> 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.
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.
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.
> 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.
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.