Before getting all excited about that 5% yield, remember, anyone investing in billions of $ (like Central Banks) want absolute certainty that their PRINCIPAL is safe and secure! That Emigrant Direct savings account is only insured up to $100,000 by FDIC. Anything beyond that can just "emigrate away" if the bank goes belly up! And you need a really big mattress to put a billion $ in Ben Franklins under it. So it boils down to currency risk diversification, preservation of principal and practicality.
Yes, that's per account. So open a couple… But if you think about it, what guarentee does a bond "really" have that is sooo much safer than the FDIC if we have a financial crisis? The only "safe" thing at that time is to have precious metals (albeit expensive now.) Safety of an investment is just an illusion. It assumes theres no financial crisis. As such, I'm really not sure why folks want to put a majority of things into low yielding, "safe" things. If there is a meltdown, it doesn't really matter.
