What exactly is an ‘asset’ anymore? If you work hard and earn money, your money is taxed when you earn it, taxed if you spend it, taxed if you successfully invest it, and taxed if you try to pass it on to your children. If you buy property, you pay taxes on it, and have little control anymore to what heights those taxes can and will rise, and the government can confiscate your property (with minimal compensation) on the basis of ‘eminent domain’. If you just save it, its worth decreases every time the government prints more worthless paper. And in the end, you are really trusting in a system (the American economy) that could implode, making whatever your bank statements say currently essentially meaningless numbers. Ultimately, the legitimacy and strength of any economy is very much dependent upon the trust put into it by the citizens whom it is designed to serve. How confident is anyone at this point in the stability of our economy?
I guess, in light of all that, an “asset” nowadays is whatever you have that the government doesn’t know you have. Of course, if they find out you have it, then it would become a “liability” pretty quick.