Everywhere you look these days, people are talking about bank runs.
The collapse of crypto exchange FTX; the flood of assets out of Credit Suisse Group AG; the limits on fund redemptions by Blackstone Real Estate Income Trust ¡ª they¡¯ve all been characterized as ¡°bank runs¡± by various commentators. Google searches for the term ¡°run on the bank¡± are hitting levels not seen since the global financial crisis in 2008.
Thankfully, these aren¡¯t your grandad¡¯s bank runs ¡ª or even your aunt¡¯s. They are much more benign than the Panic of 1857, for example, when, according to one account, ¡°Wall Street literally was filled with depositors hurrying to withdraw their funds.¡± Banks in New York City lost about half their deposits in that episode. A series of cascading bank runs 75 years later contributed to the Great Depression and the failure of about 9,000 institutions. In contrast, this year¡¯s events aren¡¯t really bank runs at all.
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