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| Economy | |
| When Banks quit, 1970. Irish quickly made their own monetary system. | |
| 2026-09-07 | |
| [TrendCompass] Key Markets report for Friday, 4 September 2026 As much of the Western world teeters on the edge of a probable financial crisis, many analysts are predicting that when it happens, it will be much worse than the Global Financial Crisis of 2008, which seems like a frightening prospect. What if the whole system seizes up and the bottom falls from under the financial system? For sure, it would be a shock requiring an uncomfortable transition, but it’s important to keep in mind that the financial system is not the economy, and the economy is not the financial system. For as long as the earth provides crops, cows give milk, chickens lay eggs and there’s fish in the sea, populations have always known to adapt to new situations rather quickly and develop alternatives to conventional money systems. One of the fascinating examples took place in Ireland in 1970 when its bankers went on strike. The pundit class was predicting that, if the strike persists, it would be a disaster for Ireland’s economy. As they often are, the experts were wrong: the strike lasted fully six months and during those six months the economy hummed along smoothly and even continued growing. The account about this episode was captured by the Dutch journalist Rutger Bregman. “CLOSURE OF BANKS.” On May 4, 1970, this notice ran in the Irish Independent. After lengthy but fruitless negotiations over wages that had failed to keep pace with inflation, Ireland’s bank employees decided to go on strike. Overnight, 85% of the country’s reserves were locked down. With all indications suggesting that the strike could last a while, businesses across Ireland began to hoard cash. Two weeks into the strike, The Irish Times reported that half of the country’s 7,000 bankers had already booked flights to London in search of other work. At the outset, pundits predicted that life in Ireland would come to a standstill. First, cash supplies would dry up, then trade would stagnate, and finally unemployment would explode. “Imagine all the veins in your body suddenly shrinking and collapsing,” one economist described the prevailing fear, “and you might begin to see how economists conceive of banking shutdowns.” Heading into the summer of 1970, Ireland braced itself for the worst. And then something odd happened. Or more accurately, nothing much happened at all. “THE ECONOMY CONTINUED TO GROW” In July, the The Times of England reported that the “figures and trends which are available indicate that the dispute has not had an adverse effect on the economy so far.” A few months later, the Central Bank of Ireland drew up the final balance. “The Irish economy continued to function for a reasonably long period of time with its main clearing banks closed for business,” it concluded. Not only that, the economy had continued to grow.
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| Posted by:Clyde Thaviling6482 |