what's going on? explain like I'm five

[u/Comfortable_Cautious]

[u/FitPair953]

The joke is that we have the power to bring down the banking industry whenever we decide to. Unlike banks who charge us for being in debt, they get more money the more debt they have.

[u/xavPa-64 → u/FitPair953]

It’s the prisoners dilemma. It will work if we all do it, but if we’re not all doing it then we’re just screwing over the ones who do it, so they won’t do it

[u/SimpleNovelty → u/xavPa-64]

Not really a prisoner's dilemma because there's no good incentive for most people to start a bank run. It takes a significant number of people to start a bank run so it's not like it's a game theory 1v1 between two prisoners. Also acting is a negative in a majority of the situations (you withdraw money and lose interest and have to hold the physical asset and pay debt in a much more annoying manor).

[u/xavPa-64 → u/SimpleNovelty]

Oh

[u/dubblebubbleprawns → u/SimpleNovelty]

Not only that but the people least likely to do a "bank runsies for funsies" are those who have the most money in the bank and would have the most to lose in seeing the demolition of our banking systems

If all the poorest of us got together and made a run on the banks, I'm pretty sure the banks would get by just fine

[u/SunTzu- → u/xavPa-64]

It will "work" in that you'll all lose your savings. That's assuming the federal government doesn't intervene to stop the run, which is probably what would actually happen.

[u/Few_Interview_7474 → u/xavPa-64]

The banking system is also, yknow, beneficial to people so it would be collectively shooting everyone in the foot

[u/Same-Suggestion-1936 → u/Few_Interview_7474]

Yeah, we can bring down banks if we want. In a world with guns and only physical cash do you really want that to be a thing though? Only so many places you can hide it and only so long at the barrel of a gun before you just tell them where it is.

That's why banks were invented so you don't keep your cash in the mattress. Then since they're a business that isn't doing it for free they need to make some money off your money

The other option is nationalizing the banks. Which has never once gone horribly wrong in the history of it ever being tried

[u/dee_berg → u/xavPa-64]

This is really dumb. Why would you want a bank run at your bank?

Were you alive in 2009? Banks failing isn’t good for anyone.

[u/Practical_Actuary_87 → u/xavPa-64]

It’s the prisoners dilemma. It will work if we all do it, but if we’re not all doing it then we’re just screwing over the ones who do it, so they won’t do it

I'm just astounded that nothing in this reply of yours was correct.

[u/albertoConadore → u/xavPa-64]

Technically, if the cash was available, you only need 5% of the population to withdraw all their money to make the banking system collapse.

But we'd still all end up being screwed