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Notes -
If I claimed to be from South America, the "when exactly did your grandparents leave Germany?" jokes would write themselves.
I mean we don't know what debanking will look like when it happens, because it hasn't really happened yet, but it's not all that uncommon to see accounts frozen but not closed or confiscated as the result of lawsuits. Particularly against businesses, in cases involving tax debts, where the funds are frozen and can't be accessed until the lawsuit is concluded. This is where half the traditional folk-wisdom of keeping some money in precious metals comes from in my family: among small business owners it's a sort of common sense theory that if you have some non-banked assets you can cover bills enough to keep in business for a while and stay afloat. The other half comes from the refugee corners of my family, who figure you're better off fleeing with a bit of gold than without it.
Oh, "take your money and gtfo" debanking is happening all the time now. It started with "undesirable businesses" - payday loans, pawnshops, firearms dealers, porn, legal marijuana, that sort of thing. The feds strongly "encouraged" banks to cut them off from the banking system. See 'Operation Choke Point". Then after the Great Awokening and Summer of COVID Love happened, it spread from generic "shady businesses" to political undesirables. Trump businesses were kicked out of many banks. Same happened to various Trump-adjacent people. This is a "soft" variety though - it may destroy a smaller business and make life very inconvenient for you for a while, but as long as you stop being annoying to Powers and hide under the rock, you can survive. In fact, if you're billionaire, it probably would be just an annoying inconvenience for you - there always will be some bank willing to hold your billions.
What hasn't happened in the US, but did, say, in Canada (which of course is using the abovementioned debanking widely, but moved on to more severe approach) is full asset freeze, where you are just told "your money is now ours, good luck living without money". And with most woke countries (Canada, EU, etc.) increasingly trying to delegitimize cash, it may be very hard to maintain any semblance of normal life in that scenario. Which is exactly the point of it.
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