Head for the hills<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"John Waggoner is a personal finance and investment columnist for USA Today. He's a likeable, reasonable fellow, full of unflashy, prudent advice.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/2005\/02\/28\/head-for-the-hills\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Head for the hills\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"John Waggoner is a personal finance and investment columnist for USA Today. He's a likeable, reasonable fellow, full of unflashy, prudent advice.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/2005\/02\/28\/head-for-the-hills\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"slacktivist\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2005-02-28T08:10:28+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/slacktivist.typepad.com\/.a\/6a00d8341c582a53ef0147e39c040d970b-pi\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Fred Clark\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Fred Clark\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"3 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/2005\/02\/28\/head-for-the-hills\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/2005\/02\/28\/head-for-the-hills\/\",\"name\":\"Head for the hills\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2005-02-28T08:10:28+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2005-02-28T08:10:28+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/#\/schema\/person\/0173c85e46e7e0951fef5752bed78b6e\"},\"description\":\"John Waggoner is a personal finance and investment columnist for USA Today. 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A former managing editor of Prism magazine, Fred worked in the parachurch nonprofit world for a decade and then for a decade in the newspaper biz. He began blogging in 2002. In 2003 he began writing a review of the best-selling Left Behind series. Eight years later he still hasn\u2019t finished reviewing the second book of that series and the experience has left him a broken shell of a man. Fred knows the difference between the possessive \u201cits\u201d and the contraction \u201cit\u2019s,\u201d and he is acutely bothered when others mistakenly confuse the two, yet he himself just kind of instinctively types the apostrophe whether or not it belongs there. Some feel this is his greatest hypocrisy, but those who know him better know better. He\u2019s guilty of much greater hypocrisies. Jesus loves Fred far more than Fred loves Jesus, but he at least has the decency to recognize the unfairness of that lopsided relationship and he has long wished that he were better at maybe kind of sort of doing something more to correct that some day. A Baptist, an amateur, a Gen-Xer, a Gemini and a Mets fan, Fred lives in Southeastern Pennsylvania with his wife and two teenage daughters. You can reach him via email at slacktivist at hotmail dot com.\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/author\/fredclark\/\"}]}<\/script>\n","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Head for the hills","description":"John Waggoner is a personal finance and investment columnist for USA Today. 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{"id":1033,"date":"2005-02-28T08:10:28","date_gmt":"2005-02-28T08:10:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/2005\/02\/28\/head-for-the-hills\/"},"modified":"2005-02-28T08:10:28","modified_gmt":"2005-02-28T08:10:28","slug":"head-for-the-hills","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/2005\/02\/28\/head-for-the-hills\/","title":{"rendered":"Head for the hills"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

John Waggoner<\/a> is a personal finance and investment columnist for USA Today.<\/i> He's a likeable, reasonable fellow, full of unflashy, prudent advice. And, unlike many personal finance columnists, he occasionally remembers that the vast majority of Americans do not have six-figure incomes and piles of money to invest at their leisure.<\/p>\n

In this recent column<\/a>, however, Waggoner demonstrates the limits of his stolid, moderate demeanor.<\/p>\n

\"For those who don't think Social Security will survive,\" he writes, \"the question is how to replace it. Individual savings is one way, but it's an expensive one.\"<\/p>\n

The rest of the column is taken up with a discussion of various vehicles for prudent individual savings: 401(k)s, IRAs, etc.<\/p>\n

The factor that Waggoner fails to consider is why<\/i> Social Security may not survive. If he listened to what the president is saying, he would realize that his sober prudence is misplaced.<\/p>\n

Here's President Bush speaking on Feb. 9<\/a>:<\/b><\/p>\n

\"Some in our country think that Social Security is a trust fund \u2014 in other words, there's a pile of money being accumulated. That's just simply not true. The money \u2014 payroll taxes going into the Social Security are spent. They're spent on benefits and they're spent on government programs. There is no trust.\"<\/i><\/p>\n

There you have the president of the United States stating that the government fully intends to default on trillions of dollars worth of treasury bonds. A statement like that can't be met with Waggonerian moderation. A statement like that, if Bush is serious, calls for stark, raving panic.<\/p>\n

If Bush is serious, or if he is to be taken seriously, this means more than just \"Don't invest in treasury bonds, invest in your 401(k) instead.\" If the government defaults on its loans, your 401(k) isn't going to look terribly solid either. If the government defaults on its loans, we're Argentina. Or worse.<\/p>\n

If the scenario President Bush describes is true, then we need to stop taking investment advice from John Waggoner and start taking investment advice from Burt Gummer:<\/p>\n

$\"Tremorssa\"$ <\/a>For those who don't think Social Security will survive because the government plans to default on its loans, thus effectively collapsing American civilization and pitching the nation into a state of Hobbesian anarchy, the question is how to replace it. Individual savings is one way.<\/i><\/p>\n

I recommend gold. Your cash won't be worth the paper it's printed on. The banks can no longer be trusted, so you'll need to store the gold in your bunker. Oh, right, you'll need a bunker, preferably underground and suitably remote. Northern Idaho is good. You're going to need food for five years, a thousand gallons of gas, air filtration, water filtration, a Geiger counter. And ammunition. Lots of ammunition.<\/p>\n

\u2013 \u2013 \u2013 \u2013 \u2013 \u2013 \u2013 \u2013 \u2013 \u2013 \u2013 \u2013 \u2013 \u2013 \u2013 \u2013 \u2013 \u2013 \u2013<\/p>\n

(Burt Gummer pic courtesy of shadoemagic's<\/a> comprehensive Michael Gross site.)<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"