From CGI member oldcurmudgeon.

(Lynda note- BOA closed down a huge bank, that was always busy, a year ago. Not too far from me. Now, the closest BOA bank is a good 1/2 hour away. So far, most of the ATM's are still here)

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Here is the story – my story – as of this moment. I live in a small Wisconsin town close to the Minnesota boarder and have lived here for the last 18 years. Nice area, good people, and a great place to retire, and I have banked with US Bank for all of those years – mostly on line, but going into the actual bank from time to time. Well, last summer US Bank closed their branch here in my town. They gave no reason, but it was my assumption that we were just too small to justify them being here even though they had been in town for decades. They did, however, leave the ATM so it was no big deal, and their branch in the county seat (about 15 miles away) was still in operation.

Well, Saturday I needed to visit the local hardware store (I was doing a plumbing project and of course did not have all the necessary parts) and while there I decided I would get a few dollars cash from the ATM. But, when I drove over there to my surprise, and shock, it was gone. I mean, it was physically not there any longer!

So, when I got back home I decided to log onto the US Bank web site and see where the nearest ATM could be found, and that is when I discovered that they had closed ALL OF THEIR BRANCH OFFICES – EVERYWHERE IN BOTH STATES. Even in the big cities like Minneapolis and Milwaukee. There are still some ATM’s around in various places, but even those seem to be gone to some extent.

No, I have not contacted anyone yet, but what would they tell me anyway. Would they dare tell me the truth? I doubt that. I do know, however, that US Bank does have a significant exposer to the derivatives market, but not exceptionally so. They are not a huge bank like say Bank Of America, or Wells Fargo, but they are not a rinky-dink local outfit either. They are supposed to be a solid mid sized nation bank firm, and I have always had good dealings with them. So this is just plane weird.

What has kind of raised my alert level here is that there are persistent, and growing, rumors all over the web about an impending banking crisis. These rumors are not new exactly, but they have increased in number, and seemingly in quality, over the past few weeks.

So, I just wanted to share this anecdotal account of my recent personal experiences. If anyone has any further information on this I sure would like to hear it. I personally don’t have much money in the bank – or at all for that mater – but it would be a total nightmare if in fact there were to be a massive bank failure of any kind.

I doubt that most of us have really considered just how vital banking is to the proper functioning of our society. Even a short bank holiday would be catastrophic in so many, many ways. Just having a few dollars in cash isn’t going to make much difference for very long. Our society is literally interconnected via banking, and if that fails it will be a total mess trying to figure it all out. In some ways it could be worse than an actual nuclear war. At least in a war the resulting chaos is physical, direct, and the path forward is pretty clear, but in a finical collapse nothing is clear, obvious, or even ease to understand. Bills don’t get paid, and hence businesses can’t function, and services fail, and no one knows what to do about any of it, and there is no clear understanding of what comes next . . . it would be a gigantic mess!

Anyway, I hope we are not at such a juncture – but I did get my manual hand pump installed and I can now draw water from my secondary well even if the power goes out – and I plan to build up a larger supply of fire wood as soon as the snow melts off enough to get back into the woods again. It may all come down to simply figuring out how to just survive.

Oldcurmudgeon