Posted on 06/03/2012 11:42:34 AM PDT by MrEdd
I live in North Central Texas.
For the last two months, American Bank of Texas' ATM system has ceased to function every Saturday afternoon. They don't get it back up until at least Sunday afternoon, sometimes Monday morning.
It is fair to ask, are they insolvent?
later
An ATM going down for a few hours on the weekend a doubtful sign of insolvency, more like either a poorly planned update and maintenance schedule or a glitch in the software.
I don’t know. But from the description of the problem, it sounds more likely that they recently modified their programming subroutines. One or more of them appears to have an issue with the clock or the calendar. There can be thousands or tens of thousands of code lines to review and/or the problem could stem from some real world/code interference. I can’t feature any fiscal insolvency that would be beneficially addressed by going offline for 36 hours.
They’ve been bought by Prosperity Bank, another Texas-based bank. so perhaps it’s just some difficulty in merging the two. And Prosperity Bank is definitely in fine financial shape.
It’s possible it’s just because the ATM isn’t refilled. My credit union ATM is often empty on Saturday mornings.
It may not be the bank itself, but a nationwide currency shortage.
This is a risk I’ve been aware of for some time, that the US Bureau of Engraving and Printing, which has only two printing offices to produce our currency, has been pushed to the limit on capacity. As things stand now, they are only able to sustain 5% of the US daily retail exchange in paper currency, and that number is falling. Everything else is in virtual money.
To make matters worse, most of the bills they print are $1, with proportionately fewer higher denomination bills. Today, most of our $100 bills are shipped overseas to meet demand there.
The end result is that they cannot print *more* money, or higher denominated money, for the simple reason that nobody could make change for it. Even $500 bills are too large.
This means that either if there is a problem with virtual money: credit and debit cards and checks having a system failure, or retailers no longer accepting virtual money; or the public have a cash panic, and makes cash runs on banks, the economy is instantly in crisis.
In real terms, every bank branch in the US could be out of currency in a few hours, which could force a bank holiday, so that there would be a “currency split”.
This means that virtual money could be worthless or locked up and unavailable, while at the same time paper currency skyrockets in value. That is, instantly a nickel would be worth a dollar in purchasing value; but because of shortage would continue to appreciate. A penny might be able to buy what a dollar buys today.
Agree...I've heard that, as well.
I wasn’t clear. It is not a single machine. It is the entire system, including debit purchases anywhere.
The first sign of paper cash problems with banks will probably be a lowering of the maximum amount of cash you can get per day from an ATM.
When you see people lined up at the door, packing side arms, demanding their money—that’s when it is time to panic.
The most recent numbers I could find online were for March 31, 2012, and their capital ratios looked ok at that point. Looks like they were paying a dividend, as well, which is another good sign.
Seems like the FDIC is usually on top of these things and if your bank was anywhere near insolvency it would already have been forced to transfer control to a more stable bank.
I’m calling my broker, looks like aluminum foil futures will be on the upswing.
This is with all other of their customer’s cards? Otherwise might want to call Free Credit Report.Com.
Good luck with that, it’s already happening in Greece and Spain. But it could never happen here with somebody like Obama at the helm.
N.B.: some of the bank holidays during the Great Depression lasted between 3 and 300 days. A recent change in the law now allows banks to declare their own holidays for up to two weeks, and also permits them to retain demand deposits.
ZOOOOM .... guess that went right over yer tinfoil hat.
Almost six months cake day for you, here. Go trust in Krugman, he’s more your style. Calling someone out without backing it up, well, it’s pretty lame.
Either you need to re-wrap noggin with the tinfoil or lay off the J while writing, somethings getting to ya.
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