Daily Briefing For Saturday, January 25, 2014

Save the Date - Saturday, January 10, 2015 - Third Annual Suburban Dad Survivalist Preparedness Conference


We'll be returning to Cabela's for a third year next January.  I'm planning some changes to the format and presenters, based in large part on the feedback from this year's attendees.  Stay tuned for more details.




Cattle Herd at Multi-Decade Low; Shortages of Organic Food.  But Hey, Payton Is In The Super Bowl Next Week!
Take a few minutes away from your steady consumption of Justin Beiber Leif Garrett Gary Coleman to check out this story.  Think about it - as the world population grows (and food demand grows with it), our national cattle herd has reached a 61 year low. 


Start thinking about how this might affect your family at some point and play accordingly.




Hopefully, Your Bank Won't Cash Block You When You Try To Go Buy Extra Food
The BBC - those wonderful people who brought us intellectually stimulating programming like the Benny Hill Show - yesterday reported that HSBC Bank has begun a policy of restricting depositor's abilities to withdraw large sums of cash from their accounts. 


Bank customers reported HSBC refused to allow certain withdrawals of sums between £5,000 and £10,000 ($8,250 to $16,500 USD) without sufficient explanation of what the money would be used for. 


Don't believe me?  The article quotes from HSBC:


"We ask our customers about the purpose of large cash withdrawals when they are unusual and out of keeping with the normal running of their account. Since last November, in some instances we may have also asked these customers to show us evidence of what the cash is required for."


The bank then stated that due to customer feedback, it was revising these rules (which, by the way, it never bothered to tell their customers about) regarding withdrawals of large sums of currency.


Why do the banks care why a customer, who presents satisfactory identification to prove their identity, wants their money out of the bank?  There are number of answers to that question, none of them satisfactory and most of them quite alarming.

If your bank imposed a limitation on your ability to withdraw funds - as one of my readers experienced and shared their story with me in a previous blog entry - how would you deal with that?