Transcription
And we regret that people have lost money and whatever we did, whatever the standards of the time were, it didn't work out well.
You created the mess we're in and now you're saying sorry.
And look, you've got 90 days before a massive rules change. I mean, the rules meant for protecting your money at the bank, they changed for good. You see, last Wednesday, the people in charge of your bank's safety rules, they held a vote. They decided that you can handle more risk and they didn't even ask you. It was their discretion about what you can tolerate. What's crazier is where you stood before they even held the vote. You know how you assume your money is safe if something goes wrong at the bank? For every $100 the government promises to protect, they've got $1.17 set aside. $1.17 for $100. That was your safety net before last Wednesday and they looked at that and they decided you have too much net and not a single news network covered it. So I pulled the documents for you, all of them. Pulled the vote, the fine print, the math, everything. And what I found isn't just one problem. It's four layers of exposure sitting on top of your checking account, your 401k, and the deed to your house right now. I'll take you through all four. And if you have a bank account in the United States, any bank account, this applies to you.
Layer one, your money, it's not there. In March 2020, the Federal Reserve reduced the reserve requirement for banks to zero. That means your bank is not legally required to keep a single dollar of your deposit on hand. Not one. Think of it like a parking garage. You pull your car in, you think it's parked, but the garage has zero requirement to keep your car in the spot or even in the garage. Instead, they're renting it out as an Uber while you sleep. And then when you come back for your car, you're depending on enough other cars at least being returned at the exact same time for the garage to hand you a set of keys. That's your checking account right now. That rule changed in 2020 and was never changed back. That's layer one.
Layer two, if the bank fails, your money bails it out. You see, in 2008, the government bailed out the banks with $700 billion of your tax dollars. People were furious. So, Congress passed DoddFrank and said, "Never again. No more taxpayer bailouts." Sounds great, right? Well, here's what they replaced it with. Now, if a major bank fails, instead of using taxpayer money, the bank rescues itself using money from its own depositors and bond holders. Still, your money just skips the tax man this time. And this is what they call a bailin. And this part matters. You see, when you put cash in a bank, you become what they call an unsecured creditor. That's the legal term for your checking account. You gave them cash. They gave you a receipt, but they did not give you a guarantee. Yeah, but what about the FDIC? Right. I'm glad you asked. Below $250,000, the FDIC is supposed to have your back. And to be fair, they've covered every insured depositor since 1933. That's real. They've honored their agreement. But remember that $117 from earlier? The FDIC holds about 129 billion bucks. the deposits they insure over $10 trillion. That's a $1.17 for every $100 they've promised to protect. That's not insurance. That's a hope and a prayer that it doesn't all come down at once. And after three massive bank failures in 2023, the FDIC had to borrow $93 billion just to cover the damage. They had to borrow money to cover the insurance that they sold you. So, your money isn't there. And if things go wrong, it's your money that rescues the bank. But then there's this. Even in that rescue, you're not first in line for your own money. And that brings us to layer three.
Wall Street gets paid before you do. You see, under DoddFrank, derivative contracts, the bets banks make on Wall Street, legally get special treatment and resolution. And that makes the pecking order far messier than most depositors realize. Meaning if a bank goes into that resolution process, the casino chips get paid before your savings account. JP Morgan alone holds roughly 58 trillion in derivatives. The top 25 banks over $20 trillion. You're standing in a line you didn't know existed behind $200 trillion in Wall Street side bets. And before you say, "No, Matt, that's not going to happen. You're just trying to scare me." Well, it already happened. You see, in March of 2013, depositors at the Bank of Cyprus woke up on a Saturday morning and found out that 47.5% of everything they had over the insured limit was gone, converted to shares of a failing bank. Banks closed for 2 weeks. ATMs emptied by Monday. Capital controls lasted years. And as of October 2025, 12 years later, victims are still filing reimbursement claims. That was an EU member state with a central bank with deposit insurance with every promise you're hearing right now. See, there you go, Matt, with that scare stuff again. That's Cyprus. That's not America. Hey, fair point. But let me show you what America's own people said. On November 9th, 2022, the FDIC held a meeting. The room included the former president of Goldman Sachs, former heads of Croup and JP Morgan, and former Federal Reserve officials recorded on their website. One member said on camera, people need to understand they can get bailed in, but you don't want a huge run on the institutions. And then Gary Conn, Goldman Sachs for 25 years, former White House economic adviser, said this. We want them to have full faith and confidence in the banking system. There's a select crowd of people on the institutional side, and if they want to understand this, they're going to find a way to understand it. So, here it is decoded in plain English. The people who run the banks don't trust the banks. But they don't want you to know that because if you figured it out, you'd move your money. And if enough people moved their money, the whole thing falls apart. So, they keep it quiet. And they count on you not looking. And honestly, they're probably right. Most people won't look. Most people will keep depositing their paychecks, keep trusting the logo on the building, and never read a single page of what we just went through. So, if most people aren't paying attention, why would the banks give them a better deal? Well, they wouldn't, and they didn't. And that brings us to layer four.
They just voted to take what's left. On March 19th this year, 2026, the Federal Reserve, the FDIC, and a third agency called the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency voted on something called Basel 3. You don't need to remember the name, but here's what it does. After the 2008 crash, regulators told the biggest banks in America, "You have to keep more cash on hand as a cushion. If things go bad, that cushion absorbs the hit before depositors get hurt." That was the deal. You get to keep operating, but you hold more cash just in case. Well, last Wednesday, they rewrote the deal. The new rules let the biggest banks hold less cash as a cushion. The very thing that was supposed to protect your deposits in a crisis just got reduced. They opened a 90-day comment period. When that closes in June, those rules, they get locked in. And that 90-day comment period, it's open right now at regulations.gov. Anyone can submit a comment. You, me, anyone. If you want to tell the regulators what you think about them reducing your protection, put it on the record. They're required by law to read it. Whether they listen, that's another story. But at least you can get it on the record.
Okay. Now, let's play devil's advocate because you might be thinking this Matt, relax the system, it's fine. Well, if it were, why would the smart money be running? Cuz here's what I see. Warren Buffett spent his final year as CEO of Berkshire Hathaway selling 465 million shares of Bank of America, 45% of his biggest bank holding, six straight quarters of selling. Then he handed the keys to his successor and walked away, leaving behind over $300 billion in cash. That's not how you retire. That's how you clear the building. Bank of America's own chief strategist just compared 2026 to the period between mid-2007 and mid-2008. And he laid out four trip wires. Oil over $100, check. We're already there. Dollar index above 100, check. S&P below 6,000 and the 30-year Treasury above 5%. Both knocking on the door. Two tripped, two on the edge from their own guy. And in the middle of all that, the regulators looked at the system and said, "Let's loosen it up."
Now, let's add it all up. The reserve requirement is zero. The insurance fund is running on fumes. The people who are supposed to be adding protection just voted to remove it. And the smartest investor of the last 50 years looked at the whole thing and walked away with $300 billion in cash. Now, I've been doing real estate for almost 20 years. I've closed north of $50 million in deals. And in all of that time, I have never seen the people who run the banks and the people who regulate the banks moving in the same direction away from the building at the same time. Now, that doesn't mean a crisis is coming tomorrow. And I'm not your financial adviser, and I'm not a prophet, nor do I have a crystal ball. But when the fire department starts quietly moving their trucks to the next block, you should probably at least check your smoke detectors. And that's what the next 90 days are for.
To consider this first, know your number. Go to fdic.gov and use their EDIE calculator. That's the electronic deposit insurance estimator. Enter every account at every bank. Find out exactly how much is covered and how much is hanging over the edge. If anything's over $250,000 at a single bank, split it up. Spread it out. That takes 10 minutes and it costs you nothing. Second, stop assuming cash in a bank is the safest place for it. Short-term Treasury securities are backed by the full faith and credit of the United States government, not a fund with $1.17 behind every hundred. That's a different conversation than what your bank teller is having with you. And third, and this is the big one. Oh, and by the way, that 90-day comment period I mentioned, it's open right now at regulations.gov. And like I said, anyone can submit a comment. And so what I did for you to make it really easy is I put a template in the description below. You can copy it, paste it, add your own words, add your own flare and color, give them your own piece of mind if you want, and submit. It takes 2 minutes. It might not change their minds, but hey, who knows? Maybe a thousand comments from real depositors. Probably a lot harder to ignore than silence.
Now, the third thing to consider, start thinking about where your assets actually sit and whose name is on them because the banking system is just one piece of what's breaking down right now. There are five more and they're all compounding on each other. And I connected all six and the three moves to make. I did that in a video last week. I put it together in this video right here. I pulled it out for you special. The people who run this system here, they told each other, "You don't need to know this." And they didn't think you'd look here either. God loves you and so do I.