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It is indeed. I know there are not as many who lived through the great depression now, but really cannot blame those who don't trust the banks. Also feel like w

• ethbr1 2y ago
  People who don't trust banks don't understand fiat money, fractional reserve banking, and inflationary monetary policy.
  • 1970-01-01 2y ago
    Banks can crash faster than you can adapt. It can be extremely hard to physically get to your savings money in a crisis.
    • ethbr1 2y ago
      A bank failure + deposit insurance bust is a tail risk. Inflation is a constant. (And to pre-add, precious metals haven't historically been a great hedge either, when benchmarked against investing in economic growth)
    • JumpCrisscross 2y ago
      > can be extremely hard to physically get to your savings money in a crisis Having spare cash around is never a bad idea. But there are precious few timelines in which the banking system collapses so completely that savings are inaccessible for extended periods (or at all) but paper U.S. dollars continue to hold value.
      • alexey-salmin 2y ago
        No one expects it to hold 100% of value, but even 10% of say $50k could be very helpful to live through the few months of the turmoil. Or to get to that foreign real estate which people recommend buying in comments on HN.
        • JumpCrisscross 2y ago
          > even 10% of say $50k could be very helpful to live through the few months of the turmoil. Or to get to that foreign real estate Genuinely curious for a single example of a collapsing country's fiat currency being useful for extradition. If this is actually your fail case, hold foreign currency.
          • alexey-salmin 2y ago
            Well it's one of the tail cases, so all things considered both local currency and foreign currencies are useful, each in it's own quality. So is a foreign currency in a foreign bank.
            • JumpCrisscross 2y ago
              > it's one of the tail cases, so all things considered both local currency and foreign currencies are useful, each in it's own quality Not really. If U.S. cash is useful, so are dollars in a bank. Not in the very short term. But over a timeline of more than a week. Storing tens of thousands of dollars of cash for an emergency is stupid, because almost every emergency that takes out the banking system renders that currency worthless. You’re better off having hard supplies or forex you can trade for exfiltration.
              • alexey-salmin 2y ago
                > If U.S. cash is useful, so are dollars in a bank. This is a strong assumption. So far I've experienced three cases of loosing access to my money in the bank for various reasons and I also witnessed one more case with my parents 25 years ago. In all four cases the cash was still useful, losing between 0% and 70% of the value. None of that was in US of course, but I still think that your range of scenarios is too narrow.
    • waveBidder 2y ago
      if FDIC is going down you have way worse problems than mere access to cash
      • alexey-salmin 2y ago
        "Mere access to cash" means access to food, which is one of the worst problems you can ever get.
        • waveBidder 2y ago
          with FDIC gone? unlikely, in such a case the dollar will probably have lost value as a means of exchange, if only temporarily
    • nine_k 2y ago
      If you want to prevent your cash from getting eaten by inflation, park it in an index fund, T-notes, etc. If you want to have a reserve for a case when things go badly wrong, banks all go under, government can't bail them out, etc, then park some of your cash in yuan and rupee, in a piece of overseas realty, in gold bullion, and don't forget to invest in medical supplies, shells, and other such gear. Different views of the future risks drive different decisions.
  • alexey-salmin 2y ago
    We understand, we also understand that all these mechanisms fail every once in a while.
• eru 2y ago
  > Also feel like we get taxed way more than we should be with many things getting taxed multiple times... Getting taxed multiple times isn't necessarily bad, it's the overall burden (and deadweight loss!) that matters. In any case, you could try moving to a lower tax jurisdiction? (And giving up your American passport, if you have any.)
  • sethammons 2y ago
    Giving up citizenship is also a taxable event
    • eru 2y ago
      Yes, but it's a one-time thing, isn't it?