ATMs Crash Across The Country After “Bank Holiday” Warning

Twitter aflame with reports of Wells Fargo, Chase and Bank of America customers being unable to withdraw cash

Image: Betsy Fletcher

Paul Joseph Watson
Prison Planet.com
Monday, November 8, 2010

Following rumors of a “bank holiday” that could limit or prevent altogether cash withdrawals later this week, Twitter and other Internet forums were raging yesterday about numerous ATMs across the country that crashed in the early hours of Sunday morning, preventing customers from performing basic transactions.

It’s unknown whether the crashes were partly a result of a surge of people trying to withdraw their money in preparation for any feared bank shutdown, or if mere technical glitches were to blame. The fact that the problem affected numerous different banks in different parts of the U.S. would seem to indicate the former.

The Orange County Register reported that the problems were “part of a national outage” which prevented people from performing simple transactions such as cashing checks and withdrawing money.

“Computer issues” were blamed for similar issues in Phoenix Arizona, while in Birmingham Alabama, Wells Fargo customers’ online banking accounts and ATMs displayed incorrect balances.

The banks primarily affected were Wells Fargo, Chase and Bank of America, but according to blogger Phil Brennan, who studied Twitter feeds and other Internet message boards that were alight with the story, numerous other financial institutions were also affected, including US Bank, Compass, USAA, Suntrust, Fairwinds Credit Union, American Express, BB&T on the East Coast and PNC.

“Twitter is going crazy with reports of ATMs and online accounts going down as of 01:00 hours EST of the 7th of November 2010,” writes Brennan. “This is happening to many banks all across America. Some are trying to say that it is a computer glitch to do with the change in Daylight Savings Time, but I will call BS on this as we manage to put our clocks back over here in the UK without knocking out ATMs and online accounts nationally.”

Brennan questions whether the outages were the first warning shots in a move to “devalue the dollar,” just days after Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke sparked an international currency war by announcing that the Fed will buy $600 billion of U.S. government bonds over the next eight months.

Any perceived inability of banks to deal with a sudden demand for cash would undoubtedly place in peril the United States’ triple A credit rating and spark a fresh dollar crisis.

“In the light of what is going on geopolitically, I am still very suspicious about the reasons for this mass downtime of ATMs and Online Accounts, adds Brennan. “There is still a very distinct possibility that November the 11th will turn into an extended Bank Holiday so I would advise all those who can get their money out of their banks to do so, even if you have to pay your upcoming bills manually.”

As we reported last week, the “bank holiday” rumor has reared its ugly head once again, after a story emerged that a pastor was told by one of the managers of a prominent east coast bank that banks would close for an undetermined amount of time, and that when they reopened, “all withdrawals by checks would be limited to $500 per week – no matter what the balance in the account is.”

Though the story is still an unconfirmed rumor, banks have been preparing for limiting withdrawals. As we reported back in February, Citigroup sent an advisory to its customers at the start of the year which stated that the bank reserved “the right to require (7) days advance notice before permitting a withdrawal from all checking accounts.” The advisory stoked fears that financial institutions were preparing for bank runs.

While we still think this new bank holiday rumor will subside as the previous two did earlier this year and last, in the current economic climate it would be foolish not to keep at least a small amount of your savings in physical cash. The current financial turmoil has been likened with the post 1929 period, during which newly elected Franklin Roosevelt declared a “bank holiday” that lasted four days, therefore such a scenario is not without historical precedent.

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Paul Joseph Watson is the editor and writer for Prison Planet.com. He is the author of Order Out Of Chaos. Watson is also a fill-in host for The Alex Jones Show. Watson has been interviewed by many publications and radio shows, including Vanity Fair and Coast to Coast AM, America’s most listened to late night talk show.

Bank Holiday Rumors Swirl Amidst Currency Crisis

Fed’s “mad experiment” in dollar debasement stokes fresh jitters

Image: indi.ca

Paul Joseph Watson
Prison Planet.com
Friday, November 5, 2010

With the world on the verge of a currency war as the Federal Reserve follows through on its dollar-killing quantitative easing program, rumors are once again swirling of a “bank holiday,” during which US citizens will be prevented from withdrawing money or at least limited in the amount of the withdrawal they can make.

The bank holiday is rumored to be set for next week, with Thursday November 11 pinpointed as the likeliest date.

According to radio host Steve Quayle, a pastor was told by one of the managers of a prominent east coast bank that banks would close for an undetermined amount of time, and that when they reopened, “all withdrawals by checks would be limited to $500 per week – no matter what the balance in the account is.”

Limiting the amount of money customers can withdraw or blocking the facility altogether reminds us of a Citigroup advisory that was sent to customers at the start of the year which stated that the bank reserved “the right to require (7) days advance notice before permitting a withdrawal from all checking accounts.” The story stoked fears that financial institutions were preparing for bank runs.

On his website, Quayle asks, “When in U.S. History has a sitting President taken off on an overseas trip for an extended period of time, with 65 airplanes, 34 warships reportedly 3,000 people including his friends and cohorts, at the pinnacle of an economic and political upheaval?”

Fears of a bank holiday first arose in June of last year, when it was rumored that banks would close their doors in early September. Concern was fueled by reports that US embassies in foreign countries were purchasing large quantities of local currency.

With Brazil and other countries now threatening to take drastic currency measures to protect themselves against a dollar crisis, a similar financial environment is stoking identical fears.

Bank holidays are not without precedent in the United States. On March 5 1933, newly elected Franklin Roosevelt declared a “bank holiday” that lasted four days, during which he rammed through the Emergency Banking Act which granted FDR near dictatorial control over the dealings of banks. The Act also forced every citizen and business in the country to relinquish their gold in exchange for paper currency.

The 1933 bank holiday served as a face-saving mechanism for many financial institutions – thousands of them never reopened after the closure period had ended.

While we expect it to be business as usual next week and the rumors to subside as they did last year, the mere fact that this fear keeps cropping up shows how jittery the economic landscape is right now.

Indeed, the debate is no longer about whether the US financial system and the dollar will come crashing down or not, but if that inevitable process will be characterized as a sudden collapse or death by a thousand cuts. The latter seems to be more likely, with a few lurches and leaps along the way, the first of which was Ben Bernanke’s announcement on Tuesday that the Fed will buy $600 billion of U.S. government bonds over the next eight months.

The blame for this turmoil can be laid firmly at the feet of Bernanke, acting at the behest of the Fed’s owners, who having promised in June last year that they would not monetize the debt of the U.S. government. have now embarked upon a “mad experiment” that will precipitate “the collapse of the US dollar paper standard,” as CLSA’s Chris Wood describes it.

As the Honorable Louis McFadden, Chairman of the House Banking and Currency Committee, warned in 1933, the Fed does not care that it is killing the dollar because its role is to represent the interests of its international owners and its Wall Street cronies, not the American people.

“Some people think that the Federal Reserve Banks are United States Government institutions. They are private monopolies which prey upon the people of these United States for the benefit of themselves and their foreign customers; foreign and domestic speculators and swindlers; and rich and predatory money lenders,” said McFadden.

So while the happy clappers on Wall Street are drunkenly celebrating the fact that their artificially inflated stock market is surging solely as a result of the value of the dollar being eviscerated, Main Street is hunkering down for a long winter, beset by worries about hyperinflation, rising food prices and gas price hikes, as oil follows gold’s meteoric rise, again solely as a result of the Fed’s decision to debase the greenback.

Financial upheaval has been matched by political upheaval, and we can only hope that Congressman Ron Paul and his son, Senator in waiting Rand Paul, can build momentum to finally cut out the cancer that is destroying America – by ending the Fed for good.