[wodenokoto]

The article really wants to imply that because this worked, we shouldn't be afraid of "too big to fail", but it doesn't dare say that and kinda of ends up sitting between two chairs.

"I'm not saying that banks crashing isn't bad, but it wasn't a problem for Ireland to have banks disappear"

but the thing is, according to the article, trust in banks never disappeared, neither did the banks. People kept writing cheques against their bank accounts. There was a clear expectation that banks would open with all money intact and cheques would be processed.

That is a very different scenario from a bank failing.

[harpiaharpyja]

This is a huge equivocation by TFA. When we think of banks failing we typically think of situations where banks can no longer honor deposits.

What the article describes is nothing of the sort. It was a strike, which is a breakdown of operations, not insolvency.

[corethree]

How were bankers not skinned alive?

If someone owes you or I money and then suddenly they go on strike there will be a vicious reckoning.

[pjc50]

50 years after the civil war, Ireland would not particularly keen to start up the random violence again.

I suspect everyone assumed normality would resume "tomorrow", for a lot of tomorrows. Which is the other reason you can't just start up the lynchings, this isn't America and you'll have to live with these people and their families on a comparatively small island.

[TMWNN]

>Which is the other reason you can't just start up the lynchings, this isn't America and you'll have to live with these people and their families on a comparatively small island.

By this logic neither the Troubles nor the Irish Civil War would never have occurred in the first place. Yet they did.

(And the latter was more fierce than the war that forced London to acknowledge the Republic's independence.)

[corethree]

50 years is a looong time. I don't think that was it.

[rsynnott]

Most people, presumably, aren’t as bloodthirsty as you; strikes, no matter how inconvenient, rarely result in mass murder of the strikers by the general public. Sometimes by the state, in totalitarian systems, but not by random people.

[fodkodrasz]

Only in totalitarian systems. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_worker_deaths_in_Unite...

[rsynnott]

> In the summer of 1921 in Mingo County, hundreds of miners were arrested without habeas corpus and other basic legal rights.

I mean, er, yes, sounds like it.

[corethree]

First of all bankers on strike isn't a normal strike. It's like parents going on strike and leaving their kids to die.

Think about it... I steal all of someones money and promise to pay them back later and they're just going to be nice about it? If this happened to a person... likely he will hunt me down and "extract" the money out of me through any means available.

Why? because typically survival depends on a persons' ability to spend money.

I am not bloodthirsty. Theft in any society typically results in extreme measures of punishment including forcefully kidnapping people and confining them in inhumane conditions (it's called prison). Additionally, when the "theft" involves survival, getting violent is a normal thing. This is not just a "totalitarian" measure.

What's going on here seems to be a social phenomenon because theft and a sketchy promise of repayment is essentially what happened. The only reason why the system remained stable was because people still accepted checks.

I mean would you accept an IOU as payment if you know the issuer essentially stole the money and won't return it when asked for it? Typically no.

[fullspectrumdev]

There were a lot of strikes in Ireland in the 1970’s, including a rent strike at one point.