It happened in Argentina. One day people woke up and their USD access basically gone.

> happened in Argentina

That’s expropriation, not bank error. And there was very little unrest (EDIT: resulting from the expropriation per se).

If you’re concerned about that risk, an offshore bank account is better protection than physical assets within the expropriating government’s jurisdiction.

>very little unrest

... https://www.theguardian.com/world/2001/dec/20/argentina2

>If you’re concerned about that risk, an offshore bank account is better protection than physical assets within the expropriating government’s jurisdiction.

Due to FATCA Americans are pariahs in the global banking system. For grocery money probably not going to happen.

The ‘01 riots were a symptom of economic collapse. I don’t recall any significant contemporaneous attribution to the expropriation of U.S. dollars in bank accounts, which mostly hit the rich.

> Due to FATCA Americans are pariahs in the global banking system

For grocery money, a second bank account is sufficient. For expropriation risk, opening an offshore account as an American is nontrivial, but far from pariah status. (For that experience, say you’re Russian.)

It's interesting to characterize economic collapse as unrelated to access to foreign currency for international trade. Also interesting to presume what happens to the rich, who are often the employer and owners, doesn't cause issues for the rest of the economy and the employees of the rich.

Also bear in mind that in the US it is a rich person's game indeed to hold foreign currency. But in Latin America and especially Argentina USD is far more common in the common man's hand.

> interesting to characterize economic collapse as unrelated to access to foreign currency for international trade

This jumps the rhetorical shark. Nobody said they’re unrelated. Just that the unrest is a response to the collapse. It would have occurred if the government seized dollars or not. The dollar seizure was a response to the collapse.

I acknowledge neither of our theories can be proven but it just seems too far fetched to me the unrest was attributable to everything but the banking measures.

> it just seems too far fetched to me the unrest was attributable to everything but the banking measures

Temporary and permanent capital controls have a long history of peaceful implementation. Economic collapses do not.

An important consideration here is unrest is in part in response to perceived factors in the economic collapse. Even if one takes the position the measures are not the cause of the collapse they can still be a cause of unrest.

> if one takes the position the measures are not the cause of the collapse they can still be a cause of unrest

You’re missing that the measures have been taken in other contexts without unrest, e.g. Iceland, Cyprus, FDR’a gold confiscation. If X always precedes Y, and Z sometimes does but sometimes doesn’t (and when it does, is twinned with X), and we witness X, Z and Y, X is the dominant explanation for Y.

" there are four kinds of countries: developed countries, underdeveloped countries, Japan, and Argentina."

-- Simon Kuznets

Kuznets' quote is about international finance. Not social unrest. The factors that lead Argentina to collapse are uniquely Argentinian. What happened after that is unsurprising.

>Kuznets' quote is about international finance. >Not social unrest.

This is a contradiction. You said social unrest is caused by financial collapse. International finance in a globally integrated economy like Argentina then necessarily becomes a piece of the financial collapse that causes unrest.

Can’t tell if you’re trolling at this point, but it’s not a contradiction, and you’ve ignored the numerous counterfactuals more applicable to America.

Lol while we're going with the troll accusation (yeah I realize you said "trolling" not "troll" but it's just a back-door to the ad-hominem attack), I'd like to point out the person refusing the relation of the banking measures which came immediately before the riots (and even have a wikipedia page which describes the subsequent anger and violence) as somehow being not a cause of the unrest, is a self described ex "investment banker." Who'd of guessed it.

commonplace??

Imagine the horror when the government declares that the physical money you owned will have no value after one month and you have to exchange it for a replacement

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2016_Indian_banknote_demonetis...