Why America's coming bank holiday will be a nightmare

Here are 20 Reasons why America's next bank holiday will be a nightmare:

1) A bank holiday will create a virtual blackout of information on not just checking and saving accounts, but also automated mortgage payments, CDs, and more. Our presently quite transparent banking system will suddenly become opaque. Your bank balance will become invisible. Your handy-dandy online banking web page will be replaced by a "Service Temporarily Unavailable" notice. The willingness to accept checks will evaporate in less than a day. The FUD factor (Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt) will be overwhelming.

2) Most businesses will no longer honor personal checks, corporate checks, or bank money orders. Showing a merchant your most recent bank statement isn't likely to sway him. Again, the FUD factor will rule.

3) All checks in the U.S. are cleared through the automated clearinghouse (ACH) network. Most of this network is inside of banking system firewalls. Many Federal, State, and local tax payments are also handled through ACH. (A similar network exists for European banks--the Pan-European Automated Clearing House (PE-ACH), under the Single Euro Payments Area (SEPA) system).

4) Credit cards might not be accepted. The FUD factor will dictate that anything even peripherally related to the banking system will be suspect. (Even though the credit card companies have their own credit clearing mechanisms that are only attached to the banking milieu.)

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