As I reported recently, banks are beginning to collaborate in the campaign by governments to stamp out the use of cash among the public.  Chase, for example, rolled out a new program in several markets in March that restricts borrowers from using cash for making payments on credit cards, equity lines, mortgages and auto loans.  Even more troubling is Chases' revised policy governing the use of its safe deposit boxes.  In a letter dated April 1, Chase informed its customers of the new policy, which included the following provision:  "You agree not to store any cash or coins other than those found to have a collectible value."

Jeff Thomas provides a provocative and worrisome speculative narrative  on this development over at International Man.  According to Thomas, if and when the War on Cash finally succeeds in channeling all  transactions through the banking system,

. . . confiscations [of deposits] will occur. Again, these will be implemented by the banks. But in order to maximise the amount that will be taken, it will be necessary to force people out of other forms of wealth storage and into bank deposits.

Looked at in this light, the otherwise seemingly arbitrary restriction on cash and precious metals in safe deposit boxes makes complete sense. Should a bank perform a confiscation on accounts, whatever was in the safe deposit boxes would remain safe.

And even in a confiscation, banks would be reluctant to raid safe deposit boxes, as they would a) have to force them open, and b) have to deal in some way with the non-monetary contents of the boxes, such as documentation and fine art. To do so would glaringly expose the banks as plunderers (assuming the theft of deposits had not already achieved that end).