Why was my first thought in response to the title "I hope not people would die"? x_x
Gold coins thrown off the empire state building :D
and they kind of just shrugged helplessly and we laughed about how screwed they would be but I like to pretend from the look on their face that I made them think at least a tiny bit XD
They assume that "someone will look after me" even though if it really does hit the fan, they are on their own.
Given how much money people have been printing willy nilly I don't think there is enough gold to be "reserve".
I also suspect that it has been getting pilfered here and there for various activities that would be considered shady. For example, Russia bought drones from Iran using gold, due to frozen cash assets. They flew a plan with something like 1.3 tonnes of gold in it. Imagine it getting shot down :D
Most people don't know how instable "money" actually is :)
Oh coins would probably be fine if annoying XD The image in my head was gold bricks for some reason.
Given the demographics of our centre I think this particular individual was genuinely at least briefly considering their options should their bank account ever get unexpectedly frozen because by their own admission they never carry cash. In general though this is probably a common misconception probably given that the social security system is generally pretty decent (but I still go out of my way to avoid dealing with it now because every mistake is your fault even when they did it).