China has deployed the military to keep peace in the streets of some cities as the banks have assumed depositor's assets, declaring them "investment accounts" and therefore not accessible by normal means. Understandably, the people whose money is in the banks are very upset. Apparently this is a consequence of the Evergrande restructuring that has left banks insolvent. Look up the name if you are not familiar. Just imagine if you woke one morning and your debit cards and checking and savings accounts were not available to you. What kind of bind would you be in to meet daily expenses. That is wht the Chinese people are going through now and it isn't reported in the U.S. media, as much of that is owned by China, therefore nothing bad can be said.
It certainly can happen here. The China thing is being compared to the 2008 breakdown in the U.S., but I see it as much different. The Chinese have no real way to invest money, so they tend to put it into their houses. The housing shortage there was so bad that most houses were ordered and mortgaged before they were built. The financing around the mortgages collapsed, so the builders stopped paying tei bills as they were not being paid by the mortgage company/construction loan holder. The people were still expected to make mortgage payments on houses that didn't--and probably would never--exist. The American situation as I recall was that the government was pressing mortgage companies to give mortgages to people who couldn't afford them. A different situation, but the end result is similar. The banks have no money, so they cannot allow people access to their funds.
The U.S. government was encouraging them, and they did because there was too much money in the system and not enough borrowers. That's why they lent to NINJAs. After that, banks packaged the toxic assets with others, paid ratings agencies to give them high marks, then marketed them to foreigners. Similarly, the rich in China put money in real estate that no one was using in order to shore up asset values. In the end, limitations in material resources and energy will catch up with not only physical but also virtual assets.