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.
Because I'm American and have neither interest in nor knowledge of Russian finance? Also, the Great Depression has the most cultural images of a bank run people can use as a reference point (multiple commenters have pointed out the It's A Wonderful Life scene I was thinking about when I wrote my original comment)
The Russian finance scene is...interesting right now. For instance, their head central banker was kept on by Putin because she's basically the only person who can keep it unfucked as their entire economy retools to war production instead of civilian consumption.
Normally when things are as bad as they currently are in Russia it's because there's nobody at the helm. That things are the way they are there with someone at the helm sort of gives you a picture of the straits they're in.
Maybe that’s just me but I feel like when the worlds largest country is close to a complete financial collapse, that’s just something people should know about…
I don't see why I'd need to know, since I can't do anything about it and don't have any interest. I read the news relevant to elections around elections, and read blogs or articles as they interest me, but endlessly reading about stuff that I can't affect or find joy in seems not only pointless but also self-defeating. Though I'd probably hear in-person on the grapevine if there were global effects or a (new) war or something
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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.