Cash Withdrawal Limits And “Bank Holidays” Coming?

• Concerns that next crisis may be imminent
• Bail-ins, withdrawal limits and negative interest rates may be imposed
• FT proposes a ban on “barbarous relic” cash
• Central banks would have people “completely under their control” – Bonner
• Gold in safe jurisdictions will again protect wealth

Collapsing commodities prices, erratic market turmoil and the bursting of Chinese bubbles are leading to a crisis in confidence in the economic system across the globe. The long-expected crisis to which the global financial and systemic crisis in 2008 may have been a mere prelude may be upon us.

Governments have no appetite for further bailouts. The EU states have passed legislation which will make the banks or rather unfortunate and unsuspecting depositors liable for the bank’s lending and speculative profligacy.



It is claimed that this is to “protect” the taxpayer. In reality it will likely lead to bail-ins – the confiscation of deposits. It is likely that that in a crisis within the banking system this bail-in mechanism would be imposed on an impromptu “bank holiday” followed by limits on cash withdrawals as were applied in Cyprus and more recently to depositors in Greece.

As has been pointed out by many other analysts, the unelected powers-that-be have used all their conventional weaponry to stave off the consequences of their irresponsible ultra-loose monetary policies and massive buildup of debt globally – the largest ever seen in the history of the world.

The typical response to a crisis has been to slash rates from somewhere around 6% – the historic post war norm in the west – to between 0% and 1%. This has stored up an even crisis in the future – the question is not if we have another crisis but when.

With interest rates now near zero, rates cannot be slashed any further. Unless of course, further “unconventional” weaponry are deployed upon the citizens to encourage them to spend. Further QE and QE$ is likely. Another option is negative rates – where depositors are charged by banks to hold their money. Both constitute weapons of financial and monetary repression in the deepening “war on cash.”

Bail-ins, withdrawal limits and negative interest rates would provoke a wave of withdrawals, further undermining the banking system – as was seen in Greece.

Hence, the deep concern when the Financial Times recently proposed abolishing cash altogether.

In a piece entitled “The Case for Retiring Another ‘Barbarous Relic” the FT laments the existence of cash. In the view of the editorial, cash limits the capacity of omniscient central banks to bully savers into parting with the fruits of their own labour to “stimulate” debt laden economies.

“The worry is that people will change their deposits for cash if a central bank moves rates into negative territory.”

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Courtesy of http://www.goldcore.com/