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German banks are hoarding so many euros they need more vaults

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Re: German banks are hoarding so many euros they need more vaults

#211

Post by nkrisc »

fludlight wrote: post #209
reaperducer wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US also had lower denomination bills like the $500 and $1000 until 1969. They were not in much use then I seem to remember in that era they were useful for some people. My mother worked for a bank in Manhattan and on paydays she would take her check downstairs and cash it, come home with the money in her bra, and then deposit it in our local bank. Why she didn't just deposit her check, I can't say. Maybe she didn…

Maybe she was avoiding having all of her eggs in one basket. If your employer fails you lose your income. If your employer holds your life savings you might lose that, too. These days we have reliable, trusted deposit insurance, but that didn't exist until the 1930s. People didn't really trust it until a few decades later.

I think they meant why she didn't cash her paycheck directly with her bank, as oppose to cashing out it and then depositing the cash with her bank anyway.

Re: German banks are hoarding so many euros they need more vaults

#212

Post by Gibbon1 »

kgwgk wrote: post #160
corford wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What? You go to a car dealer, sign, pay and drive away.

Don’t you need to register the car in the DMV and get an insurance before you can drive away? That’s definitely the case in the parts of Europe I’m familiar with.

In my state the DMV gives you ten days to register a new car. If you have any car insurance at all there is a grace period.

Re: German banks are hoarding so many euros they need more vaults

#213

Post by lliamander »

ianlevesque wrote: post #161
reaperducer wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This problem has probably been exacerbated by the fact the the $500 euro note has not been issued since 27 April 2019 The United States used to print $100,000 notes. They were only available to banks for moving from bank to bank, I believe, and so were useful for reducing the number of notes that needed to be stored by banks, while keeping them out of the hands of criminals.

> They were only available to banks [...] while keeping them out of the hands of criminals. So they were discontinued when they couldn't find any non-criminal bankers?

So, when they formed the Fed?

Re: German banks are hoarding so many euros they need more vaults

#214

Post by QuesnayJr »

pergadad wrote: post #164
Fishysoup wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Germany is obsessed with keeping the value of the Euro low to maximize their exports. That's one of the reasons they've been pushing austerity after the economic crisis, as keeping countries like Greece, Portugal etc. in a rut depreciates the currency (the other reason is a weird sense that countries in debt have committed some moral failing and should be punished). Their trade surplus has been a subject of intense c…

That's nonsense. The reason for low interest rates is so that Italy won't collapse. It's widely hated in Germany as bank accounts have basically zero interest nowadays.

The comment you are replying to said "the value of the euro", not low interest rates. Interest rates are so low not because of Italy, but because the German government stopped borrowing. If you cut the supply of something, the price goes up. If the price of bonds go up, then the interest rate goes down.

Re: German banks are hoarding so many euros they need more vaults

#215

Post by QuesnayJr »

aazaa wrote: post #23
Despegar wrote: post #3

The crazy thing is that Germany is killing their own banks. They refuse to run fiscal deficits while at the same time they criticize the ECB for lowering rates and hurting the German Saver, when the German Saver is who would benefit if they decided tomorrow to run deficits for the next 10 years.

> ... when the German Saver is who would benefit if they decided tomorrow to run deficits for the next 10 years. The German Saver knows better than most that inflation destroys savings. Inflation benefits debtors by allowing them to pay back their loans in depreciated currency. Germany isn't exactly a nation of debtors, although most of Europe is. This is a looming political issue that's only just beginning.

Running deficits is not the same as inflation. There's no place for Germans to save, and its because the German government won't borrow. A sensible policy would be for the German government to borrow and invest heavily in infrastructure. Instead Germany has opted for policies that will cause it to teeter on the edge of recession for decades.

Re: German banks are hoarding so many euros they need more vaults

#216

Post by conanbatt »

QuesnayJr wrote: post #215
aazaa wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> ... when the German Saver is who would benefit if they decided tomorrow to run deficits for the next 10 years. The German Saver knows better than most that inflation destroys savings. Inflation benefits debtors by allowing them to pay back their loans in depreciated currency. Germany isn't exactly a nation of debtors, although most of Europe is. This is a looming political issue that's only just beginning.

Running deficits is not the same as inflation. There's no place for Germans to save, and its because the German government won't borrow. A sensible policy would be for the German government to borrow and invest heavily in infrastructure. Instead Germany has opted for policies that will cause it to teeter on the edge of recession for decades.

> A sensible policy would be for the German government to borrow and invest heavily in infrastructure.

Or reduce taxation and make everyone but government richer.

Re: German banks are hoarding so many euros they need more vaults

#217

Post by bananabreakfast »

Mountain_Skies wrote: post #207
wolfgke wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> According to that same article, the reason for retiring the note was because the people who benefited the most from its existence are criminals, who need to do their business in cash -- the fewer notes, the easier for them. This is what they want the citizens to believe.

I wonder if we are meant to think of drug dealers but the governments are just as worried about the local handyman or small construction company getting untraceable cash payments without paying taxes.

This is why so many taxi drivers say their "credit card reader is broken"

Re: German banks are hoarding so many euros they need more vaults

#218

Post by munk-a »

wolfgke wrote: post #197
Frost1x wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would you accept a $1000 or even $500 note from a craigslist transaction? I'm usually pretty hesitant to accept anything over a $20 or even deal in cash for small exchanges. I wouldn't even consider $500 unless I had a way to strongly guarentee the bill I'm looking at isn't fake. It would take a bit of time and research before I felt confident enough at identifying these bills to accept them in a trade. I'd have to d…

> It would take a bit of time and research before I felt confident enough at identifying these bills to accept them in a trade. If such bills were in common use, nearly everybody would know and be aware of the usual security features. So, this is only a problem because such large bills are so rare.

Except that such bills don't see a naturally high amount of use - it's still legal to use them for a bunch of purposes, they're just inconvenient for nearly all uses... Your statement applies better to not-currently circulating modest denominations, like two dollar bills.

Re: German banks are hoarding so many euros they need more vaults

#219

Post by freeflight »

zodiac wrote: post #123
ur-whale wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>We generally use bank transfers to buy cars. It's actually the only possible way to buy a new car. If you don't believe me, go try and buy a car with a credit card in the EU, see what happens.

Is it possible to buy with cash?

Depends on the country and the amount of cash [0]

[0] https://www.europe-consommateurs.eu/fileadmin/user_upload/eu...

Re: German banks are hoarding so many euros they need more vaults

#220

Post by conanbatt »

rusk wrote: post #61
jldugger wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I suspect the problem is creating only a little bit of inflation. Hyperinflation is easy, just ask the Weimar republic.

Or Zimbabwe or Argentina even ... but I think these extremes are absurd. They are blunders. What we are talking about here is why EU isn’t taking prudent steps to provoke growth, and that’s all down to keeping certain dominant nationa happy.

* Cries in pesos
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