“Every payday put aside a little extra cash for emergencies. I figure the bank’s not paying much more interest than the mattress does, might as well have some cash at hand.”
If everything falls apart, cash won’t be worth the paper it’s printed on. In reality all modern economies are built in some manner with play money. It only has value because we believe as a group that it does. When that goes out the window the entire system can collapse. I’m not saying this is inevitable, but it is a scary possibility.
The reality will look more like high inflation, and at some point a more stable form of currency will be sought out and adopted, then at that point the previous currency will be worthless.
For an example, here's the Revolutionary War pension application for one of my fifth great grandfathers, scroll down to Christopher Eaton:
http://www.fmoran.com/revde.html
It's lengthy and the poor fellow had a rough time of it, but it does mention his returning with a parcel of Continentals which were his pay but they were worth very little as they had depreciated.
This is not to say that there should be no concern, but that holding some emergency ready cash is not a bad thing.
US currency has a high rag content. It's not just paper.
That makes is very useful, after it has been softened for outhouse paper. Better than glossy magazines.
Gotta be practical.
/johnny
Actually, cash would still have value.
The reason is that there would be thousands or millions of folks heading to the ATM to get cash, and they WON’T GET ANY.
So any cash that is out there and already in circulation would be premium.