North Korea

[palepainter]

It is quite frightening to see some of the same trends regarding the value of the money happening here.

[RobertB]

It is quite frightening to see some of the same trends regarding the value of the money happening here.

There is a lot of talk about deflation / hyperinflation waiting in the wings here, too. I don't understand it well or predict the future well enough to know which if either comes, but it shows what effect it can have on your cash supplies. It'd seem that having stuff might be more reliable than cash in some cases, but in those cases, the government will probably be looking to appropriate your stuff, too.

Interestingly enough, I know quite a lot of folks from former Soviet / Warsaw Pact countries who say that things had been better under communism. The real crash came at the end, so they felt the jolting shock of "surprise, we're capitalists now!" and that's when the problems multiplied. Communism would be doomed to failure anyway, but when they compare that time, when things more or less worked, to the chaos that followed, they preferred the stability or illusion thereof. Some of those countries are crawling back out of their holes, but some were even worse mismanaged and are having even more troubles than in the 90s. The USA has some serious problems, but we are blessed to be someplace that didn't have to experience those other problems. Appreciate what you have; at least the power, water, etc. stays on and there's goods a-plenty. Life here is a heck of a lot easier than much of the rest of the world.