Dollar Collapse, Banks Close,...What Will You Do?

One of our neighbors, a woman who always struck me as a busy body type, organized a neighborhood cleanup and a cook out afterwards. I consented to both the cleanup and the cook out as I had the agenda to get to assess my neighbors better - so I could categorize their personalities, strengths and weaknesses. Only six couples out the group came to the cookout after the cleanup with the women in the kitchen and the men congregating around the outdoor grill - it was fairly cold and the gas grill provided a little heat.

One the men (I'll call him Hal) and another man (I'll call him Frank) were discussing the upcoming Super Bowl, when Hal's wife walked up and asked Frank how the burgers were coming, then she looked at Hal and said "don't let me keep you from talking about the Zombie Apocalypse".....using her fingers to denote quotation marks for Zombie Apocalypse. Then she walked off and nobody said anything for maybe 10 seconds before Hal said "She's still mad at me from finding out I bought a couple of buckets of survival food. She asked me what it was for and I said something Like "I don't know,..possibly the Zombie Apocalypse", and she has been made for the past week.

I said to Hal, "well what did you buy it for?" Hal replied "It seemed like a good idea just to have some extra food, plus Melissa found a machete, camp axe and camp saw which she is also pissed about. While mentally pegging Hal's wife, Melissa, in that those who have a difficult personality category, I then said "Well, makes sense to me. Lot's of potential bad things that could happen where it would come in handy".

A couple of side conversations took place about how bad things seemed. One guy said his health care premium went from $300 something to over $800 a month.

Trying to get the conversation back to prepping, I said "well Hal what would you do if the Government called a bank holiday for, say four days, and that included the ATM machines and debit card transaction?"

Frank spoke first and said words to the effect that it would certainly screw up a lot of people and possibly cause panic.

Chris, another guy, said "that would never happen." I said, "well, just suppose it did happen, what would you do? Most people only have three of four days of food in their pantry. And even if food wasn't the immediate concern, people would be panicked without access to their accounts. I'll be there would be more than a few cars running out of gas and I'll be you robberies, especially around grocery stores, would increase."

Hal mumbled, "yeah, maybe I need to get a gun." I said, "you don't have a gun?". And to make a long story short, I fielded about a hundred questions about guns, buying guns, guns laws, training and the like. Frank has a 12 gauge hunting shotgun which he has never shot, and one of the other guys said he had a rifle given to him by his Dad, but he didn't know anything about it, the make/model or caliber.

Bottom line is that this cleanup and picnic, while a pain in the ass, paid off for me as I now have five new friends who see me as the "gun expert" and are going to call me to talk about buying a gun for personal protection and getting some firearms and shooting lessons.

By the way, the bank scenario didn't just come of the blue. Read below what is happening in England, from Yahoo news a couple weeks ago. Are you prepared for any of it? Stocked food and water/ firearms for protection? Cash on hand? Someplace to go and a plan in case it all comes crashing down?


If you bank at HSBC in England, don’t plan on making any large cash withdrawals. At least not without a good explanation. Or, maybe even a permission slip.

That’s because a previously unannounced change in banking policy is blocking some customers from making large withdrawals without “evidence” explaining why they need the money from their accounts.

The policy affects customers attempting withdrawals for amounts as little as £5,000 ($8,253).

HSBC says it’s all done in the name of customer protection.

"The reason being we have an obligation to protect our customers, and to minimize the opportunity for financial crime,” HSBC said in a statement. “However, following feedback, we are immediately updating guidance to our customer facing staff to reiterate that it is not mandatory for customers to provide documentary evidence for large cash withdrawals, and on its own, failure to show evidence is not a reason to refuse a withdrawal. We are writing to apologize to any customer who has been given incorrect information and inconvenienced."

The change in approach comes after the BBC aired reports from multiple HSBC customers who said they were denied in their recent attempts to make cash withdrawals.

Banking customer Stephen Cotton says he attempted to withdraw approximately $11,000 to repay a loan from his mother but was blocked from doing so.

"When we presented them with the withdrawal slip, they declined to give us the money because we could not provide them with a satisfactory explanation for what the money was for,” he told the BBC. “They wanted a letter from the person involved."

Cotton says the bank wouldn’t even tell him how much he was allowed to withdraw under the new policy, which was not announced to customers when taking affect last November.

"So I wrote out a few slips. I said, 'Can I have £5,000?' They said no. I said, 'Can I have £4,000?' They said no. And then I wrote one out for £3,000 and they said, 'OK, we'll give you that.' "

In the U.S. there have been rumors of similar restrictions that major banks such as Citibank have denied. After the massive security breach at Target retail stores in December, JP Morgan did place a temporary limit on how much cash customers could withdraw from Chase ATM’s at Target stores and how much they could spend on their debit cards at one time. But that limit has since been removed.

A Conservative member of the British Parliament said the change in policy “infantilizes the customer.” However, the head of retail at the British Bankers Association defended the policy.

"I can understand it's frustrating for customers,” Eric Leenders told the BBC. “But if you are making the occasional large cash withdrawal, the bank wants to make sure it's the right way to make the payment."