What Happens If Things Go Really Badly? $15 Trillion of Debt in Default | Hacker News Reader

What Happens If Things Go Really Badly? $15 Trillion of Debt in Default

calculatedriskblog.com

9 pointserikstarck9 comments

WILL GROWING GOVERNMENT DEBT FORCE A DEFAULT IN JAPAN?

Unlikely. That's mainly because Japan has almost no foreign currency-denominated debt obligations and more than 90 percent of Japanese government bonds are held by domestic investors, who are typically risk averse.

It is also the world's largest creditor nation, with net external assets of 225.5 trillion yen, and it still enjoys a current account surplus.

http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTOE60P0BH20100127

For safe investments jewelry and Art do well in turbulent times:

http://books.google.ca/books?id=tuxGXgJ_HEwC&pg=PA222...

So, where would HN users move their money in a scenario like this? My homecountry is on the default list.

Plan A: buy gold.

Plan B: buy a shotgun, a motorcycle, lots of fuel and fresh water.

(a) Gold: shiny, heavy, and generally useless. Valuable only if someone else agrees it is valuable. (b) Guns, ammo, food, and fuel: Useful. Inherently valuable and good for barter.

Well, although you can't eat it, gold has been considered to be of value for a good couple of millenia. Why? because you can't print more of it. And a gold coin can represent more food that you can carry with you.

Fiat money is consists just dead trees with ink on them or worse, it's created digitally.

The story goes that over half of the current USD money supply has been created in the last 4-5 years or so... can you say inflation?!? :O

Please cite historical examples showing cases where a person with physical gold in their hand, went hungry if food was available in the area they were in.

A classic first-person survival account.

Argentina after TSHTF

http://ferfal.blogspot.com/2008/01/most-important-need-in-fi...

Canada

Where does Switzerland rate? Is that still a safe-haven or just hype?

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