Catona espoused a scheme during an interview with a newspaper, reported
The Guardian. The videotaped interview was posted on YouTube and Catona has unwittingly become the instigator of a grassroots movement in which participants around the world will withdraw their funds from their bank accounts on December 7th. The money is to be re-deposited the next day. Now an actor, most recently seen in a L'Oreal deodorant
commercial, Catona had said European protesters were being ineffectual, and if people wanted to start a revolution, they should start with the banks.
People heard Catona, and since that interview, a movement sprang up. In Europe it is called
StopBanque. The British Banking Association (BBA) does not understand the concept, reported the
Global Financial Strategy News. If enough people acted on Catona's urging, said a spokesperson for the BBA, "... a mass run on the banks could cause a financial catastrophe."
The idea is spreading rapidly into North America, with people publicizing Stop Banks on blogs and Facebook, urging contemporaries to sign on for the day. Why would anyone want to possibly cause a financial crisis?
BankRun 2010 said its organizers decided to run with the idea to expose how the monetary system works. Europeans forced to undergo "austerity measures" are angry, said BankRun 2010, resulting in (according to google translator) "a situation that has put our heads of states and governments to their knees before the rating agencies, trembling with fear at the idea that our notes are deteriorating."
BankRun 2010 called for the creation of a citizen's bank, saying (again, Google translator),
"We are especially aware of the consequences of deregulated global financial system and uncontrollable have on our jobs, our health, our education, our pensions, our industries, our environment, our future, our dignity, the dignity of citizens of countries that the system enslaved by debt they can never repay to better appropriate their resources.
We are aware of the role this system plays in the prosperity of industrial empires whose interests depend on armed conflict, disease, food shortages and poverty prevailing in the country who provide labor and natural resources at trifling cost. We are aware that that system will never have anything to gain from a world of peace and prosperity and that continuing to entrust our hard earned money honestly and this sick system, we we make accomplices of its flights, for its crimes, its wars and misery it generates."
The British Bankers Association has said Catona is "irresponsible" for voicing his idea, but the organization did not think many people would participate. While it is hard to gauge how many people might actually withdraw all their funds on December 7, the idea is decidedly popular.
One
blogger wrote,
"Could it be that the slaves are we finally organizing ourselves? Seen the poor success of the protest & general strikes that have been organized on Europe, mainly in France and Greece, there are starting to arise new initiatives that could really hurt the dominant classes."
The movement is meant to be symbolic, and is widely seen as the best way to be heard, something along the lines of the old saying "put your money where your mouth is." If enough people participate, some people lobbying for the Stop Banque day think the European banking system could be "reset," to more favourably reflect reality, reported
ZeroHedge.
This is not the first time there has been a movement to try to wrest back power from the banking system. In 2008, there was an attempt to organize an American
boycott of the bank of America. Last year,
StopBankGreed attempted to "hold banks accountable."
'Justin' wrote at the blog,
The Truth Shall Set You Free,
"Please commit to this simple action, and help start the only revolution that really matters, against the monied establishment that currently controls everything else. By participating in a mass withdrawl of a money, you are striking against the fiat, fractional-reserve money system. It is this system, which is non-Constitutional btw, which keeps us in perpetual debt slavery and allows them to amass wealth and power."
Decisions made by banks in the United States are widely thought to have contributed to the 2008-2009 global recession, said the
AFP. The Irish banking sector is currently in such bad condition, the economy is close to collapse. A bailout through the International Monetary Fund and Europe is expected to shore up the Irish banking system, reported
Bloomberg.
