The Biggest Bank in France Has Suddenly Cut ATM Card Access to Cash in Half and People are Freaking Out!

http://www.jovanovic.com/blog.htm I just got off the phone with Pierre Jananovic . . . La Banque Postale has lowered the limits on the amounts of cash customers can withdraw per week by 50%. First of all, for you Americans and Brits, the way France works its banking system – customers are limited to how much they can withdraw per week from their accts no matter what the balance. Now what has happened here is that Gold card members – who could take out 3,000 euros a week – are now limited to 1,500 a week. This was sudden, without warning, and people here in France are freaking out. Pierre tells me that its the first clear sign that liquidity in the European banking system is drying up. http://maxkeiser.com/2011/06/07/the-biggest-bank-in-france-has-atm-card-access-to-cash-in-half/ If you remember we warned about this happening  here in the U.S. (sometimes it really stinks to be right!) (Reprint below) And is it a coincidence that this is happening just as the big Bilderberg conference in St. Moritz is closing?    Is An ATM Cash Shortage Coming? Submitted by Tyler Durden on 11/08/2010 11:35 -0500 Image: Betsy Fletcher While we have no way to confirm or refute the validity of this statement presented by a supposed ATM business insider on Steve Quayle.com, it does bring up an interesting point regarding how banks may be conserving "petty cash." Of course, if this perspective is true, it validates concerns about bank capitalization, and explains the reason why the FDIC recently expanded insurance on checking accounts from $250,000 to infinity in an attempt to get Americans to put their money in their friendly neighborhood bank. Of course, that this contradicts everything that the Fed Chairman is trying to do by getting Americans to spend (or buy Netflix at a 1,000 P/E) instead of putting the money in the bank, is precisely the reason why Sheila Bair's relationship with Geithner and Bernanke is, shall we say, tenuous. From Steve Quayle (who may or may not have properly attributed the original article on Urban Survival). "George, I work with a business partner in the [region redacted] . We have combined between us 180 ATM machines that we service, Cash Load. In order to do this we NEED to order the money, 20's only from several banks on a weekly basis. This is a considerable amount weekly, 380k plus. Here is the interesting piece that is developing: In the past several weeks 4 of the MAJOR banks have informed us that they can no longer provide us with the cash for our business. Now the problem is that it is OUR money we are taking out! So speaking with bank "personnel" on the side my question was this, what is going on? how come we cannot take OUR money out? Answer: "they" are not authorized to hold, carry or have on hand anymore more than a certain amount of cash on hand! The amount we are getting, even though it is out of our account, they cannot order or have on hand that amount of cash at any time now. I am not talking small banks...large banks [large money center bank in America name redacted] etc...! We can see our ability to keep these machines with available cash is becoming more and more difficult. This has taken place just in the past few weeks. By the way, these banks were willing to lose our full business due to this issue. Trying to work with smaller banks now...we will see how long!" h/t Kyle Ben Bernanke Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation ATMs Crash Across The Country After “Bank Holiday” Warning Paul Joseph Watson -  Infowars.com - 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. Fresh food that lasts from eFoods Direct (Ad) 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. — 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.