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Comment by basementcat | Hacker News Reader

If it makes you feel more comfortable, you don't have to go "all in"; it is never a bad idea to keep some cash on hand (for emergencies, etc). When the inevitable "crash" does happen, you'll be well positioned to buy some discounted shares of good businesses.

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How do you know that the next crash doesn't wipe out cash savings in some way or another?

The only way cash savings can be wiped out is rampant inflation, currency devaluation, or the currency being no longer accepted. Generally "crash" refers to the stock market prices dropping. Stock market prices don't have anything to do with any of the above three, so you can be pretty sure that the next stock market crash won't wipe out cash savings. If anything, crashes tend to produce recessions, which can produce deflation, which makes cash worth more. (But, deflation is really bad, so central banks do everything they can to prevent it.)

Let's revisit this thread in few years.

> The only way cash savings can be wiped out is rampant inflation, currency devaluation, or the currency being no longer accepted.

Also bail-ins. Any significant amount of cash in a bank account is a sitting target if real trouble starts. This is more likely in smaller countries like Greece.

Yes. This. Greece was the test for the latest wealth-transfer mechanism. Why wait for unreliable governments to bail you out when you can just confiscate deposits?

We’re in guns and ammo territory then.

The bigger risk is having a large long term cash position. Large amounts of cash should have a purpose within a year or 2.

this is why just about everyone suggests an appropriately diversified portfolio - stocks, bonds, cash, natural resources, hard assets, etc.

That's a bit like asking, how do you know we won't have another world war? If there was a way to know the future, we'd all be doing ___.

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