Want to do a little test? For anyone who has $50,000 or more in a branch bank, go stop by tomorrow and ask to withdraw your entire balance - in cash, right there on the spot.
See what they say.
You may be surprised.
Now assume EVERY account holder in the area tried to do that tomorrow - perhaps after news that the bank might be one of the ones about to fail.
It wouldn't be pretty.
Here's a posting from an HP'er who did the test today:
Anonymous said...
I went to the bank today to withdraw about $10,000 in cash. The bank was so low on cash they could barely give me my 10k.
At that point I asked if I could withdraw my entire balance (around 50k) in cash. I just wanted to see if they could. Sure enough they could not. Evidently they've had many people all day long pulling their cash out of the bank.
Freaking scary.
