Mother Nature is not a counterparty, to consider her one is to torture the meaning of the term - counterparty risk refers to exposure to other economic actors required to perform Mother Nature presents risks, but they are “acts of God” in the law, for example. And again, savings is not an absolute sovereignty thing. It’s a spectrum. It sounds like you’re trying to say the only thing that can be called “savings” is something that is absolutely risk-free. Nothing, of course, is totally risk-free. And the existence of risk has nothing to do with whether something is savings, just whether it is a *good* tool for savings You hold your gold, but you have risk that someone will shoot you and take it. Your control is contingent on others’ respect for your property rights. You can be secretive about the amount of gold you have, but only until you spend it. Then, you are relying on the other party’s respect for your property rights - that they don’t just rob you. I concede that gold has different trade-offs that might appeal to a particular risk profile, but I would be a little silly to pretend that, because it isn’t my preferred savings tool, it *isn’t* a savings tool at all.