Donald Trump is considering a possible executive order that would require banks to make sure customers are U.S. citizens to create or keep their accounts, according to a new report.
The proposed action, reported byThe Wall Street Journal, would see banks collect information on individuals’ citizenship through requests for a new category of documents in order to open the accounts.
The Independent has contacted the White House for confirmation or further information about reports of the executive order, which has reportedly raised eyebrows among some banks in recent days.
Let’s pretend this passes and becomes law. Now imagine a nationwide call for people to do a run on their bank, and pull out all their money. Even when the banks try to limit withdrawals, it doesn’t mean you can’t come back at some point and keep withdrawing.
Not everyone would do it, but eventually the news would be running in panic mode, as would investors.
I’d imagine the banks would be keen to demand a reversal of the law real quick…
You wouldn’t even need to organize some mass campaign to get people to pull money out. This thing will trigger a bank run all on its own. Do you think the banks have enough reserves to immediately cash out the accounts of every non-citizen? Sometimes a bank decides it doesn’t want to do business with someone anymore and will close their account. If that happens to you, they send you a check with your account balance on it. But we’re talking tens of millions of people here, many with substantial amounts in US accounts. This order, if implemented, would cause every bank in the country to collapse. They just don’t maintain the reserves to cash out that many accounts all at once.
Can we cause essentially a run on the bank by having 40% of us move all our liquid assets to euros at once and continuing to move incoming money to cash?
If only people worked together like that, we’d do amazing things.
Sharemarket too, I’d have to sell my US shares without my brokerage bank acct (I don’t live in the US)