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FDIC asks Americans to keep their money in the banks
by Simon Black, Sovereign Man:
Yesterday the Chair of the FDIC released an astonishing video asking Americans to keep their money in the bank.
Accompanied by soft piano music playing in the background, the official said:
“Your money is safe at the banks. The last thing you should be doing is pulling your money out of the banks thinking it’s going to be safer somewhere else.”
Amazing. I was half expecting her to waive her hand and say, “These aren’t the droids you’re looking for…”
As I’ve written before, there’s $250 TRILLION worth of debt in the world right now: student debt, housing debt, credit card debt, government debt, corporate debt, etc.
And let’s be honest, some of that debt is simply not going to be paid.
Millions of people have already lost their jobs. Millions more (like the 10 million waiters and bartenders across America) are barely earning anything right now because their businesses are closed.
A lot of those folks have no emergency savings to fall back on during times of crisis, so they’re going to be forced to choose: pay the rent, or buy food.
The government has already suspended evictions and foreclosures, which is a green light for people to stop paying the rent or mortgage.
And that means banks will take it in the teeth.
This is what happened back in 2008– millions of people across the country stopped paying their mortgages, and the banking system nearly collapsed as a result.
Today it’s a similar situation; a lot of people are going to stop paying their mortgages, credit cards, auto loans, etc. And that directly impacts the banks.
Businesses are in deep financial trouble too.
According to the Wall Street Journal, the median small business in the United States has a cash balance that will last them just 27 days.
And many are operating with an even smaller safety net; the median restaurant, for example, has a cash balance of just 16 days.
These businesses have been told to close down due to the Corona Virus. And it’s likely that many of them will never re-open.
A lot of these companies also have debt. And if they close, those debts will never be repaid.
Even big businesses are susceptible to failure.
Every airline, cruise ship operator, hotel, retail chain, etc. is on the ropes, and each of these companies has borrowed billions of dollars.
This pandemic could easily push several big companies into bankruptcy.
You probably know that old saying– if you owe the bank a million dollars and can’t pay, you have a problem. If you owe the bank a billion dollars and can’t pay, the bank has a problem.
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