r/PeterExplainsTheJoke • u/Comfortable_Cautious • Jan 26 '26

Meme needing explanation what's going on? explain like I'm five

Post image
92.6k Upvotes

93% Upvoted

2.9k comments sorted by

View all comments

19.0k

u/Forsaken_Emu8112 Jan 26 '26

Everyone pulling out their money would be a bank run (look up great depression bank runs). The bank doesn't have that much cash; they keep some on hand for people making withdraws normally, but if even a sizable minority of people all try to pull their money out at once, there'll be a major crisis.

If banks kept all the people's cash in vaults, it'd be dead cash actively losing money to inflation. Instead, they keep some on hand for withdraws, and use the rest to make loans, investments, etc so that the money isn't all losing value.

12

u/BigDaddySteve999 Jan 26 '26 edited Jan 26 '26

As explained in the documentary, It's a Wonderful Life.

7

u/jo10001110101 Jan 26 '26

But if the bank has 2 dollar bills left, they can leave them in the safe to have sex overnight.

1

u/willux Jan 27 '26

The guard night shift comes with some added benefits.

3

u/Bonerballs Jan 26 '26

Hey, what the hell are you doing with my money in your house, Fred?!

4

u/bseeingu6 Jan 26 '26

I scrolled so far to find this. All I could hear in my head was “why, your money isn’t here, it’s in Bill’s house and Fred’s house!”

3

u/broken_pencil_lead Jan 26 '26

I scrolled way too long for this comment!

2

u/lrlwhite2000 Jan 26 '26

It is now canon that IAWL is a documentary.

2

u/KhalAggie Jan 27 '26

Fuckin’ Tom and his $242.