An acquaintance of mine in Asia always says that if you have money in the bank you don't own it. His logic is compelling. When you deposit money in a bank it is yours so long as the bank allows you to get to it. If they don't, then what? You should read up on what happened in Cyprus recently. I'm sure the Cypriots who got a "hair cut" thought they owned their money in the bank to.
What happened in Cyprus is probably the same thing that happened in Italy; banks had deposits that were much more than the country's GDP backed by securities and bonds that went sour. When those bills come due, depositors are left holding the bag, not the bank.
Money; in the tangible sense; is really as worthless as the rim of paper you purchase at the local office supplies store. What makes it so valuable is the incredible demand for it from the well-off to the poor. After all, it represents an established method of obtaining a tangible item by trading for it with legal tender.
Reserve banks; and by extension the local banks; have to be the last man standing in the financial system. If that collapses, so does the faith and perception that money is worth something or that it can be used to get something. And when you have no centralized system of trading goods and services for legal tender, all you have left is a barter system. This is why in the medieval times, people paid for things with gold. Gold is perceived as a valuable, precious metal because oh I don't know.... it's shiny and heavy.
If you truly want to amass wealth and assets long-term and not worry about legal gangsters at the bank taking it from you, then you have to get yourself a bomb shelter or several properties on your name. This way you only have to worry about the local government determining whether your certificate of title or deed is really yours or not.
I'm being sarcastic in that last paragraph.... just in case you're really taking me serious about that advice
