost sure to balloon.

Yields on conventional U.S. debt are rising because investors no longer regard Treasurys as safe, says Hanno Lustig, an economist at Stanford University. But TIPS, through their inflation protection, mitigate some of the risk of lending to Uncle Sam if he turns reckless. As financial historians Ed Mc Quarrie and Bill Bernstein wrote recently, "Long TIPS once again yield 3.0% [above inflation] and, as in 2008, these rates may not last long. That means: You snooze, you lose. The time to buy TIPS is now."