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Are banks even real?
Let's say I'm an average consumer who has two checking accounts, one at PNC Bank and one at Wells Fargo. I have $1000 in each account.
If I file an electronic transfer through PNC into the WF account, let's say of $500, PNC immediately deducts the $500 from the account. However, it takes four to six business days before that money will appear in the WF account, and even then it hangs as a "pending" credit for days afterward before the money is actually in the account.
Where is that money during the intermediatary downtime? Is PNC seriously just crediting itself with my money for awhile before handing over that amount to WF? If I wrote myself a check for the same amount the transaction would show up (pending approval of course) in both accounts immediately. Why can banks simply cause money to disappear for days at a time?
Let's take another example. Same scenario.
Let's say I walked into Wells Fargo, withdrew all $1000, and closed the account. I then walked up to a PNC ATM and deposited the grand.
PNC immediately credits the deposit to my account (not "pending," the money is physically in there), but WF treats it as a pending transaction for a length of time and doesn't close the account because of it. WF calls it a pending debit even though the money has physically moved to PNC's treasury, and WF still lists my account as nominally having $1000 inside it.
Because of this, don't I "technically" have $3000? Obviously I won't be able to access the ghost money, but if I have $2000 gross in PNC and $1000 gross in WF that means that I technically have $3000 in total assets.
Now obviously WF has physically lost $1000 in liquid cash and PNC has gained as much, but WF is still crediting me with having that $1000 even though I really don't.
Which means that this whole "pending transaction" shit is mostly BS, because that money can still very much be gone before the transaction gets "posted."
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If that's true, it means that the nominal balance of the account (in this case the WF one) is not actually tied to how much money is in the account. If THAT's true, and it seems like it is, what's actually giving legitimacy to bank accounts' values? Could banks not theoretically just arbitrarily increase or decrease the amount of "money" in an account? Would that not theoretically create "new" money, provided that the ghost money is spent electronically (and not debited from the bank as liquid cash)? I'm sure that would be illegal, but it seems kinda dangerous that private institutions are theoretically capable of acting as electronic mints.
Am I delusional?
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>>1553959
>>1553964
I'm assuming you don't know about fractional-reserve banking, OP.
In any case it's all BS anyway. The bank is effectively writing you an IOU, charging you for access to the wire system. I'd like to say they need your money to invest to make additional profit but they get zero-interest loans anyway and the government will bail them out when and if they fuck up. So don't overthink the issue, they don't really need your $500 anyway, they just like to jerk you around.
tl;dr find a credit union.
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>>1553972
Lol I'm in Canada and the credit unions are pure shit
Unironically more expensive, inconvenient, and just less feature-ful than one of the big 4
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>>1553959
I guess the main issue is security.
In the case of you writing yourself a check you are doing it yourself, whereas if you instruct PNC to transfer the money someone else will do it and there must be a procedure for that.
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This is one of many reasons why bitcoin is superior. Instant transactions globally.
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>>1553977
Mine doesn't have the features or the convenience. It's not more expensive. Either way you're not giving your money to banks, and that's a good thing.
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>>1554001
Oh god, that's even worse. Bitcoin doesn't have a liquid backing AT ALL, so it's the same premise as ghost money except there's no real money anymore. You're essentially relying upon the goodwill of the person you're buying from to treat your "currency" with any amount of legitimacy. The whole thing is basically a false vacuum - not saying it'll ever "pop," as it's unlikely it will, just that saying that bitcoins are mechanically more sound than fuzzy bank ledgers is patently untrue.
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>>1554005
I'm not a Bitcoin fag but this is exactly how USD works.
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>>1554031
Expect you know... the us military
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>>1554031
USD is backed by the full authority of the United States Federal Reserve System, which is in turn backed by the United States - especially considering that the United States itself (through the Department of the Treasury) creates the currency.
Bitcoin has no backing. There is no legitimacy.
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>>1554051
This is the most common argument in regards to good money. People say, "muhh its not backed"
NOTHING IS BACKED.
GROW UP.
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>>1553959
To answer your question OP, the banks use it as free short term financing. They are literally keepig your money incase they need to pay someone, and when they pay you, they really pay you with someone elses money.
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>>1554005
Lol at this retard, what is the us money backed with? That's right nothing.
You don't rely on the goodwill of anybody you fuking mong, millions of people use bitcoin.
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>>1554037
>>1554051
Protip: the military is there to keep you from rioting when the feds print $20 trillion or more to cover our massive debt once the petrodollar scheme runs dry.
>bu-bu-bu-but it's backed
By people who hate you and have no qualms whatsoever about precipitating your suffering and ultimate death.
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