An Invisible Theft Of Value

Recently my wife Anne and I were watching a 1972 TV show, "Columbo," a highly popular series in which fictitious Los Angeles Police Lt. Columbo solves complex murder mysteries.

In this show, Lt. Columbo is in a mansion he is told is worth about $750,000 and he says he earns $11,000 a year.

Today that Los Angeles mansion would be worth perhaps 10 times that amount or about $7.5 million and a real life Lt. Columbo earns several times more than $11,000.

Why does this matter to you and me? Because it shows us what inflation, the invisible theft of value can do.

Inflation continues today. What can you and I do to protect ourselves from it? As was illustrated by that mansion, we can invest in a home or invest in income producing rental property. As currencies inflate, they usually inflate home values and rents as well.

Or we can invest in ourselves, either advancing our skills to elevate our income, or investing in an entrepreneurial business we can build into a solid revenue producer.

Some people invest in gold, silver or other precious metals as a hedge against inflation. While still others invest in classic works of art, or even old baseball cards.

But what matters is that we are aware of what inflation is doing to the value of our money, and if we choose, take some protective action. Or we can decide the invisible theft of our money by inflation is not important to us and live life as it actually is, one moment at a time.

In any case, we can make an informed choice.

Dick