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When your collect your money from an ATM machine,
your remaining available balance can also be obtained,
but what's left in the actual bank?
ATM Bank Balance Factoid will show you precisely how
much money your bank had remaining at the exact
instant you made your withdrawal.
In all banks
this would be a very large amount, so to
understand the figure better, some equivalents of what
this sum could actually buy will be provided: eg equates
to xxxxx tins of sardines or xxxxx one ton blocks of
emmental cheese, or xx solid gold replicas of the
propeller of the Titanic etc
https://en.wikipedi...he_First_5000_Years
[pocmloc, Jan 08 2022]
Bank Of England Gold
https://www.bankofe...the-bank-of-england
[xenzag, Jan 08 2022]
The Crimson Permanent Assurance
https://www.youtube...watch?v=lNlYBNTCBG8
[Skewed, Jan 09 2022]
UK sale of gold reserves
https://www.bbc.co....s/business-48177767
Gordon Brown demonstrates his financial skills to the world. [DrBob, Jan 09 2022]
Gold conversion values
https://goldbarswor...onversionTables.pdf
[DrBob, Jan 09 2022]
Why countries, specifically the UK, abandoned the gold standard...
https://symmetricin...ndon-gold-standard/
...and why it may not be a great idea to try & re-establish it. [DrBob, Jan 09 2022]
[link]
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This would be a varying amount because there are
always transactions going on… |
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Ah yes, but at each exact nano second instant
there is an amount. |
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I don't think banks work like this |
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I would see it as not so much "what's in the bank" (since it's all
digital these days, so there's not really an "in"...); more "the sum
total of all balances in all accounts", which will be a definable
(although constantly changing, as per [xandram]) value. |
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An idea to help facilitate & enhance any future run on a bank? |
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Once the dominos start falling don't withdraw all your money
at once, leave a little bit in there so you can withdraw $5 (or
whatever the minimum ATM withdrawal is) every few minutes
to watch it ticking down. |
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[+] could make for excellent street
theatre. |
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//I don't think banks work like this//
They kind of do. When you pay in money to your bank account (lets say $100 as an example), the accounting entries are made on the bank's balance sheet thusly:-
DR Cash 100
CR Customer bank accounts 100
Each discrete Customer account has a separate accounting code (this is your Bank Account Number) but they are all grouped together as, in this example, Customer Bank Accounts on the balance sheet; under 'Liabilities' because the bank is, generally speaking, obliged to pay you the money back when you want it. So the total value of cash held by the bank on behalf of customers is easily obtained at a moment's notice. When you ask the ATM for your individual account balance it is taken straight from the balance sheet & delivered immediately into your eyes (if you ask for it on-screen) or into your sweaty paw if you want a print-out (unless the ATM has run out of paper. More on this below).
Of course, the bank has it's own cash too and when it receives money as part of its own earnings, the same account entry is made for Cash on the balance sheet but the CR entry is made to the banks own I&E (Income & Expenditure) account*. So the entries are thus:-
DR Cash 100
CR Income received 100
In most modern systems, the accounting entries are posted in real time, so you can see that us clever accountants can provide you not only with the total balance held on your account & on all customer accounts but also the total amount of cash held for all purposes at any given moment**. Of course, we don't do that because we are also sensible businessmen & women, as I shall explain below.
//In all banks this would be a very large amount//
Actually, possibly not. At the start of the day each bank has a rough idea of how much cash it is going to need in order to facilitate that day's business. Anything in excess of that is invested out in order to make a return for the bank. If they have an anticipated shortfall, then they borrow some money from another bank in order to make up the deficit. So it is entirely possible that the bank's cash balance will dip into the negative during the day***. If everybody who makes a withdrawal reads their 'factoid' & sees that, actually, the bank doesn't have much or even any cash at the moment, it doesn't take much imagination to envision the resulting herd panic once this information gets posted on, for example, Twitter. In fact, it would probably lead to a panic if the ATM ran out of paper to print the factoid on. Some idiot would announce to the Twitterati that it was a terrible conspiracy to hide the sad condition of the bank & off we would go into a panic induced recession. More pragmatically, the bank would probably be bombarded with customer queries about the cash balances well beyond its capacity to deal with them. And that's why we don't do it.
Anyway, in summary, fishbone from me because history shows that this is one bit of information that you & I can't be trusted with. You could argue that if people were more educated about it then it wouldn't be a problem, which is true. But then, after a while, people would become terribly blasé about the balances shown on their ATM slips & would completely fail to realise that their bank is about to go tits up, even though they have the evidence right in their hand. It's a lose-lose situation if you ask me!
* Actually it's a bit more complex than that but the end result is normally the same.
** This is probably a lie. But I won't bore you with the hideous complications that arise from the pit of horror known as 'Group Accounts'.
*** In truth, banks are required to keep a certain balance of cash in deposit as a safety net. In the UK, for example, they have a bond posted with the Bank of England (I think that's the rules but I am a bit hazey on this bit, so don't take it as gospel). Every now & then you will hear a bit of panic on the news when one of the major economies decides to 'relax' the rules on this. It tends to go in cycles. Banks collapse. Lives are ruined. The rules are made more stringent. They gradually get relaxed as governments become over-confident about the economy. The banks collapse again. Etc., etc. |
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Kind of the direction I was pointed [Bob], if far more
thoroughly elucidated than my
throwaway tangential little snip, though while
agreeing entirely, I do feel obliged to take umbrage at the
idea
I personally can't be trusted with anything, just on general
principles of course, specific principles may be a different
kettle of
cooked ledgers best not gone into. |
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Indeed. It really goes against the grain, doesn't it! But the capitalist system of money runs entirely on trust* (money doesn't actually represent anything real anymore) &, in this context at least, the more information you give people, the less trusting they tend to be. Probably because there would be a more widespread recognition of what a complete sham the whole system is.
* This of course runs entirely in the banks' favour. You have to trust them. They don't trust you for a minute. |
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Yep, I strongly suspect the gold or silver standard may actually
make a
come back some time in my own lifetime, just needs
one really big national economic balls up to screw the trust in
the
currency badly
enough & people may begin to look back on those with
significant nostalgia. |
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Thank you [Dr. B.] that is pretty much what I meant but you expressed it rather more coherently, meaningfully and verbosely than I would ever be able to so thank you once again. |
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"Verbosity" is my middle name!
:D |
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[Skewed] I recommend the late David Graeber's book "Debt" which proposes that cycles of commodity money and balance-sheet money alternate over cenury- or millenia- long timescales. SO I suspect that we are at the start of a centuries-long balance-sheet money cycle now and that nostalia for commodity money won't bring it back, at least not for a long time. |
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Given the fact that as far as I'm aware entirely unbacked
currency is a pretty new thing [poc] & didn't actually exist
hundreds of years ago far
less
millennia in any significant economy that could plausibly be
used to extrapolate trends in a modern world economy
I'm
a
more than a little curious about where he got his data
sets
or other evidence to extrapolate such a century or
millennia
long
cycle between it & a backed currency. |
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In the UK we only
finished selling off the gold reserves in
2002 & I'm
unaware
of any other countries significantly ahead of us in that. |
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Given the assertion of a definite cycle betwixt the two
in the order of centuries or millennia 'significantly' would
be at the very least several hundred years & preferably
more. |
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So I'm pretty sure I can smell
bovine processed plant manure wafting from Mr Graeber's
direction if that's what he really does claim? |
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Our up-to-the-nanosecond digital banking system actually contains so little in the bank that I recently had to give them 3 days to round up $2000 actual dollars. |
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Perhaps the 'balance' could be a small photo of what is in the bank's actual safe, exempli gratia: the two dollars from Bailey Building and Loan, Phillies' scraggly $5, $10 and $20s, tumbleweeds and USBs from WestWorld. |
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Or crickets. Probably made of plastic. |
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Wikipedia has a reasonable summary of Graeber's book. The thesis is of course not perfect but neither is it //bovine processed plant manure// |
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Bank Of England gold reserves see link. "Our gold
vaults hold around 400,000 bars of gold, worth
over £200 billion." |
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Huh! I was under the impression Brown had sold 'all' of it
[xen], apparently not, that's a pretty small fraction of the
value of our currency in
savings, debt & circulation though, small enough that I
have
to wonder why they bothered to hang onto such a small
amount, it couldn't plausibly be used to back the currency
at
anywhere near it's current valuation after all. |
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I'll check out that summary [poc]. |
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OK, checked, far from impressed, in many ways I'm getting
the same sense of 'narrative' as I do from the woke, critical
race theorists & door to door coal salesmen in Newcastle,
that summary isn't the book of course but I lack the interest
to actually find & read it, especially after that summary, a
central plank on which (from that summary) it seems his
entire thesis is built appears to
be balling up politeness & common decency with favours
(given & owed) into a single conglomerate entity then
somewhat
disingenuously conflating that with 'debt'. |
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I'd further note that 'currency' or money (a medium of
exchange, of which there are & have been many, both
backed & unbacked) is not 'debt' (which
can be measured in any currency you like because they are
not the same thing any more than the exchange rate
between two currencies is 'money') & in this
instance that appears
to be an incorrect conflation of yours rather than his. |
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I was
talking
about currencies, you responded by
talking about debt, it's not the same thing at all, you can
have money with or without debt & debt with or without
money & (more to the point) whatever
point we may be in some theorised long term debt cycle
is completely irrelevant to if
the currency the debt is held in is backed by a commodity
or not. |
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//can be measured in any currency you like// |
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While it's true that debt can be *measured* in any currency
you like, the vast majority of debt must be repaid in a given
currency, determined at the time when the debt is first
contracted. |
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This is why it's possible for issuers of currency to "inflate
away" debt. You can dispute whether that's a good thing, but
it's undoubtedly a real thing. |
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Of course [pert] that's pretty much my whole point & you've
just agreed with what I said in the
first place, that commodity backed currencies may well
make a
come back
because with them that simply doesn't happen to the same
extent, if a £1
note is a promissory note for one pound of
silver then its value might fluctuate up & down with
demand for
silver but it can't really be devalued can it [Ponders]
assuming of
course that the banks actually have the silver. |
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All it might take is one really big fiscal scandal
trashing the trust in the value of our fiat money was
basically what I said & [poc] responds with some
irrelevant blather about debt cycles. |
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Basically either the gold standard comes back or we're all fucked... |
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...unless you prefer carting a wheelbarrow worth of useless currency which won't buy you a loaf of bread. |
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In which case... carry on.
Myself...
...I'm investing in forms of barter. |
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Money ain't gonna mean shit soon the way I see things going. |
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Cheese though...
...cheese is going to be big.
Paper?... |
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Well shit, why didn't you start with that. Come into my office... |
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Wait...
Hell no! You know how to make gunpowder from chickenshit sulfur and charcoal? Fuck off! Really? |
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Ah... the good old days again eh? |
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//You can make paper?!?! // Well shit// |
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So you're already familiar with our products use then? |
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Hi [Skewed], I didn't describe anything as "debt" except the title of the book. |
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I was just disputing there was anything natural or fundamental about gold and silver coinage (maybe there is from an anthropological point of view which would describe the nostalgia you mention) but not from a financial or economic point of view. |
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Anyway we have strayed a long way from the original idea... I suppose because the idea seems built on the presumption is of a bank as a building with cavernous vaults stuffed to the rafters with coins and banknotes, rather than as an office with dull looking people typing code into computer terminals. |
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//stuffed to the rafters with coins// |
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Sounds good, The Crimson Permanent
Assurance was always a much more exciting prospect to
work
for than
this silly modern predilection for boring offices. |
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But that aside yes, for various reasons I'd prefer money to
either have or be backed by (or at the very least to be
pegged to the value of) something with actual intrinsic
value & think anyone who thinks it's better off entirely free
floating is as daft as that picture you're trying to paint (that
or a snake
oil selling con artist or shill) with
your coin stuffed vaults imagery. |
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Doesn't matter if it's //natural or fundamental// or not it's
just better that way &
as I didn't say anything about it being 'natural or
fundamental' I'm not sure why you'd mention it, it simply
isn't
relevant to what I did say, you're not trying to add chaff to
obscure the other daft thing you said (that debt cycles
equate to if a currency is backed or not) are you? ;) |
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And yes that was what you basically said (that debt
essentially = backed or
unbacked currency) it's still up there, unless you
edited (like I just did this to try & be less
argumentative) ;p |
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// I was under the impression Brown had sold 'all' of it//
He sold off about two-thirds of it...when gold was at the absolute bottom of its market price.
I note that the BoE's gold reserve figure, given in xenzag's link, doesn't state tonnage, only bars. As bars come in different sizes, it makes it difficult to assess exactly how much gold they now have. However, the difference in value between the £3billion that Gordon Brown got for the gold in 1999 & the BoE's current valuation of its reserves at £200billion (even given the inflation in the price of gold) would tend to indicate that they have been building the reserve back up.
If someone wants to do the maths & check then all the necessary info is given in the two links that I have provided above. Please show your workings! :D |
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//UK sale of gold reserves// |
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Nice link [Bob], even if it is the BBC [spit]. |
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I know they say there was a long bear market preceding the
sale but still curious about the value hike in gold since the
sale, might be worth comparing that to other commodities
to figure out if the price rise is in line with other
commodities & still relatively the same in relation to them
(so likely largely a function of the falling value of 'money'),
other possibilities are an uptick in industrial use (any new
tech using it developed in that time?), an uptick in the
amount of jewellery people are wearing or that someone
has been stockpiling it (thus reducing supply), or it could be
a general mistrust in fiat money resulting in lots of
little people buying it & vaulting it to hedge against
inflation rather than a few big ones. |
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In short interested to see where it's going & what the other
supply & demand pressures are / have been on it (besides
that sudden glut represented by all that gold hitting the
market) because all else being equal the increase in the
available supply from several governments selling their
reserves could have caused the price to fall which it clearly
didn't. |
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Well, if the price didn't fall as a result of government sales, that would tend to indicate that there was an equilibrium between buyers & sellers. |
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I would guess that the most significant new factor for change since 1999 would be the advent of on-line trading, which allows for more parties to get involved in the game. But the bulk of business would still be done by the same players though. Governments & the super-rich. |
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If I'm reading the article right the sell offs from the UK &
other countries had been going on for some years before
1999 (so, the cause of the long bear market?) & had already
caused the value of gold to hit bottom? |
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So maybe it was just bounce back (after the sell offs
mostly ended / between 2002 & 2011) from the falling
confidence in golds value caused by the sell offs while they
were happening, that could have deflated golds value
below where the increase in
supply should have making it ripe for a bounce back, I
note from the graph that after a drop
in 2011 (a correction from inflated prices caused by people
getting over confident in the rising price of gold during that
bounce back perhaps?) it largely levelled out from 2013 on
so that might be plausible. |
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In my previous anno I was under the impression the price
rise in that graph was concurrent with the sales, it isn't it
came after, daft of me, I skimmed too fast & hadn't lined
up the dates in the article with those on the graph. |
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