bank holiday

BANK HOLIDAYS
If you have ever tried to watch the movie “1984” you most likely weren’t able to suffer through it. You may not even have been able to get around to reading the book yet. Myself, while I enjoyed Animal Farm, never read Orwell’s other writings. But we all are familiar with the more pertinent details of the book, if only because the ideas are ingrained in the popular culture. So we almost automatically know whatever government says, they mean the opposite. The Defense Department, for example, has been strictly offensive since the name change from the War Department. It may be paranoid, but I think we even allowed the Soviets to have our nuclear secrets in order to continue on a war footing and not slip into another economic correction.
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When the government says “bank holiday”, I automatically think of “we’re stealing your money, sucker”. Whenever the government declares a bank holiday they are taking the time to ship physical cash to the banks, keeping you from getting your money too quick, and thinking up ways to avert disaster. Now, don’t get me started on how the banks shouldn’t help at all. They are just helping themselves to more wealth. We’ll just take things at face value about the Central Bank controlling the money supply and not get involved in the institutional theft it represents.
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Since cash itself is in such short supply at any period of time ( most of it is overseas, held by paranoid people that don’t trust their local currency ) there is not enough to cover emergencies. Right before Y2K the Fed said they would ship extra cash to banks in anticipation of extra cash holdings by folks. Then, right after, we’ve had high inflation. Prices have doubled in the last six years or so. A lot has to do with lowered interest rates, a lot has to do with increased borrowing from overseas. But I wonder how much was due to extra cash being printed up ( I’m sure much more than they reported )? And how many currency design changes have there been? I bet a lot more is introduced than replaced. A little bit here, a little bit there. It adds up. Remember, inflation is the only way the government can keep this whole mess from imploding. But after any emergency, the system will be flooded with more paper cash.
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For awhile there, I was always seeing little signs at the bank. They said something to the effect that you could be denied money from your account for a period of days. I don’t see those anymore. They could still be up and I’m not paying attention. But I thought it interesting that the banks would even bother staying open if they were refusing you cash. I guess they still needed to generate mortgage business since most of their profit was there. Well, it was, anyway. Ha, ha. Suckers. But I would expect actual closure of the banks. It wouldn’t do to have a riot at the bank branch. You have no idea it is going to happen. They declare a holiday on Monday, and the ATM’s have been stripped over the weekend. You better hope you can still use your debit card.
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To avert disaster, to save their own skins, to keep their house in the Hamptons, the bankers and the government will do just about anything. They would nuke one of our own cities and blame it on terrorists. If an old, bitter, crippled bastard with a direct phone line to Satan himself would push another country into attacking us and killing off hundreds of thousands of our own and millions of civilians in other countries, you can bet today the pukes in charge would fry millions and irradiate millions more, then condemn millions more after that to starvation and pestilence all in the name of staying in power or staying rich. If you don’t believe that, you haven’t been watching the news much. Our direct actions have killed hundreds of thousands of Iraqi civilians and between the two wars, tens of thousands of troops have been dosed with depleted uranium dust from munitions. BBQ Reno killed children. What’s the difference to the government between nineteen or nineteen million? About the same difference between spending a million or a billion dollars- none at all, just a time difference.
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As much as we blame government for this, that, or the other, we have very little idea of what they are truly capable of. Expect the worse. And expect another bank holiday soon. It used to be that talking of bank holidays, one conjured up images of the Great Depression. Then 9-11 caused another one. No one lost anything, short term. Long term the housing bubble might screw us all. But the next bank holiday could see all your cash vanishing in thin air or being replaced by even more worthless currency. For instance, you are forced to settle for ten percent, but that is in New Dollars, worth very little as inflation shoots up 100% immediately. Or, it is technically worth the same but price and wage freezes see every item disappear from the shelves and only Black Market items are available and they cost five times the official prices. Then you can get the other 90% come tax return time, but by then taxes have doubled and inflation has killed what little is left.
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Only keep as much money in the bank as you are willing to lose. It might come to that.
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