Mark <mark@unicorn.com> commented:
> Getting back to what I was saying about bank runs, I was amused to
> read another 'Y2K is no big deal' article today. After telling
> people that the biggest problem was panic, they then went on to say
> that everyone should take out two weeks' pay before Christmas just
> in case... a recommendation which would by itself cause the collapse
> or near-collapse of the banking system if everyone followed
> it. Idiots.
Could this really cause such a collapse? As I indicated before many of my more fundamentalistic family and friends are getting more cache than this in their house right now. Isn't this a big reason the Fed came up with the new currency to handle all this extra demand? There was a huge drain of cache during the stock market fall back in 87, something that would have surely caused major problems 100 years ago. But the Fed was ready and flooded the system with whatever it needed. Some banks had to pay high interest to get access to it for the short time required but what was required was made available and they didn't have to pay interest on all the money people had withdrawn from their accounts. With the power the fed has today to print money, monitor supplies, and respond rapidly, I think there is much more flexibility in the system today than people think.
If you you want to take extra cache out go ahead and do it. It'll simply cost you some lost interest, but that's about it as far as I can see.
Brent Allsop