THE RECENT "STEALTH" RUN ON U.S. BANKS

There was recently a very large but stealthy run on the deposits held in the U.S. banking system. Few even heard about it, as media reports about it were scant and brief. In a traditional “bank run” there are photos of long lines of customers stretching around the block as depositors try to get their money out of a failing or threatened bank. This used to be much more common than people alive today generally realize. I’m in my 70s and I can recall as a child listening to the “old folks” (my grandparents, uncles, aunts, etc.) talk about bank runs that occurred prior to World War I and the Great Depression. Bank runs were such a risk that the US Federal Government created the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) to provide federal insurance to make whole depositors whose money was in threatened banks. There is no question that FDIC insurance lessened the number of bank runs caused by fearful middle-class depositors. However, the recent stealth bank run was of an entirely different nature.

The recent stealth bank run was not caused by middle-class investors. Indeed, they did not even know it was happening. There were no long lines of depositors waiting their turn to get their money out a failing bank. The run was caused by rich and super-rich depositors who were pulling the money out of banks whose financial health was in doubt. In today’s digital society, vast amounts of money can be yanked out of a bank within seconds or minutes via a series of keyboard strokes that are unknown to the general public. How big was this recent stealth run? I believe it was larger than you would have guessed.

The first link, with a brief story dated to mid-April, 2023, reports that $521 billion (yes “billion” with a “b”) in deposits were withdrawn in just one week from just three large U.S. banks. That is over a half-trillion dollars of deposits drained out of the coffers of just three big banks! There seemed to be an inconsistency in the story. The three banks are first reported to be J.P. Morgan, Citi and Wells Fargo banks, but later the list removes Citi Bank and inserts Bank of America instead. Obviously, this begs the question: If just three banks lost that many deposits in just one week, how much was withdrawn from all American banks? Indeed, in this age of real-time, global interconnections in all financial markets, how much money was withdrawn from the global banking system in that one week? The second link, from Reuters, contains a very brief report that J.P. Morgan Bank estimated that over $1 trillion was withdrawn just from an unspecified list of the “most vulnerable” U.S. banks. Two things leap out at me from this statement. One is that the first link identified J.P. Morgan Bank itself as one of the banks which lost the most amount of deposits. The second point is that how many banks were included in the undisclosed specific list of “most vulnerable” U.S. banks? The link reports that the biggest withdrawals were in March, 2023 soon after the failure of a major U.S. regional bank on the West Coast. If half that amount was withdrawn from deposits in just three big banks in one week, it can easily be seen that those same three banks could have generated $1 trillion in withdrawals in an entire year. However, we are left to guess if the lost deposits were just from major money-center banks or a list of other banks as well. Also not disclosed is where that tidal wave of withdrawn deposits were transferred to. I recall articles in the financial media at that time that large depositors were withdrawing huge sums of money from banks as their deposits would not have been insured by the FDIC as their deposits were far over the threshold for FDIC reimbursement in the event of a bank failure. The U.S. government announced a new policy that all the large deposits in the failed banks would be covered by FDIC, and this likely prevented a major national banking crisis.

The third link reports that $126 billion in deposits were withdrawn in one week in late March, 2023, and how the swift actions by the U.S. government to insure deposits in amounts far above the legal maximum per depositor blunted the wave of withdrawals. This link also explains some of the reasons why the government felt it was necessary to take this unprecedented action to, apparently, save the American banking system.

Much of what happened to contain the banking crisis will never be revealed to the general public. However, I recall in the 2008 sub-prime lending crisis, banking systems in many Western nations were under threat of collapsing. The fourth link is a copy of a post I wrote in February, 2009 about those ominous events (please note some links cited in that older blog are no longer active). That older post then cited the total U.S. debt as being incredibly high (which it was by historical standards). The debt totals reported then were small compared to what they are now–indicating the level of growing risk our financial system is now manifesting.

Biblical prophecies have warned that a global, systemic financial crisis is going to occur near the end of our age which will paralyze global commerce. Revelation 17-18 reveal details about this foretold crisis and you can read about the prophecy in detail in my report, Is “Babylon the Great” about to Fall…Ushering in a Global “Beast” System? We do not know when this global financial collapse will occur, but it almost did happen in 2008-09 and it may have been closer than we realized just a few months ago when the mostly-unreported, massive depositor withdrawals were occurring. The entire context of the prophecy in Revelation 17-18 is that the collapse, when it occurs, will be sudden, global and unexpected. There is no need for me to repeat the information that is already contained in my aforementioned report, but I want to leave you with three thoughts. The first is that in today’s digital world, global bank runs and various financial crises can occur with little or no public awareness. The second is that Revelation 18’s prophecy powerfully argues the Bible’s prophecies are literal and true. Revelation 18:10, 17 and 19 all assert that the latter-day global crisis will unfold “in one hour.” For two millennia since those words were penned by the Apostle John, mankind has believed those words were merely hyperbole or metaphorical. However, in today’s digitally-interconnected world, a sudden collapse in one market or a major unexpected event can cause a cascading collapse in all markets that could bring down out modern money systems, literally, “in one hour.”

This wording shows the Apostle John was, indeed, seeing in advance the events that will occur at some point in our high-tech future. He could never have foreseen such a digitally-interconnected world with the perspective he had in the first century AD. The third thing I wanted to mention is that the wording of Revelation 18:11-19 indicates the global collapse will be a monetary crisis where the money of the time is no longer reliable. This prophetic scripture foretells a crisis when the “merchants of the earth” (global corporations) will have much merchandise and many services to offer, but no one can buy them. This strongly argues there will be a loss of confidence in the current fiat currencies or that a new, global digital currency suddenly collapses (as would happen if the burning of a major money-center city occurs due to a terrorist attack or if an open act of war produces an EMP event). Revelation 18:15-19 shows a major seacoast city that is apparently a hub of global commerce will be set afire. This prophecy indicates that the take-down of the global money system will not be an accident, as Revelation 17:9-16 indicates. The language of Revelation 17:16 is especially violent, as would occur in an act of war.

I won’t predict when the prophecy of Revelation 17-18 will be fulfilled, but the “clock is ticking” toward it being fulfilled. What actions have you taken to prepare yourself and your family from the effects that will challenge everyone when the prophecy is fulfilled in a future year?

THE RECENT “STEALTH” RUN ON U.S. BANKS

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