Where is your money?

Citigroup has recently notified its customers that it might take 7 days to receive withdrawals from checking accounts at their banks. Specifically:

"Effective April 1, 2010, we reserve the right to require (7) days advance notice before permitting a withdrawal from all checking accounts. While we do not currently exercise this right and have not exercised it in the past, we are required by law to notify you of this change."

Apparently this only applies to Texas, but was mistakenly sent out to every Citi bank customer nationwide. I'd call that a heck of an error. And it's a convenient mistake, since at least some of their customers (even outside Texas) will be slightly more likely to accept delays in receiving their cash, since they were warned in advance. As I wrote last month, a dollar in hand is worth 20 in the bank.

Meanwhile, Zero Hedge alerts us to other troubles in getting our hands on our own damned money in Expecting A Tax Refund? If You Live In Hawaii Or North Carolina (And Soon New York) You Will Have To Wait:

Two weeks ago we warned readers who wanted to get 2009 tax refunds to file their taxes asap. It appears we were prescient. The state budget crisis is about to hit home. Again. Last year California delayed tax refunds due to simply not having any money which to refund. This year, the first states to announce a hold in refund processing for just the same reason are Hawaii and North Carolina. New York State is also considering a comparable action. If you have delayed filing your taxes, it is high time to do so now regardless of where you live as the same "money-saving" approach of halting refunds is likely about to become prevalent now that "everyone is doing it."

Meanwhile, Illinois has not been making its mandatory payments to schools, universities, and various other agencies. California is likely to run into similar cash flow problems in 2 or 3 months, and perhaps this time they won't even bother with official IOU's, but will simply take the Illinois route and just not make payments. So far, school districts and state universities have juggled funds in order to keep paying their workers, but you can see where this is headed. One day, in some state or another, certain state-employed workers will simply not be paid. The money they have earned under contract will simply not arrive.

Speaking of employment contracts, pension funds are vastly underfunded, and the government entity that is supposed to guarantee pension funds (the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation) is... right, utterly underfunded. Social Security is underfunded, and will go into deficit (meaning we can only make payments using borrowed money or by hiking withdrawals) this year. And our own, private retirement funds are in danger of being stolen over the long term, as I wrote about in Nationalizing our 401k's.

Are you beginning to see a pattern? You might be worth a certain amount on paper, but what do you have in hand? What money or assets do you have in your house, in a safe, squirreled away at a relative's house, or whatever? What have you actually got in hand?

And now for the ultimate question: what have you got in hand that doesn't depend on the value of the dollar? What do you have that is not denominated in Federal Reserve Notes? Because a couple of years from now, the value of all that green cotton/linen blend could be dwindling fast. Or even sooner than a couple of years.

It's time to think 19th century for at least some of your wealth (should you still be so lucky as to have any wealth). You know: Land, tools, wheat and rice, salt and sugar, firewood, silver and gold, the family jewels (in the literal sense), cows, pigs, chickens. More people would see this if they weren't blinded by a knee-jerk disdain of "survivalists," and by the "Everything Is Normal" meta-message of television.