While Europe has been keeping a generally optimistic facade ahead of the coming cold winter, signaling that it has more than enough gas in storage to make up for loss of Russian supply even in a "coldest-case" scenario, behind the scenes Europe's largest economy is quietly preparing for a worst case scenario which include angry mobs and bankruns should blackouts prevent the population from accessing cash.
As Reuters
reports citing four sources, German authorities have stepped up preparations for
emergency cash deliveries in case of a blackout (or rather blackouts) to keep the economy running, as the nation braces for possible power cuts arising from the war in Ukraine. The plans include the
Bundesbank hoarding extra billions to cope with a surge in demand, as well as "possible limits on withdrawals", one of the people said. And if you think crypto investors are angry when they can't access their digital tokens in a bankrupt exchange, just wait until you see a German whose cash has just been locked out.
Officials and banks are looking not only at origination (i.e., money-printing) but also at distribution, discussing for example
priority fuel access for cash transporters, according to other sources commenting on preparations that accelerated in recent weeks after Russia throttled gas supplies.
Comment: And there is no reason to think the situation is going to improve anytime soon, with governments across Europe making preparations for the predictable unrest that will result from their self-inflicted destruction of their economies: