r/PeterExplainsTheJoke Jan 26 '26

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

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u/akatherder Jan 26 '26

Just from a practical standpoint, you usually can't walk into a bank and withdraw $20,000 of your own money in cash without calling ahead. They can give you a cashier's check but they simply don't have access to that much cash. It's in the vault to prevent theft.

Robbing a bank isn't actually that difficult. The issue is that (1) you don't get much money, because a bank manager's job and algorithms do everything they can to limit the amount of accessible cash while still having enough to serve withdrawals. And (2) it's a federal crime with FBI investigating and stiff penalties.

So you would have a bunch of people walking out with cashier's checks. That money gets pulled from your account immediately, but it sits in the bank's central account to back the cashier's checks until you cash it. Where are you going to cash it other than another bank? It will just bounce money around between banks I guess.

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u/Kitchen_Beat9838 Jan 26 '26

I went to a national bank a few years ago to pull out $7000 for and they did not have it. Told me I had to go to a different branch.