Well, the problem at hand (as best as I can determine) is that we're in the same situation we were in back in '08, if you recall there was a lot of panic about the banking system imploding from them panicking and recalling all their loans. So what the Fed/gov't had to do was print as much money as they could at the lowest interest rates possible so there'd be so much 'capital' available banks could 'stay in business' by making easy loans without having to care so much about losing money vs people defaulting on said loans. Since banks were borrowing at a 0.25% rate, and probably lending >3%, they had a much wider margin of error.
However the whole underlying structure of the banking system is flawed (creating money as taxpayer-debt), which QE and indeed central banking POLICY cannot address altogether. So we're pretty much right back where we were back in '08, except MORE overleveraged. The actual problem is still here, and it has only gotten worse. So the banks are going to crash harder.
I had a chance to talk to a live hedge fund manager (something like ~18m under assets) and he is SHORT the market right now.
You should hold your cash as cash, although I wish I could tell you if it's save to hold in a bank, for example Greeks had their bank accounts frozen and then were forcibly kept from withdrawing more than ~80eur/day. However that's Greece, we're in America who are the people who created this mess in the first place, the WORLD's banking system is reliant on us so if shit goes down we're the last to go. The $USD is the global reserve currency, meaning a majority of global trade is denominated in USD. So if banks go down, everyone's gonna flee into $USD currency, meaning we'll actually be seeing DEFLATION first. Hold your cash as cash, where to hold it i'm not quite sure. Personally I have some in a money-market fund with a brokerage, go ahead and google what that is. Assuming it will hold value throughout the happening, I'll move into some good stocks (FB and BABA are two I want most), and THEN once that whole panic of the market crashing wears off we'll see the trend reverse, and THEN we'll see uncontrollable inflation on the $USD, probably not hyperinflation though. USA isn't going to just explode, we're merely going from #1 to #3 or 5 or whatever. We're just being knocked down a peg, which is HUGE yes and will cause great turmoil within the markets, but we're still wholly relevant as part of the global economy. That's probably what these TPP deals are about, we're trying to lock in trade agreements with other superpowers because frankly that's the only hope the ruling elite of this country have left. The notion that taxpayers will be able to shoulder the debt they drew upon us is ludicrous at the point they've taken it to.
Pic very related.