Many in Spain are starting to figure out that the only way to survive is to get your money out of the bank. Accounts can just be frozen as they did to the Russians living in Spain demanding they prove the source of their funds. Banco Madrid has had its funds frozen while the government tries to figure out if it will rescue the bank or not. Meanwhile, people who saved their money cannot get access to it. People are starting to wise up here and are looking at getting their money out of banks and into alternatives including real estate, stocks, and out of the country.
Because Europe has routinely cancelled currencies in the past, they will use that option if they suddenly decide to move to electronic perhaps in October. I highly recommend that cash you may hoard should not be Euros – use US dollars. The US has never cancelled its currency and it may be much harder for the USA to just cancel the currency overnight given the huge amount of dollars that circulate around the world.
So try to look at alternatives here. If you use US shares, you may want to take possession of the share certificates. The blue chips will be the most liquid, but naturally other aspects of the market may start to outperform the blue chips. Use dollars to hoard and gold coins. You just cannot leave them in a bank safe deposit box.
…more from Martin:
(for math wizards) The Schema Frequency
