He is better off in nominal and real terms.

A nominal term is an unadjusted number of something such as wages, stock prices, assets, and

interest rates and is generally described in fixed monetary terms. On the other hand, a real term

takes into account changes in price level over time. Real value is a far more accurate

measurement of value than nominal value (Kongsted, H. C., 2005)..

A real interest rate is adjusted to remove the effects of inflation and gives the real rate of a bond

or loan. A nominal interest rate refers to the interest rate before taking inflation into account.

Nominal value is the face value of a security. ... For example, the nominal value of a share of

common stock with a par value of $0.01 is $0.01. A common nominal value for a bond is $1,000,

which is also the amount that the issuer will pay to bond holders when the bond matures.

References

Kongsted, H. C. (2005). Testing the nominal-to-real transformation. Journal of Econometrics,

124(2), 205-225.