FDIC insurance is a farce. There isn't enough there to cover a full blown financial collapse and/or bank runs.
Keep your cash at home in a fireproof safe. Small bills, nothing larger than $20's. You're not getting any interest on it anyway. You can get to it whenever you need to.
Even better... convert a majority of your cash to silver and/or gold. This will preserve your purchasing power.
Hyperinflation is right around the corner. We will see $10/gal gas and $10 loaf of bread in the near future.
Bank "bail-ins" (they take the cash in your account to bail out their bank) are coming to the US. This has already happened in Greece, Spain and Cyprus.
Negative interest rates are being implemented by European banks... that means you have to pay the bank to keep your money in there. This will eventually happen in the US too.
The US is also considering confiscating all 401k and IRA accounts and converting them into bonds backed by the full faith and credit of the USA ( ). No paper investment instrument is safe.
Most people are in a social media/reality show induced trance... wake the fuck up people.
I agree that FDIC insurance (like anything else) is not absolutely 100% foolproof. FDIC and other forms of insurance such as SIPC are only good up to certain amounts, and only as long as those institutions are solvent. US treasuries are not what they used to be, and are not something attractive at this time due to the interest rate environment.
I don't keep very much cash laying around for very long. I invest, including substantial overseas investment, or use it as liquid currency - hard to buy food, cars, homes, etc with gold bars.. I do believe in having some gold as a longterm investment, an alternate form of currency, and a hedge against inflation. I also like a little silver and other metals, along with oil and gas and an agricultural index.
Where are you getting this info about retirement accounts being seized, banks stealing money, and charging rent for money in the US? Talk about bloodshed in the US if such a thing happened... IF this happened or if the dollar ever actually became worthless, the world as we know it is fucked, and you definitely wouldn't want to live here...
I agree that the US has been heading in the wrong direction. The socialist European model will only make us more like Europe, which is not a good thing IMO. But you'll see mass hysteria and blood in the streets here if the dollar ever became truly worthless, and if all stocks and corp bonds (and therefore the companies behind them) were truly worthless, and if assets are seized.
I currently have many companies in my portfolio that have substantial assets such as huge oil and gas reserves on their balance sheets, often throughout the world. About the only way to significantly harm or make worthless such companies would be through government takeovers. That's my biggest fear - not a worthless dollar, hyperinflation, or FDIC failure. And I just don't see that likely happening here. To do so would be civil war times infinity.