While many refuse to believe that it can happen, evidence for why it is absolutely critical to stock up for hard times and worst case scenarios is and has been staring us in the face for the last several years (never mind the thousands of years of historical precedent).

The latest warning signs are, once again, popping up in Europe and should be taken seriously, as it is only a matter of time before such events play out in the rest of the world, including right here at home:

Via Adiconsum Italia – Translated via Google

BNI depositors unable to make withdrawals / payments, payments of utility bills, mortgage payments, taxes

Peter Giordano, Adiconsum: “Grave of the Bank of Italy’s attitude that takes action without considering the impact on depositors, and especially on single-income families and pensioners”

The Bank of Italy authorized the suspension of payments by Bank Network Investments SpA (BNI) without communicating anything to the depositors.

Very serious and unacceptable – says Peter Jordan, Secretary General Adiconsum – the attitude of the Bank of Italy SpA in each BNI, because highly prejudicial to the interests of customers.

Bank of Italy, in fact, after extending the receivership of the bank, thus giving the impression of an imminent rescue, then gave the green light for compulsory winding up, without giving any prior notice to the depositors, leaving them in no condition to perform any type of operation, even basic ones for daily survival, such as withdrawals / payments, utilities payments, rates, taxes.

This is not an isolated incident and we have, in fact, seen a similar scenario play out right here in America in the recent past with the collapse of Indymac bank (no affiliation with SHTFplan Mac), which left depositors without any way of accessing funds. The same happened across the pond in the UK with the collapse of Northern Rock.

Anxious customers wait to get their funds all over IndyMac banks in California after regulators took control in July of 2008:

Thousands all over the UK headed straight for Northern Rock Bank once they learned it was no longer solvent in 2007:

We have enjoyed relative stability in our banking system since the crash of 2008 as the Federal Reserve has pumped out trillions of dollars in funds to save banks that are, by all accounts, totally insolvent already. With the collapse of Europe now upon us and a similar disaster awaiting the United States in the next couple of years as our debts (private and public) exceed our abilities to repay them, we can fully expect “bank holidays” across the entire country.

There are those who may argue that these are the ramblings of a fear monger, but make no mistake, a nationwide bank holiday was already considered in the United States – and no, we’re not talking about Franklin Roosevelt’s closing of the banks in the 1930′s.

When? On the very first day, as the very first action of the new Obama administration in January of 2009.

Things got so bad after the financial and economic collapse of 2008 that the entire system as we know it was about to go under.

So much so, that Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson reportedly warned congressional members that if no bailout was passed in November of 2008 that the government would literally have been forced to declare martial law.

That was nearly four years ago. And, as we well know now, not a single thing has been done to resolve the fundamental problems we faced then.

We are now so far gone that there is a real possibility that the next phase of this crisis – which is near critical in Europe now and will soon come to the United States – will be totally out of control of the government and central banks, which will leave them no other option but to shut down the banks before we have Great Depression style bank runs.

While we realize the mainstream media and the majority of Americans believe it to be an impossibility that they would not have access to their bank funds, online bill pay systems, or ATM’s, we’ll play devil’s advocate and suggest such an event may actually occur.

What if banks were closed? And what if when they reopened again your dollar was worth much less than when they closed for business?

This happened in 1934 after FDR devalued the dollar against gold during a bank holiday, it recently happened in Venezuela when Chavez devalued the local currency by 50%, and most notably in North Korea where residents lost 99% of the value of their wealth over night.

How would you pay your rent or mortgage? (Banks may be closed to your withdrawals, but be assured they will still want your monthly payment)

How would you buy food or toilet paper?

How would you pay your utility bills? (or what if your utility company couldn’t pay their bills?)

How would you pay for medical care or emergency medicine? (Or what if there were no medicines left to buy?)

How would you even get to the grocery store with your devalued dollars after economic martial law was declared and gas prices were so high you couldn’t afford them or gas itself wasn’t even available at your local gas station?

Are you planning on the National Guard giving you a ride?

Then again, this is America, and we have a centrally planned economy, so there is no way this is going to happen.

Nothing to see here. Carry on