![]() ![]() The rise of the CHO has just reached a notable milestone: heat officers from cities around the world recently gathered for an Extreme Heat Resilience Conference in Washington, D.C.-a place that, before the invention of air conditioning, was so uncomfortable in the summer that British diplomats assigned there could draw tropical-assignment bonus pay. So instead, it seems, the job of these new bureaucrats will be to find carbon-neutral solutions to summer in the city. But air conditioning demands electricity, most often powered by fossil fuels or nuclear energy, two increasingly unseemly phrases within government circles in places like California, where cities are rushing to hire CHOs. One phrase that you’re unlikely to hear much from these new bureaucrats: “air conditioning.” Warm-weather-related deaths dropped precipitously over the last century around much of the industrialized world largely because what we fondly term AC became widely available. These newly minted bureaucrats will make it their business to enumerate the impact of heat on the local population-an effect certain to increase now that government is counting it-and seek ways to mitigate it. They’ve helped turn the CHO, a job barely a year old, into a new staple of local government. If you’re surprised by these seemingly ludicrous titles, you haven’t been paying attention to the extent to which mainstream media run alarmist stories of soaring temperatures and their impact on urban life. Now add to that list what is likely to be the hottest (pun intended) new job title at city hall: chief heat officer (CHO), also variously known as the extreme-weather coordinator or chief weather-resilience officer. Recent examples: the algorithms management and policy officer, the director of digital equity, and the building decarbonization incentives manager-all real jobs. If low-risk assets such as Treasuries are part of that plan, you may want to look at I Bonds before October ends.As the size and scope of government in America grows, cities are rapidly inventing new job titles. Of course, equities also come with risks, and can move very fast in either direction, as we've seen in 2022.Īmid market turmoil, investors should check their portfolio for both risk and return, and rebalance according to your longer-term objectives. So investors may be forgoing much bigger gains by tying up their available cash in I Bonds for at least a year. We are currently in a bear market right now, which has historically been a great time for long-term investors to buy stocks and bonds of high-quality companies. Of course, one other drawback is that you may miss out on even bigger returns by investing in longer-duration assets, such as longer-term Treasuries, corporate bonds, or stocks. opportunity costsĬlearly, if you are near retirement or plan on holding at least $10,000 in cash for at least a year, I Bonds are likely to give you a better return than one-year Treasuries, high-yield savings accounts, or bank certificates of deposit (CDs). So I Bond buyers are still coming out ahead here. That's looking awfully good these days, since inflation should come down soon amid Federal Reserve tightening and a potential economic slowdown.Įven though short-term Treasury rates have skyrocketed this year as the Federal Reserve has raised the federal funds rate in rapid fashion, the current yield on one-year Treasuries is only 4.03%. The good news is that if you buy I Bonds before November, buyers will still receive the 9.6% annualized rate for the first six months of ownership before the interest rate resets. Given the past five months of data, it's projected the new rate will fall to around 6%. However, since inflation has come down in recent months, the new I Bond rate will be reset lower in November. That's an awfully nice yield, even compared with today's higher-than-normal Treasury yields. And since the six-month annualized inflation rate between November 2021 and April 2022 was so high, I Bonds currently yield 9.62%. The variable rate is reset twice a year: once in May, and once in November. This rate is slightly different from the seasonally adjusted CPI figure that comes from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, which is the headline inflation metric that gets reported in the media. The I Bond variable rate is based on the non-seasonally adjusted Consumer Price Index for all Urban Consumers (CPI-U) over the prior six months. ![]()
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