Having enough cash under your mattress that authority figures can't easily take from you is a psychological comfort.
Suffice it to say, I've been seriously considering the tradeoffs of hoarding cash under my mattress.
For those reasons I keep a week of cash on hand, not because civilisation might collapse, but as a buffer if my access to the banking system is disrupted.
For a while last year, bank branches had pretty limited hours, and I bank with a out of state credit union (because they have decent interest rates, even if that's 0.5% these days), and some co-op network branches weren't doing shared branching either. So, if I want to be able to buy something over my daily ATM limit, I had to hoard cash, since I couldm't be sure I'd have access to it.
Of course, prices haven't been great for buyers on most things (although I did pick up a well priced Street Fighter II Turbo early last summer and a not terribly priced tandem this spring; lots more nice things went at prices I'm not willing to pay)
Granted, we were a drive up branch that dealt with commercial/retail so a lot of customers would routinely be dealing with 5k worth of cash. Other branches had similar amounts of cash though.
Strange world
Still, it's especially interesting because the numbers even 15 years ago are much higher in real terms than today.
This is another advantage of inflation.
You can set rules like, you have to declare more than $10k worth of assets traveling with you on flights, and every year, the plummeting value of that dollar metric includes more and more people and activities in the surveillance state.
Cash is also a security risk and liability from a ‘getting robbed’ perspective.
So it’s rare to really need more anymore, except for outlier situations like car sales, which they generally don’t handle well.
I shouldn’t have to schedule something ahead of time which is the equivalent of cashing the average American paycheck. Cash might be a bit of a pain, but there are still plenty of common and good reasons why I might want 5k of my money without having to wait a few days for it.
I remember a guy withdrawing $25k in cash one day. That was unusual, which is why I remember it, but it wasn’t a problem either. (We gave it to him in a big sack, and I was disappointed that the sack didn’t have a large $ printed on the side.)
My wife used to work at a regional branch that did cash management for other banks. The place was like a fortress and had a lot of physical security measures to protect the people and dollars. That branch was nuts - they’d handle millions in currency and be able to handle six figure withdrawals. Midtown Manhattan banks can do that too.
Although, I still personally believe that coins at least up to the US quarter should probably be abolished. Quarters are really the only thing semi useful as a medium of exchange, and even they are starting to lose their utility. Maybe dollar coins can still be useful.
The US probably could get by with just $1 and $5 coins.
Metal coins seem like a case of holding onto tradition despite losing the original reason for the tradition.
Plus, quarters are better to flip to make decisions than bills.
They're also much easier to handle when you need many different ones, like when you're trying to assemble an exact amount. I can just look into my wallet and pick out the coins I need, whereas with notes, I'd have to spread them out like an awkward floppy hand of cards and especially if they weren't distinct enough scanning through and finding the right ones sounds plain annoying.
(Plus, 2 dollars is like a quarter 50 years ago....)
The Japanese still love their cash and coins. And even though they have a variety of NFC payment options and credit cards are not as terrible as they once were, their adoption rate is slow.
Do you know any? If I could vet its security and """reasonably total""" privacy, the idea could be tempting - e.g. to buy a cheap device to only do monetary transactions. I am not sure, first of all, how you would transform cash into credit into a personal device.
* Country-specific: prepaid cards like Suica in Japan, purchasable with cash from ATMs.
* Not that cheap: offshore bank account.
* Not legal: crypto card with "borrowed" KYC.
So basically unless you're lucky to be living in a country with a privacy-respecting culture, you have to act like a criminal to regain the basic right to privacy.
Because I also know of systems which are related to banks, but explicitly come from your account, invisibly to the seller - but the bank knows everything.
I have seen anonymous pre-paid cards which had in the back the space for a signature, and were accompanied by instructions such as "must be signed to be valid".
Yes, this likely means retailers will play games with change, but other times you will come out on top with the rounding. And think about it this way - yes, sometimes retailers played games with the half-penny too. A few decades on, once you've gotten out of the mindset that someone is "cheating you" out of maybe as much as a quarter-penny every transaction, nobody cares, it's not an actual significant amount of money.
there also are significant costs associated with maintaining currency units that small - it costs more than a penny to make a penny, and while sure, that penny gets used through multiple transactions, that also incurs additional costs on everybody who has to handle that penny in every single transaction. The amount of time and energy spent handling that penny probably winds up being dollars over the lifespan of the penny.
this also gives interesting context to the expression "a penny saved is a penny earned" - that expression today would be "a dollar saved is a dollar earned". A penny was actually a decently significant amount of money when that expression was coined, it wasn't literally "every single quarter-penny matters".
Downside is you have to go during banking hours and you have to make an extra trip.
When I've bought 2nd hand kayaks from someone's home, I've been able to transfer the money on my phone through the banking app and they've seen the funds arrive in seconds. Is this not the case in the US?
That said, Faster Payments in the UK are not guaranteed to be instant and can take up to 2 hours. Also, some banks will arbitrarily downgrade them back to slow old BACs if it flags up as risky on their systems or if it's someone you haven't sent money to before.
In general I agree it's not a problem though, you're not going to let the buyer take the keys until the money is in your account.
However, I did need to borrow his card reader/code generator thing - put my card in, enter the PIN and the amount and then type in the code it generated into my phone to authorise the transfer. Presumably because of the large amount going to a new payee.
They have some biometric auth thing in the app now but I've not set it up or even looked at it yet.
As time goes on, those dollar maximums and notice periods are malleable and completely outside my control.
It’s possible that the kind of account you have with that bank plays a role here. There has been a lot of deregulation over the last 10 years or something, but it used to be that your account had a descriptive name - passbook savings, demand deposit, etc. And those names meant something! A demand account meant you could demand your money any time you wanted, but it was against the law to earn interest. A passbook savings account earned interest, but you were limited in how often you could take money out, etc.
Well, either they made it or I went to 2 different branches, but it was a classic "Why even have the rule with an arbitrary number"
In some countries that's the law.
> I wanted to buy a used car ... the easiest method seemed to be cash
In some countries that became illegal over a certain threshold of expense the payment must be traceable).
I was recently told (but did not verify) that car sellers, in some countries, out of some regulation, nowadays will even ask you how you "made" that money. (And I replied that they'd better know better before being impertinent.)
I am trying to flee - if you know a place in which values (such as aptitude and civilization) are still in place, drop a note.
Interestingly for the context, it was a crisis in banking that "made the first alarms ring", in my case, years ago.
I was checking out food at a supermarket with debit when the card reader crashed. Cashier rebooted it but it complained that I didn't have enough money in the account, which I definitely did. I checked my banking app and it showed as if the transaction had succeeded, but the supermarket couldn't produce a receipt and refused to give me the groceries. When I called the bank they said there's nothing they can do and it would sort itself out in two weeks. The supermarket info desk radio'd that apparently someone else was also having trouble checking out with debit.
That was the day I vowed to always withdraw a month's expenses in advance and fight against full computerization of cash. I can imagine someone getting screwed real good having their food budget stuck in a banking error for half a month unable to buy food!
Now also suppose a "clerical mistake" freezes access to your accounts.
I had 40K taken by US Bank last year...365 days have passed and they're still coming up with excuses as to why they can't disburse that amount to me.
Thank god that I had the insight to start a savings account at a Credit Union about 10 years ago, and moved half of my paychecks there via direct deposit.
I now keep cash in a safe (what safety am I getting keeping that cash in a CD at .05%?) as my savings account.
The government can legally just take your wealth from you, and you have to prove that you it came from legit and legal means, and they can drag their feet even when you produce proof.
https://www.aclu.org/issues/criminal-law-reform/reforming-po...
Also, safe deposit boxes are an option, which have different security tradeoffs from a safe in your home.
And fire-proof safes aren't "fire proof". They're generally rated for a reasonable amount of fire resistance - 1 to 2 hours - which is usually enough time for a house to burn down around them and be extinguished (they also only promise to protect paper, for example).
Whether they would survive the inferno of a bushfire, wherein the house is not extinguished, is far less clear.
Tradeoffs generally require hedging your bets.
If it's a societal event, then yes, you can't rely on safe deposit boxes, just like you can't rely on your bank account. You're better off shoving cash under your mattress and stacking brass and lead.
But if it's an individual event, then your home itself might be a target, and safe deposit boxes might mitigate your risk.
It's all about tradeoffs.
Reminds me of 1-2-3 rule for backups.
Which gave way to IOUs from gold smiths, since carrying large amounts of coins was still hard. Which, well, everyone knows the rest.
Doing this kind of thing has meant their ancestors survived crazy insane disasters that most others did not, so they are going to keep doing it to some extent no matter what.
Think of it as humanities extra parity bits. Most of the time they’re useless, until they’re the only reason we’re still here.
So if you decide to flee the country, five pounds of gold is $150K and can easily be carried in a small backpack. Let's say you keep it in 1 troy oz pieces, so you have 80 of them worth about $1800 each. You can go to any nation on earth, and whatever currency they have, they will be happy to sell it to you for gold. Yes, only in $1800 pieces. That's fine, you can exchange it for whatever local currency is being used as you need it.
You can do this anonymously and privately. You don't need to worry about whether the US dollar has collapsed. Gold does go up and down, but it never goes to zero, and tends to do well in crisis situations and maintain value over the long term. It is not - or shouldn't be viewed as -- an "investment", it's insurance. It costs money.
Moreover even if you do not flee the country, having assets that you possess - true bearer assets -- is superior than assets others hold for you in a custodial account. How secure is your 401K? Secure until congress passes a law to take some of it. How secure is your bank account? It is as secure as someone who can convince the bank to freeze your account or close your account. So having a bit of gold or cash as a type of hedge for unlikely events makes sense to a lot of people.
You have to keep in mind that for a household living in Silesia, between 1880 and 2000, they would have lived through one hyperinflation, two world wars, two revolutions and three uprisings, and four foreign invasions. They would have been ruled by Prussia, Poland, Nazi Germany, Soviet-controlled Poland, finally free Poland. Each of these had their own currency regimes and currency reforms. That household would have been well off having a bit of gold tucked away. They would have been able to trade some of it for food during the Weimar collapse, and to transport some wealth through the dark days of communism -- maybe even bribing someone to let them escape the country with something more useful that worthless zlotys in whichever nation they landed.
You're attempting to use logic in a place where there is none.
2) it’s a lot less fun to talk or think (and may be dangerous to even try) about more realistic issues - like if you’re on the wrong side of the situation in Bosnia or Rawanda.
3) it’s the same kind of general process though, and some of the same tools can be useful to defend, escape, or repel.
And gold and diamonds got a LOT of people out of harms way that otherwise would be dead - at least from the 2 folks I knew that got out of Vietnam with their families when the south fell (and are probably alive today) only because they were able to bribe their way onto the boats using gold.
Think Argentine 90's hyper-inflation crisis. Think Venezuela economic colapse.
Heck! think Argentina RIGHT NOW.
If you think of it however as not needing to be rational, but more or from an evolutionary perspective ‘folks in the past who had similar types of fears and discomfort might have survived prior insane disasters that no one else expected to ever occur’ it might make more sense.
It doesn’t have to be rational. It doesn’t even have to help them survive or be successful most of the time. If it works even a little better and they survive when everyone else died because of their insane paranoia, those genes will propagate.
Most of us prepare for short-term disruptions that are far more likely than hordes of undead roaming the streets. If widespread societal collapse should actually happen, then having a strong local community, and knowing how to co-operate and communicate with one's neighbours is far more important than having enough canned tuna to last to Ragnarok and back. That being said, having survival skills and basic supplies can come in handy in a wide range of situations.
Personally, I'm preparing for more basic things like long power outages, extreme weather and supply chain disruptions. Sure, we got food, fuel and supplies for a few months at home, and it's been very handy during the pandemic, while being snowed in for a week a few winters ago, and when being without power for two days last summer -- I could keep working like any other day, and didn't lose any income.
Yes, that includes some cash. It's been handy a few times when the card terminals at the store wasn't working. Storing large piles of it seems an unnecessary risk, though.
The writer probably wanted to subtly refer to relevant Danish-American actress S.J. (a cryptic critique of the frugal accomplished Northern Europe?) in her statement "If I pay bucks for a movie ticket, I do not want to go there and think" (quoted from memory). Too subtle, let us not speak in riddles! (Even that «transphobia», presumably to be read as "fear of [monetary] transactions" - privacy, availability, inflation, currency as a token without intrinsic value: with such obscurity, little of the message can pass.)
Romero confirmed the depiction was that of "the revolution", where "the awake" realizes the vast majority is assimilated, but discovers "humanity" inside himself and decides that it is worth fighting to defend it, as the core hidden topic in the original work which provided the inspiration: Richard Matheson's I am Legend.
All of that installed in the social crisis of confusion, incompetence and violence seen as the core aspects of the '60 in the USA.
...Since we are discussing about cash, and surely you wanted to be on topic, I assume you meant to state "ghouls also renounce to privacy", worsening the scenario Romero originally depicted. Well noted.
The “real” gold and silver people use it to avoid taxation. The high spreads and illiquidity are less than what you owe the tax guy or your ex-wife.
An important caveat: this only applies to reasonably large orders, 1 oz or larger. You cannot buy $100 of gold with 1% spread.
Plenty of reputable shops, and most are more than happy to do cash transactions.
They’ll issue you an invoice made out to walk in or whatever, so you have documentation, and if you want, you can pay taxes on gains or whatever later.
It IS getting harder to get cash out of a bank without jumping through endless hoops, but most banks will still let you call in an order for $20k cash or whatever (more than $100k starts to become much more difficult) and after a few days will have it ready for you with documentation (so if a cop pulls you over you can prove it is documented/part of a ‘legal’ source).
Some will make you sign a waiver so if you get mugged outside the bank, you were warned and it’s not their fault, etc. at some point it’s probably worthwhile to get an armored truck or whatever.
Which the cop will promptly ignore and take the money anyway.
You do have enough lawyers right?
I really want to believe things are not that bad in the US.
Some are really good, some are…… really not.
And it’s hard to predict what you’ll get unless you really know the area.
Where the civil asset forfeiture stuff really gets people is when they don’t have a paper trail.
The department has an army of lawyers who deal with civil asset forfeiture all the time, and they can call in federal assistance if needed. There's a 95% chance the department will keep all of the cash, and in the other 5% they merely keep some of it.
Paperwork won't help because the prosecutors will successfully argue that it could be used for future crimes.
Civil asset forfeiture makes a mockery of the US legal system, but most people don't follow it enough to see just how bad it really is.
Someone’s gonna lose their job over that, at least if you have enough lawyers
Where civil asset forfeiture comes in hard core is when you can’t show the source of the money.
Show me a case otherwise.
Gold doesn't multiply itself so that you have more gold that might be unreported. It's not like an investment account in the Caymans. It's just a collectible. You can also buy rare books, or antique furniture, or rubies, or any other collectible. There is absolutely nothing special about gold that doesn't equally apply to these other items, other than gold is more famous.
For this reason alone lots of the extremely wealthy hold it as a hedge.
At volume the premium over spot is about ~6% even straight from the Royal Mint
Example: https://www.royalmint.com/invest/bullion/bullion-coins/gold-...
People who have businesses that are easy to run in cash (landlords, construction, restaurant trades) often run a portion of the business off book. Converting cash to commodities is a pretty common way to store value more securely, as cash gets unwieldy. Sometimes country folk use equipment like tractors or junk cars for similar purposes.
Might loose a bit to fees getting it on chain(s) (though less than intl money transfers if one is used to that), but should make it back pretty quickly.
[0] https://www.reuters.com/business/walmart-allowing-some-shopp...
[1] https://github.com/bisq-network/bisq
In the event of hyperinflation the Bitcoin will hopefully gain (or at least preserve value)-- and it can be transferred online, which the cash cannot. (And in the event of a total bitcoin collapse you still have 90%). Re-balance it once a year or so.
It doesn't take much to make missing out on the 0.5% interest rate of a high rate savings account into not much of a problem.