h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

If everyone on Earth was to withdraw all their money and savings from their banks in the same week, would the said banks be able to cough it all up? Or would they (hopefully) just collapse?

Alternativly, if all banks tried to recover all money owed to them (such as hefty overdrafts in my case), would the population have enough money to pay up?

Dandy of a question. If we all went and withdrew our money, we'd surely watch the banks collapse. There just isn't enough printed money to go round. After severl hours of people withdrawing their money, things would probably get ridiculous---tellers might start giving people thousands of dollars in quarters and nickels, for example. We'd have a serious problem.

The second part is, I think, something interesting to consider. Overdrafts and lines of credit are in their own league, and whether or not banks could recover these debts isn't clear. Larger loans, however, are different: since houses and cars are often used as collateral for such loans, the banks *would* have a way of eventually recovering these funds. The massive profits from interest *might* cover the unpaid overdrafts and credit card balances. There's no way to tell, really. But it's fun to think about.

How about this:

What if everyone on Earth robbed a bank at the same time. Would there be enough police forces to capture everyone?

or enough prison cells, assuming everyone was caught (or were the police robbing the banks as well

You could probably organise a mass world wide bank heist over the internet....... (Looks in wallet and thinks....)

I really hate banks, why do they need to make soooo much profit???
In Australia the banks made something like 10 Billion dollars profit in one financial year. What are they selling that I am missing out on?

They sell drugs, didn't you know?



I used to work for Sears National Bank (yes, it's really a bank, unfortunately). I was an "Account Specialist" for the credit department, which basically gave me the opportunity to discuss all matters of credit with people who were generally extremely pissed off. It wasn't pleasant. But get this: our interest rate was at that time 21%. Which means that if you went out and bought a lawn mower for $500 on your Sears Card, and paid only the minimum monthly required payment ($10/month), you'd:

(a) pay for it over 74 months (a little over 6 years, and
(b) pay nearly $1200 for it.

The math is really quite complex, but based on the daily accrual of interest, your $10 payment really only deducts about $1.80 from the principal balance. This means that you're getting ripped off.

And that's precisely it. The banks offer such loans, be they for cars or houses or on credit terms... and it just so happens that the result of being able to repay the borrowed funds over a convenient amount of time is that the banks make an unfortunate amount of profit.

The answer to this? Simple, but drastic: don't borrow from banks. That's right. Rent a house/apartment, walk to work, and save carefully. Store your money in an old tin box hidden carefully under your bed. If everyone stopped borrowing money from banks, they'd lose out on the profits gained from interest. *And* if everyone stopped saving their money within bank accounts, the banks would loose on their investment earnings from these funds. In other words, if you never visit another bank again for any reason, you'll help contribute to their demise. But as long as there are people that simply *must* live in their huge homes that cost 10 times their salary, there'll always be banks... blah.

I would love to live my life without having to set foot in a bank. having to play the game and living in a society that values money like a religion makes it hard though.......

Again, if anyone can actually tell me why they need to make that much profit, I will give them my Visa number to go wild with.....NOT!

I am listening to the Verve at the moment and the classic lines:
"It's a bitter sweet symphony, this life....
Trying to make ends meet, you're a slave to money, then you die!"

Is there any form of thing in the world anywhere from which some big fat corporate swine doesn't make money?
At the moment I've got -£7,000 of student loan and -£1200 of overdraft comprising all my worldy wealth. Please delay the worldwide bank heist until I've paid these off in case someone comes round and repossesses my guitar.

Nay.. do the heist now and pay them back with their own dough... Meanwhile, stash the guitar or offer to play it for the banks while they sing the blues.

Banks: Legal Loan Sharks.

If you'll check your history books, you'll find this did happen at one time (late 20's, early 30's) and indeed many banks did fold. (In case you don't recognise the timeframe, look under "Great Depression" ... )

Since then there have been laws put in place which prevents this from happening again.

Well its 2005 and 6 years on forn when this was originally posted.

And banks are still making massive profits and people are still suffering for this will the world ever change ???????

Ah! I see you're doing that age-old thing(well 6 years old or so)that newbies to the site often do, of scouring ancient conversations and resurecting them

Fair enough, you'll be amazed-or maybe not- how often the same questions have been asked. Some favorites are
"do you believe in god/ religion",
"why are there so many trivial and pointless threads on 'ask H2G2'",
"Do you believe in/have you ever seen ghosts?",
"hi, I'm new- it's been over 5 minutes since i posted my question- why hasn't anyone replied?"
" Is puncuation important? afterall, I understood what I was writing.."

And many, many others.

Good luck- How many dots along are you now? Are you losing the will to live yet? Please, for the sake of your sanity (unless you have lots and lots and lots of time on your hands, in which case, can I borrow some?) don't click on every dot- choose random ones!


As for the bank thing What these folk above said...

Er, Punctuation, that is, and spelling

Sure yeah it passes the time away when you cant be bothered writing any new threads .

It's been a while since I was here last, but I still hate those greedy banks...