Too big to fail. In the 1970s in Ireland there was a 12 month period in the space of a 5 years, where no banks operated due to a huge strike by the workers. The country just ticked along with everyone extending IOUs to each other for when the banks came back online.

It's just one of those things, you'd think the economy or country would collapse effectively but things just tick on by they way they always did. Imagine the banks in the US closing for 6 months?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irish_bank_strikes_(1966%E2%80...