I always laugh when people use VaR for exactly that reason. In reality for most investors the true actual value at risk is however much money isn't in cash. I

I always laugh when people use VaR for exactly that reason. In reality for most investors the true actual value at risk is however much money isn't in cash. I know you can say "well what about hyper-inflation!" and you're right; someone in cash would get wiped out in hyper-inflation. But considering how infrequent hyper-inflations are and how badly VaR led many folks astray really all over the developed world, perhaps re-defining it that way wouldn't be so terrible.