Free Republic

...the narrative has been that deposits are fleeing the small commercial banks and flooding into the biggest banks that are perceived as too-big-to-fail and thus offer a safer venue for deposits. Because these mega banks are the same ones that the Fed has been bailing out since the financial crisis of 2008, We decided to check out that narrative for ourselves. Not only is that scenario wrong, but it is so decidedly wrong, and it’s so easy to get the accurate figures, that from where we sit it looks like there might have been an agenda by someone to harm...

Tucker Carlson went there tonight — Tucker told his audience if people don’t start making lots of noise we’re going to see a government controlled digital currency. Tucker Carlson opened his show on Monday by discussing the banking crisis in the country today. On Monday morning trading was halted on 20 banks as the markets opened. The New York Stock Exchange halted trading at Charles Schwab. Tonight Tucker Carlson went there – pointing out that the federal government gained power after bailing out the Silicon Valley Bank. Tucker also warned that this banking crisis could lead to a national digital...

During a conference call about the Silicon Valley Bank bailout yesterday, Senator Mark Kelly (D-AZ) asked representatives from the Federal Reserve, Treasury Department, and the Federal Deposit and Insurance Corporation (FDIC) if they had a way to censor information on social media to prevent a run on the banks, according to Republican members of the House of Representatives who were on the call. The members said there were roughly 200 people on the Zoom call, including Senators, House members, and staff members from both parties. “On our conference call, led by [Senate President Chuck] Schumer, with Fed, FDIC, and Treasury,...

Fallout from the Silicon Valley Bank collapse has directed attention to a $620 billion ticking time bomb in the banking system that has the potential to spell doom for the financial system. SVB's meltdown was partly caused by a chasm between its assets and what they were worth in the market. Eventually, SVB sold some of those assets, spooking investors and triggering a run on the bank. But SVB isn't alone, as banks across the United States were sitting on $620 billion in unrealized potential losses at the end of last year, per the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation. That hole...

Fortunately, bail-ins do not apply to deposits under $250,000, which are protected by FDIC insurance. That is true in theory, but as of September 2021, the FDIC had only $122 billion in its insurance fund, enough to cover just 1.27% percent of the $9.6 trillion in deposits that it insures. The FDIC also has a credit line with the Treasury for up to $100 billion, but that still brings the total to just over 2% of insured deposits. If just one or a few banks become insolvent, the FDIC fund should be sufficient to cover the insured deposits (those under...

Huge lines have been spotted forming every morning outside of a bank in Sydney’s CBD - and it could point to a worrying issue overseas. Lengthy lines outside a Sydney bank have come as an eerie warning about what is unfolding in China, where hundreds of thousands of customers have been left unable to withdraw their own money. Dozens of members of the public have been spotted forming a long line every day outside the Haymarket branch of the Bank of China in the CBD. The scene attracted the attention of curious bystanders on Tuesday, one of which shared an...

People in Moscow and other Russian cities stormed ATMs and bank branches in search of cash, both in roubles and dollars, as they feared a collapse of the national currency and inability to use international payment systems. Queues of people seeking to withdraw foreign currencies started to form as early as Thursday morning, after the decision by Russia’s president Vladimir Putin to start a full-scale invasion of Ukraine, sending the rouble to its historic lows. A Financial Times reporter could witness that some branches of international banks ran out of US dollars by midday that day. -snip- “I withdrew money...

Russia’s central bank has urged calm amid concerns that Western economic sanctions could trigger a run on its banks this week. The Bank of Russia insisted it had the “necessary resources and tools to maintain financial stability and ensure the operational continuity of the financial sector”. On Saturday, the EU, US, UK and Canada announced that the central bank’s assets will be frozen in response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. This would restrict its ability to use its $630bn international dollar reserves to support Russia’s commercial banks, affecting the ability of businesses and individuals to obtain foreign currency. At the...

Canada has become one of a growing list of nations facing backlash from citizens over COVID-19 curbs. Protests began in late January in response to new laws for cross-border truckers. Effective 15th January, all cross-border truck drivers became subject to mandatory vaccine and quarantine requirements....In response to the state of emergency, Canadians have been reportedly withdrawing money from bank accounts in fear of assets being frozen. UK economic journalist James Melville posted graphs of bank outages from last week, reflecting the surge in banking activity.

Five major Canadian banks went offline for hours blocking access to online and mobile banking as well as e-transfers for customers. The banks reportedly hit by the outage include Royal Bank of Canada (RBC), BMO (Bank of Montreal), Scotiabank, and the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce (CIBC). Reports of users having trouble getting to their online banking peaked between 5 p.m. and 6 p.m. Eastern time on Wednesday, although BleepingComputer is continuing to see an influx of these reports into today: RBC customer Andrew Currie reported having "no access to my money at the grocery store" and being stuck in...

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau sparked anger on Wednesday when he accused a Jewish MP of 'standing with people who wave swastikas' after she criticized his handling of the Freedom Convoy truckers' anti-vaccine protests. Melissa Lantsman, a 37-year-old Conservative MP for the Toronto suburb of Thornhill, confronted the prime minister in Parliament about the draconian Emergency Act, which he invoked on Monday for the first time in 50 years in a bid to end 19 days of chaos. Trudeau responded with scorn to her complaints, saying: 'Conservative Party members can stand with people who wave swastikas, they can stand with...

We covered previously the dark past of Jay Clayton which made His name and fortune at Sullivan & Cromwell helping Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan, and other big banks skirt the SEC regulations. Even crazier is He is now the head of the SEC, Another shocking set of events was the prosecutor in a criminal probe into Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan was just removed by Barr and He was attempting to replace Him with none other than Jay Clayton. The newest shocking action is the SEC just rendered the 13F filing required by institutional money managers useless. In fact the...

One of the strangest manifestations of the threatened coronavirus epidemic in America is toilet paper hoarding. Justin Wolfers, an economics professor at the University of Michigan, has put together a tweet thread explaining why people are hoarding toilet paper. According to him, the motivation behind toilet paper hoarding is the same as the motivation behind runs on banks – people are afraid that, if they don’t keep up with others who want the same finite resource, then the resource will be gone. The economics of toilet paper shortages is the same as bank runs. [thread] Even if you’re not...

European Union states are considering measures which would allow them to temporarily stop people withdrawing money from their accounts to prevent bank runs ... The move is aimed at helping rescue lenders that are deemed failing or likely to fail, but critics say it could hit confidence and might even hasten withdrawals at the first rumors of a bank being in trouble. The proposal, which has been in the works since the beginning of this year, comes less than two months after a run on deposits at Banco Popular contributed to the collapse of the Spanish lender. It also come...

The European Central Bank told a meeting of euro zone finance ministers on Thursday that it was not sure if Greek banks, which have been suffering large daily deposit outflows, would be able to open on Monday, officials with knowledge of the talks said. The officials said that during the closed-door meeting of the ministers on Greece, the chairman of the meeting Jeroen Dijsselbloem asked European Central Bank Executive Board member Benoit Coeure if Greek banks would be able to open tomorrow.

As late as yesterday I read numerous mainstream media reports that Syriza would win by three to five percent and would need to form an unstable coalition to rule. In contrast, here was my January 19 prediction (and rationale): Expect a Blowout Win by Syriza in Greece. Syriza Trounces New Democracy The final votes are not counted, but exit polls show a blowout, with incumbent party New Democracy going down in flames. The Wall Street Journal reports GreeceÂ’s Radical Leftist Syriza Party Poised to Win Election, Exit Polls Say. Syriza appeared set to win between 35.5% and 39.5% of the...

Hundreds of people rushed on Tuesday to withdraw money from branches of two small Chinese banks after rumours spread about solvency at one of them, reflecting growing anxiety among investors as regulators signal greater tolerance for credit defaults. The case highlights the urgency of plans to put in place a deposit insurance system to protect investors against bank insolvency, as Chinese grow increasingly nervous about the impact of slowing economic growth on financial institutions. Regulators have said they will roll out deposit insurance as soon as possible, without giving a firm deadline.

Money-market funds, thought to be one of the safest investments, are actually some of the most dangerous. They are still vulnerable to the same kind of bank run that nearly pushed the global economy over the brink in 2008, and there’s no plan by the industry or by its regulators to fix that vulnerability. The money-market funds are smaller than they were in 2008, but if anything, they are riskier. Current U.S. law prohibits the kind of federal guarantee that, in 2008, stopped the bank run before it could bring down the financial system. The next run on these shadowy...

The Loneliest Bank Run By Greg GuenthnerMarch 28, 2012 Chaos descended on Cyprus early this morning. In a bizarre twist, the regularly-scheduled bank run transformed into a financial media throwdown as journalists from across the globe mobbed the dozen or so patrons lined up in front of the banks in downtown Nicosia. “We expected much more people,” said Argyros Eraclides, manager of a Bank of Cyprus branch in the Stavrou area of Nicosia. “Fortunately there are only some people who needed cash for the day, but customers reacted fantastically. We expected some people to be more aggravated.” Hang on… this...

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