Most countries, including the United states, have what's called a fractional reserve system; in other words, only a fraction of all checkable deposits (basically all the money a bank owes people) is found inside the bank's vault So if a bank carried 500 million dollars in money deposited by its members, it would only carry just a fraction of that at one time

There has been a lot of debate over the years as to whether or not gold is worth investing your money in Some make the claim that it makes an excellent hedge against inflation; others might say that you can use it as a quick fix for some extra cash