At some point, as China's dollar hoard piles up, its middle class is going to itch to get a return on its savings and Beijing's financial control mechanisms may start to slip.

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Their official reason for building up a cash hoard in the first place was to create a reserve for Microsoft's legal battles, all stemming from its alleged monopolistic abuses.

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Various nations that, whether by inadvertence or a conscious desire to hoard precious resources, are locking up much of their potential oil production.

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The anonymous caller promised a lucrative deal over the phone: stump up dollars in advance and he would produce a glittering hoard in Johannesburg.

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Even cash-rich banks will hoard their money if they fear that the interbank market will seize up and cut them off from sources of future supply.

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That claim, in turn, prompted Joseph Estrada, Mrs Arroyo's predecessor, to plough up the gardens of a former presidential palace looking for the hoard.

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Like other insiders of his day, he made another fortune playing shorts on the way down, then spent the Great Depression buying up underpriced assets at fire sale prices, using his cash hoard to quickly enter new businesses like liquor distribution the moment Prohibition was lifted.

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