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Cyprus - Oh The Irony!?
By Ben Davies of Hinde Capital
Cyprus - Oh The Irony!?
In history seemingly innocuous events portend more serious outcomes – albeit we recognise them in hind(e)sight. This is the dramatic irony of history. Just as a single shot in Sarajevo, took out a largely unknown European aristocrat, Archduke Franz Ferdinand, who would have known then that the world would plunge into World War I. The Cypriot savers must have thought the authorities were being highly ironic, of the Socratic kind, when they were told they were receiving a bail-out, except it was a “bail-in”. I don’t know the Greek/Turkish for – you are having a laugh, but I bet that’s what they are saying. So what is a bail-in?
A bail-in takes place before a bankruptcy, and involves losses being imposed on bondholders, something that has rarely taken place throughout the GFC and euro crisis. In fact taxpayers (the government) have consistently bailed-out the private sector in full. The Cypriot bank rescue is no exception, except this time there is a bail-in and ironically again not of bondholders but of the depositors first. This is a direct contravention to the usual legal claims on the capital structure.
So there you have it – on Friday 14th March Cyprus became the 5th country to receive an EU bail-out (in), except this one was a bail-in but one with a significant and severe twist of fate. The Cypriot government in Nicosia is scheduled to vote on a EU bail-out plan which calls to extract a “tax” on bank depositors (savers) some €5.8 billion: 6.75 per cent for anyone with less than €100,000 in a Cypriot bank account, 9.9 per cent for anyone with more than that.
This is an unprecedented assault on individual property rights and every individual in the developed world should take notice, and far from stabilising the eurozone, the bail-out likely heightens contagion risk across the EU.
Why bother holding a bank account when your government can expropriate your savings? Far from containing a bank run in Cyprus it will exacerbate it, absent capital controls, and likely begin significant depositor flights across the European periphery.
These events I believe signify one of the most alarming developments in the Eurozone crisis and by dint the global economy since the financial crisis began.
Cypriot Disputes and Levies
For a sovereign entity so small, Cyprus is a country that has had more than its fair share of international controversy and disputes. Cyprus has a long and convoluted history with the British, Turks and Greeks, whose tensions have wreaked havoc across Europe over two World Wars. This weekend marked yet another period of disquiet in the history of this troubled island.
Cyprus is reeling from an oversized and ailing banking system. Technically bankrupt, domestic banks stand at €126.4 billion in size, or over 7 times the size of the economy. Without a bail-in, depositors would be wiped out and Cyprus would undergo economic collapse, bringing along with it all the attendant social misery and deprivation of a depression.
Ironically Cyprus is no stranger to levies. The British extracted taxes in the 19th century to cover the compensation they owed to the Ottoman Sultanate, who had conceded the island to the British.
In 1878, under the Cyprus Convention, the Cyprus became a protectorate of the British in a secret agreement between the United Kingdom and Ottoman Empire. The Greek Cypriots believed the British would eventually help Cyprus unite with mother Greece, just as with the other Ionian Islands. The indigenous Cypriots believed it their natural right to reunite the island with Greece; after all the very first census showed the population was comprised of 74% Greeks and 24% Turks.
Fast forward half a century and most of us over the age of 40 refer to the Cyprus dispute as that of the conflict between the Republic of Cyprus, and Turkey, over Turkish-occupied North Cyprus. My knowledge of the origins of the Cyprus dispute is a little sketchy but as I understand it, the dispute originally was born out of the Cypriots’ desire for self-determination away from the British Crown, which had unlawfully declared itself the constitutional ruler after Greece failed to fulfil its WWI obligations to invade Bulgaria; in return the Republic of Turkey recognized British rule of the island.
Eventually this colonial dispute became an ethnic one between Greek and Turkish islanders and their respective mother countries. In 1974 Turkey invaded Northern Cyprus and declared unilateral independence, as well as itself a sovereign entity – the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus – but has never received UN and international recognition. There has been a UN no-go zone buffering North and South ever since.

Another irony of the day was that in return for the British protectorate the Ottoman Empire received military support against Russia in Asia. As I will cover later Russia has been integral to the demise and now the future well-being of Cyprus. Another legacy dispute that has compounded the Cypriot collapse was their adherence to Enosis. This refers to ‘the union’, literally speaking, of the Greek-Cypriot population to incorporate the island of Cyprus into Greece. Observance of this tradition led the Cypriot banks to misguidedly purchase vast amounts of Greek sovereign debt before and during the euro crisis. Cyprus became a casualty of the Greek’s very own bailout restructuring. Oh the irony again.
Creditor Structure
Bank depositors by now will have realised that bank deposit guarantees are not worth the paper they are written on and the legal precedent to label this confiscation of assets as a ‘stability levy’ or tax has no doubt been framed as such so as to circumvent EU deposit guarantee law, which this levy clearly violates. This is stealing – period.
Every saver in Italy, Spain, Portugal, but not limited to these countries, as it potentially applies to any saver in northern Europe and the UK, are at risk of a confiscation of their hard-earned money. We will likely see depositor flight from the periphery to the supposedly more robust surplus countries – principally Germany. This is despite the very large outstanding Target2 balances owed Germany by the periphery, but don’t expect the man in the street to be aware of this fact. This is unfortunate as some progress was being made in the reduction of Target2 imbalances as deposits in the periphery showed renewed signs of growth.
The Troika has run roughshod over the rule of law. By calling for a universal bail-in of depositors (the securest part of bank capital ladder) before extracting money from shareholders, junior and subordinated bondholders, the EU bureaucrats and IMF have unilaterally ripped up the legal framework for property rights. This is a truly worrying and frightening progression – actually regression – in economic freedom.
At Hinde Capital, we have no issue with uninsured depositors contributing to the bail-out of a banking system, even as unpalatable and clearly undesirable as this would seem.
Unfortunately bank depositors (savers) have long been under the misguided impression that they are potentially immune from a bank collapse, with the State providing a safety net in the form of deposit guarantees up to a declared sum. I would argue that individuals, partly due to government propaganda in the good times, have long since forgotten – or indeed have never understood – that once you deposit your money into a bank, you give up your right to ownership, ie, It’s a LOAN! An asset which is lent out multiple times as is the agreed practice under fractional reserve banking, clearly has a risk of no return, albeit a seemingly a low risk when confidence and trust is high in the economic system.
In truth the correct order of claims on the creditor structure in this ‘bankruptcy’ proceeding has been largely ignored as the Cypriot banks have such a small sliver of equity and debt, and have an unusually large depositor base. It is the involvement of the depositor base that turns this whole debacle into a plot of immense political intrigue and, indeed, even conspiracy.
Cyprus-sia ‘Tax’ Haven
It has been long known that Cyprus has held a vast sum of deposits from Russian lenders, and because of that Russia has been its biggest direct foreign investor. Low corporate tax rates, sub 10%, were the attraction, with Russians transferring their money into companies based in Cyprus. Some of this was then reinvested back in Russia. According to Der Spiegel:
An internal study by the German foreign intelligence agency, the Bundesnachrichtendienst (BND), says banks in Cyprus hold $26 billion (€20.33 billion) in deposits by Russian investors. According to the BND, most of this money has been illegally moved abroad to evade Russian tax authorities. By Cypriot standards it’s a tremendous sum given that the island’s entire annual GDP amounts to €17 billion.
The Cypriot government on Monday denied the money-laundering accusation. A government spokesman said SPIEGEL was trying to besmirch the reputation Cyprus has as an international investment location. The country had effective money-laundering rules and adhered to EU law, the spokesman said.
Indeed, Russians aren’t the only ones who sought the refuge of this once tax safe-haven, and consequently other European countries were not keen to be seen to be using their own tax payers’ money to afford a bail-out for ‘tax dodgers’ and money laundered in Cypriot banks by Russian KGB, mafia and their own citizens. So you could call the tax on uninsured depositors actually a levy on money laundering – call it a 10% haircut for washing your dirty linen. I bet any good money launderer worth his salt would take that cut.
Conspiracy Talk
The question is why have the small savers been penalised? This is the point in the plan which makes the EU bureaucrats look so dysfunctional or at best dishonest – I meant to phrase it that way round. By penalising small depositors, mostly local Cypriots, they, as I have stated, undermined the universally agreed EU depositor guarantee that currently stands at €100,000. The talk is that the Cypriot government who took a line of credit of some €2.5 billion from Russia in 2011, and having utilised it fully, wanted to appease the ‘motherland’. So they have agreed not to levy the full tax on deposits above €100,000. By doing this they hope for further assistance from Russia. I suspect they will offer support as Russian banks have loaned in excess of $40 billion to Cypriot companies of Russian origin (according to financial reports).
The Private Sector Initiative (PSI) on depositors is a victory for the ‘northern league’ of Europe, for now at least. With a German election year in full swing Merkel needed to satiate German taxpayers by no longer exposing their euros to the profligacy of the periphery. Yes, a victory in round one for Merkel and the CDU, but ‘ding ding’, here comes round two: I bet the Cypriots pull a few punches by pushing back on the levy on small depositors. ‘Ding, ding’ – round 3 – I say Merkel gets knocked off her feet as depositors flee the periphery and then (eventually) Mario has to step in and decide whether to cite ‘irreversibility’ status as a clause to stem a banking sector collapse in Europe, and provide unlimited monetary support, but without the conditionality clause of austerity. I say ‘eventually’ as Mario had repeatedly slapped the EU finance ministers, and Schauble particularly, for advocating a haircut on bank deposits. So he could really make Germany sweat by holding back on a re-load of its big bazookas’ – long-term LTROs and OMTs.
In the interim the national central bank (NCB), in this case Cyprus is no doubt utilising the ELA (Emergency Liquidity Assistance) to supply the Cypriot banks with sufficient funds to remain liquid in the event of insolvency and failure. This is at the risk of the NCB concerned and outside the ECB’s refinancing operational framework. It is completely opaque and in truth it will appear as a Target 2 ledger or on the ECB asset side as ‘Other assets’.
For now the Cypriot banks are now on holiday, forcibly closed for business until at least Thursday at time of writing, so depositors cannot withdraw their money. Likewise, ATMs have been deactivated and electronic wire transfers suspended. They will be opened once the Cypriot parliament has ratified (or not) the deposit levy and other terms of the bail-in. It could well be that the terms change yet to protect small savers as they should have been all along. Either way, the psychological damage has been exacted across European populations.
Contagion Risk
Those who think there is little risk of a levy being imposed on other periphery members are missing the point. The seeds of doubt have been planted. As a saver facing zero yields on deposits and a potential haircut, why keep your savings in a bank? Sure it is convenient for electronic transactions, but individuals can adapt easily. As one of my more amusing colleagues put it, “mattresses now hold a 10 per cent premium”.
Talk of ‘exceptional’ circumstances and a ‘one-off’ are true but only because Germany and the Troika would never succeed in enforcing such illegal measures on Italy and Spain without risking social unrest and a collapse of the euro. The Cypriots have more leverage than they realise. The Russians don’t need a failure as it could mean Russian bank risk. Moreover, Target 2 imbalances likely ensure that the ECB would not cut off the ELA and risk a euro currency break-up.
Conclusion
What this should reaffirm to you all is how the handling of the crisis has only succeeded in heightening the risks associated with this current monetary order. The excessive amounts of debt have continued to grow and are clearly not sustainable. Policymakers have resorted to draconian methods of expropriating private sector assets (households, pension funds and corporates) either by excessive explicit ‘taxation’ and/or stealth taxation administered by a policy of negative real rates to help reduce the fixed real burden of debts.
It also reinforces our long-held views that when push comes to shove policymakers (the State) will escalate oppressive tactics against their electorate in a bid to maintain their status quo and that of their fiat currency system.
Of most importance is the adherence to retrospective changes of law and different rules for different people and countries. Insolvencies are generally well-defined in law. First equity, then subordinated debt, then deposits and senior bonds together, take the hit in that order. The creditor structure has been up-ended and more than merely tweaked over the last few years. I suspect with levels of ignorance high amongst populations they haven’t quite woken up to the reality that the state is not in fact here for your protection as it once was and that we all need to take on self-reliance and a heightened sense of responsibility for ourselves. Some notable rule changes of late are subtle but growing in number:
- The ECB, holders of Athens-law and foreign law Greek debt all received different treatment
- The Dutch didn’t restructure SNS Reaal paper, they confiscated it
- The Irish banned lawsuits against the ultimate wind-down of Anglo Irish
- Portuguese private pensions were confiscated
The list is long but you get the idea. Rule-changes are getting ‘regressively’ more creative and sinister. As a friend pointed out to me this as if the “football referee has gone from being a quasi-neutral arbiter, to pulling off his black shirt to reveal a Manchester United one underneath and awarding himself a series of penalties.”
The bail-out should have been a legal bail-in whereby equity is wiped out, and all bank debt is written down. Then unsecured (uninsured) depositors ie above €100,000 should have taken a double digit hit. By doing this EU finance ministers and lawmakers would have been respecting the creditor hierarchy while adhering and honouring the rule of law. The retrospective change of law is what should alarm us all. The insidious and subtle nature of this encroachment on our civil rights sets an ominous precedent and those who glibly mock libertarians for their ‘rants’ are no doubt those same people who thought PIIGS really do fly.
The bail-in announcement for the Cypriot banks late Friday night was one of those events when we all look back and think that was the beginning of the end of the real global financial crisis. This should leave any individual in Europe under no illusion that the political elite will enact whatever it deems fit to protect their positions in the name of the euro and their own positions of power.
It is very clear that markets and investors underestimate the reality that debt restructurings are very necessary but won’t necessarily be enacted which leaves only more private sector wealth transfers (confiscation) and likely circumvention of the underlying problem of sovereign insolvency by central bank deficit financing.
So much for EMU solidarity…comrades.
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Simon Black, hanging out in "safe haven" Chile. LOL!
This isn't actually unprecedented - remember the auto bailouts? The big deal with those was how they totally overturned the capital structure to benefit politically powerful entities.
I have come to assume that every new outrage is just a trial run for more of the same.
Well, somewhere in Tallahassee around 2000, they decided that it was "opposite day" in the US, and by extension, pretty much everywhere. They "declared it oppositely by not declaring it." (Thx, Mr. Watterson!)
Cypriots sucks as a term - can we please start referring to them as Cypriserfs?
This isn't actually unprecedented - remember the auto bailouts? The big deal with those was how they totally overturned the capital structure to benefit politically powerful entities.
What they did to the bondholders in auto bailouts was wrong, but this is like clawing back some percentage of the workers' wages over the last few years.
In a democracy citizens are ultimately responsible for all actions by democratically elected officials - both good and bad. Citizens "voted" for having unsustainable benefits and debt levels that now have to be paid down. I believe this tax levy on assets is both appropriate and morally justifiable when applied to all citizens. Yes, each individual can say they did not understand or did not know of such and such, but they enjoyed the benefits of living in the free society where they freely chose their officials - they got paid (higher living standards) for bearing risks of always electing qualified representatives. When they did not - they have to pay. Whether this deposit tax is the best way to achieve that is in question, but I believe the general populace has to pay all the ultimate debts incurred by the government in the democracy - always.
PS. This is also a reason why a total war against a democracy is both morally justifiable, appropriate and therefore expected to happen again in the future despite claims that citizens do not directly vote for foreign interventions.
Thoughts?
Your ideas are intriguing to me and I wish to subscribe to your newsletter.
What if someone abstains from voting for these 'elected' officials? Are they too responsible for the outcomes of the state, for better or for worse?
PS I didn't junk you.
Yes, I think abstaining from voting is a vote in itself. Your vote is implicitely with the winning side.
So you believe in changing the rules after the fact to fit the occasion?
There's other solutions, for example:
First, leave all deposits under €100,000 untouched. Hitting those deposits was by far the biggest mistake of the Cyprus plan as originally envisaged, and everybody would be extremely happy if guaranteed depositors could be kept whole.
Second, term out everybody else by five years, or ten if they prefer.
That's it! That's the whole plan, and it's kinda genius. If you have bank deposits of more than €100,000, they will be converted into bank CDs, with a maturity of either five years or 10 years - your choice. If you pick the longer maturity, then your CD will be secured by future Cypriot gas revenues, which could amount to hundreds of billions of dollars.
And if you have sovereign bonds, they too will be termed out by five years, giving Cyprus a bit of breathing room to get its act together.
http://seekingalpha.com/article/1285121-a-much-better-alternative-for-cy...
I am saying that citizens implicitly agreed on a possibility of such rules changes when they voted for unsustainable benefits. They bear risks of such events and get compensated for living in such environment as I stated in my original message. Each individual might not even understand that or accept it to be true, and yet it is true when applied to the populace at large.
So if you have a choice between AIDS and cancer, which would you choose?
Vote with your feet and leave if think that is all you have left. If you do nothing then you vote for the winning team again. The choice does not depend on the options. When you do not leave you implicitly choose either one whether you like them or not.
"even if you choose not to decide...you still have made a choice."
Geddy Lee, Rush
Is this a bailout of the Cyprus government or the banks?
It seems the bankers chose to buy up Greek bonds, which is the cause of this issue. Surely, you cannot say the people of Cyprus voted for the social benefits of the Greeks.
How is a Russian corporation, who has no votes for representation in Cyprus or Greece, at all responsible? If they are not, how can their deposits be taken? What about British expats that do not have voting rights?
It is a risk they took when they put money in - I know it makes regular folks head spin, which we saw in 2008 crisis, but that is exactly what Russkis, Brits and everyone else did when they put their money there. I am looking at the big picture here - in a democracy people are ultimately responsible for all actions taken by their respective governments. People that put money into those banks implicitly agreed to allow local electorate to make choices that could lead to either higher payout or a major loss.
You really believe "the people" have much say regarding their governance in these nominal democracies? How quaint.
People are always responsible, period. Whatever is presented to you, you are responsible for your reaction. You are even responsible, in a due diligence sort of way, not to be robbed. However, the person robbing you is ultimately responsible for that, not you.
People are responsible for electing irresponsible, or bad, leaders.
However, legalized theft is still theft. Two wrongs don't make a right. The the upper level bondholders do not get a free pass because the public is as easy mark. The accepted order of risk has been thrown aside.
Of course that is to be expected. Honor among thieves only goes so far.
The public always being responsible for government debt sounds good, but isn't really. When a few have used their influence to create a government enforced monopoly on money and set up a system to con the rest, then that debt is invalid.
Saying the people that were conned should bear more responsibility than those running the con is wrong. Practically speaking, it may not matter. There's not much you can do after you're robbed. However, it's an insult to the victim to say they are more responsible than the theif.
Also, we haven't really had a republic or a democracy for the last 100 years. These few that set up the 1913 con have been running the show and their ponzi is now finally being revealed to everyone.
This is a joke and comical. They (the EU) attempted to steal money from depositors (negating any idea of deposit insurance) in order to bailout bad decision by bankers. What is clearly apparent is that the world economy is nothing more than a shell game for banks. Eventually, banking is going to choke all economic activity because of the toxic decisions they make. Banks are supposed to be a conduit for an economy to grow, but increasingly it is the reverse where the economy is to support the banks.
When I say bank, it is collective to include all financial institutions.
"Simon Black, hanging out in "safe haven" Chile. LOL!" -Joe
"Joe Sixpack, hanging out in 'safe haven' USA. LOL!" There, fixed it for ya.
Joe, how's that $85T/mo of "bail-in" working out for you? /s
I think the lesson -- that many here are still missing -- is: Think, do your homework, and allocate/diversify per std. risk theory. One size fits all is not part of acceptable risk profile.
Now the politicians are competing directly with the bank robbers who walk into a bank with guns demanding that the customers deposits be handed over to them.
The world debt crises can be eased substantially by just cutting the salaries and perks drawn by the elected politicians and reducing their lavish lifestyles to one that is borne by the majority of the country's citizens.
http://www.marketoracle.co.uk/Article35345.html
www.letstalkmoney2012.in
dude these people don't have a conscience like you...
understand the enemy.
wish/think/realize
only one outcome...
...cutting the salaries and perks drawn by the elected politicians and reducing their lavish lifestyles to one that is borne by the majority of the country's citizens.
Whether you believe in God or not is inmaterial. The new Pope of the Catholic Church is giving this example to everybody!
Forgiveness and simple life. He recently rejected using the luxurious papal residence and will live in the room he was assigned before his election took place.
Until next time,
Engineer
Nothing a $22 min wage couldn't fix.
Agreed. But for those of us who do not want to fall victims to banks, or the MBA-Syndrome (Paralysis By Analysis), or what I call the Blogger Syndrome (Paralysis by Keyboarding), the choices are:
Stay in: Participate, but... Spread the Word (fiat, FRB...ZH), mitigate risk of tertiary/paper assets by allocating across asset classes and global geographies. Hold a mix of primary, secondary, tertiary assets.
Opt out: Withdraw almost all funds from bank(s). Use cash, hold PM's and hi-value barter goods and services. Hold real (primary wealth) assets.
Are you In or Out? Personally, I'm into "In & Out".
a single shot in Sarajevo
Someone gets shot in a dinky country.....and it's on like Donkey Kong.
Does the Flap of a Butterfly's Wings in Brazil Set off a Tornado in Texas?
Or, a fart in west africa cause an east coast hurricane?
taxation didn't work, lets just corzine the money...
inflation didn't work, lets just corzine the money...
I'd luv it if one of these little country's got some balls stood up to the banksta thugs and corzined their depositors funds.. but for the purpose of going balls deep any and every which way into pm's that they can in a hurry then tell the banksta thugs fuck you we're going hard currency now. Then sit back and watch the contagion as paper currencies collapse, metals sky rocket, banks explode, other small country follow suit and dump their paper causing pm's to redouble again and again as panic ensues. Once the dust settles use their new pm wealth to introduce a new hard backed currency and start over... I mean just saying if we're seizing savings deposits why does it have to go to pay the thug ass banksta niggas ?
In one case your selling your people out to these scum bags and in another your a national hero... are you a hero or a zero?
That's actually a..... really good idea, now that I think about it. Just open the banks back up but with everyone's account about 10% shy. Then shrug your shoulders and claim you have no idea what happened. Hold an official "inverstigation" and in about a year, once everyone's calmed down, drop the investigation for lack of evidence.
No broken laws, no bad guy, just some mysterious thing that happened nobody can explain. Genius!
The whole operation appeared to be a corzine with taxation as a beard.
I fail to see how taking deposits out of a bank and paying them out to bond holders (euro banks) does anything but force the banks completely over the brink. This whole plan is nuts. The bond holders must be completely desperate to get "right now" money. In typical ponzi fashion, there is only daily maintenance. There is no look ahead to sustainabilty. I am more concerned about the banking system now than I have been in a long time.
I smell a whiff of QE5 coming from the diseased bowels of the banking system. There is a big one coming down the pipe. I don't see any other way to backtrack on the theft of deposits and avoid bank runs than a Eurowide banking recap of printed money.
"There is a big one coming down the pipe."
Got Vaseline?
I fail to see how taking deposits out of a bank and paying them out to bond holders (euro banks) ...
As you well point out the only thing it does is decrease the liability side of the balance sheet, allowing it to remain still way out of balance, since the true value of the assets is way less than the value of liabilities.
But the point here is that maintaining their balance sheets in equilibrium is already a lost game. They know they can´t that it´s impossible. All the worry now is to have enough income plus growth in the liability side of the balance sheet to be able to pay the liabilities that come due. So it is a cash flow problem, meaning do you have enough money to pay coming in (Ponzi scheme at its best) to pay the money that you owe today. Fortet about maintaining an equilibrium between assets and liabilities.
THAT IS WHY PEOPLE TALK ABOUT BEING IN THE ERA OF ¨FINANCIALIZATION¨. That is what they mean...
Until next time,
Engineer
And this so called "confiscation" supposes there is a vault somewhere with bags of money in it. The fact is the money was lent out. Its all gone. SO, what use is there to confiscate electronic digits? Now, possibly, this means that they then transfer bondsowed to the bank as payment for the "tax", but IMO this is getting to be too much like Alice in Wonderland.
Electronic digits confiscated, to cover electronic digits owed somewhere else, but then the population has fewer electronic digits to exchange for real stuff. This is the flimsy fabric the entire global financial system has devolved into. It happens gradually, over a long period of time, so it doesn't really get questioned as long as it works, but ultimately it's a trust-based system, and since there's absolutely no reason left to trust the system, it's doomed. There's no patchwork solution that's going to be able to repair a bankrupt system of electronic debits and credits, and once the tipping point is reached in terms of the percentage of the general population that realizes how fragile their 'electronic digit wealth' really is, is when things start to unwind in a big hurry. Something like stealing 'electronic digits' straight from the bank might be what it takes to trigger that kind of realization.
Why hold a bank account?
Peasants repeat after me,
Why hold a bank account?
"because it's insured." interesting form of insurance of course. "no good deed goes unpunished" folks. if the regimes really believe the best way to run an economy is the create a Bailout and Tax regime...hey, go for it. Let's be clear however: Cyprus never wanted to leave the euro. "here's the sanction for your stupidity." Greece, Spain, Italy...all the same. The true irony would be if Germany leaves actually. ye olde "taking it to the man by being the man." plus Germany would finally get the devaluation they secretly wanted for years now.
safe deposit boxes have proven they arent safe
bank accounts also not safe
stocks not safe because they can crash at a moments notice
currency isnt safe...see zimbabwe et al
gold isnt safe as it also can be confiscated
property isnt safe...taxes, eminent domain
whats that leave?
lead and jacketed lead delivery systems?
at least if some one comes to take it, you can "let em have it"
It's simple. For years people were taught that using electronic transfers to pay their bills is easy and free. After they eliminated all other ways of doing it it's not anymore free and in contrary is expensive. Electronic system lets them have all info about you and your activities. They're in total control of your life.
It will be very difficult to unwind that system, if possible at all.
And the next step is that cash will be outlawed and all monetary systems will be totally electronic so they can quash any Sealy hoarders.
On a positive note the post office may not lose as much money and we'll be able to use the 'check is in the mail' excuse again.
Because otherwise my money might stolen. Duh.
"Why hold a bank account"
because the law say so - no account, no pay - all by design
a quote comes to mind
Q:"why do you rob banks?
A:"because thats the place where the money is"
funny on all levels..
Great writing. Thank you, ZH.
+1
Der Spiegel also printed that the IMF found that there wasn't the claimed money laundering going on in Cyprus.
Germany, Austria, Finland and the Netherlands don't trust the findings reached by a team of IMF experts last autumn with regard to Cypriot money laundering activities. The experts from Washington came to the conclusion that Cyprus is largely playing by the book and only minor legislative amendments are required.
http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/imf-and-europe-disagreement-c...
The IMF is a money launderer.
Then they would be the experts since it takes one to know one.
N° 1 Money launderer for USD reserve in third world since the 60s now N° 1 in first world ...
Always head of the class; always headed by a european bureaucrat, often french, doing Greenback God's work....
Best example of third world money "fixing" : the French devalued the CFA by 50% in their old african colonies in 1994, in direct collusion with IMF Pope's, under the blessing of Pope Michel Camdessus, french fried bureaucrat of uber quality; like Lagarde today. IMF has an impressive hit list of third world austerity papal bulls to further reserve currency intrusion.
God's work is done very thoroughly like it should be! Ask Greece today. Never in "austenitizing" Washington....ah, that is not in THEIR brief.
But that is the original sin of Bretton Woods : making a national currency the reserve on gold exchange basis which HAD to inevitably explode one day and then we went to petrodollar fiat which is even worse. Now the IMF Pope has lost his golden underwear! When he farts it doesn't sound like papal chimes of cathedral but more like morne pagan bugle.
Analyze this then
http://kingworldnews.com/kingworldnews/KWN_DailyWeb/Entries/2013/3/19_Si...
plus the preceding article
Edit: Cyprus will sell offshore energy rights to Gazprom (source J Rickards)
$5 trillion of Russian money in Cyprus? That's what World Wars are made of.
wow, the Maltese falcon resurges in Cyprus!
The stuff that legends are made of.
Putin put moves to 5 T Putin call!
As usual, Sinclair is full of shit and embellishing things in order to try and push his failing gold holdings higher. Only morons believe him.
One of the things I enjoy most about being a moron is running into savants like yourself.
The fact that I, a totally witless clown who can barely tie his own shoelaces, will actually end up several thousand times better off than my 'betters' for no better reason than having bet the house on another totally witless moron's advice, is a continual source of comfort to me, and allows me to sleep soundly at night in blissful ignorance of all that I should have learned from you, but did not.
Goodbye. And good luck!
Oh... and ehm... the platnum - as well?
So did we just take the blue pill, or the red one?
Reality (economic) has become what they decide it should be.
My UK based 86yo father closed 2 non essential accounts yesterday....his comment; I fought the bastards in WW2 they can get their f***ing hands off my dosh
You do realize you couldn't make a statement like that and not get junked by the Hitler Youth right?
It's not just the choice of keeping one's money in the bank or under the mattress. The electronic fiat exists. The physical fiat to support the mattress hoarders does not physically exist. The printing presses will have to run a full speed ahead to keep up with cash extraction demands by the Cypriots. Cash cannot be virtually multiplied through fractional reserve. Only electronic fiat can. So the reversion from digitized money to physical money on a large enough scale implodes credit availability. This is the show we really wait to see.
We could start seeing large amounts of physical cash picking up a premium to cash in banks equal to the haircut. Or a discount on cash in a bank. But really, you need to just be gold.
Arizona lawmakers back gold, silver as currency
Arizona Republicans want to allow gold, silver to be used as currency
PHOENIX (AP) -- Arizona lawmakers say the global economy is on the precipice of financial ruin and the U.S. dollar could soon be worth less than the paper used to make it.
http://news.yahoo.com/arizona-lawmakers-back-gold-silver-233837866.html
lots of sound money men in Arizona!
Several states have already passed such legislation, old news. Utah was one of the first, then Alaska I believe. Oddly enough, both states have abundant natural resources. What's that California? You want some natural gas or water? Give Utah your gold. I love it.
While I'm sure a decline in credit availability will have an impact (particularly on banks) the first-order effect here is a decline in monetary velocity, something that is already plunging and one of the things TPTB is trying to avoid the most. This move (and migration to cash) accelerates the decline. Quite simply driving people out of the banking system via direct confiscation is about the worst thing they could have possibly done, as it wakes people up to the theft that is so easy under inflation, and highlights the reordering of the law in favor of the bankers.
This in indeed the start od main act of the shit show. I'm still puzzled that it's happening; I just can't accept that TPTB are that incompetent.
As I puzzled on this overnight, it occurred to me that this move may not actually be reflecting problems in Cyprus as much as it is reflecting problems in Germany, and that's why the resistance to bail-outs. Maybe savings some dry powder for home? The intricacies of the de-evolution of the Euro are mind boggling.
Public pensons and private IRAs (such as the 401k) are next in many countries I've read.
To find the answer to what's next simply find the money. Where it is is where is next.
Yeah, gives you the feeling that there really is something bad coming around the corner.... Like they had no other choice other to take this action. Or they are desperate and buying time.
I find my self asking, who benefits from this? What changed after the bailout terms were announced?
Daily withdrawal limits will prevent that massive cash extraction. There is also a decent probability that the Cypriot banks will never reopen.
Here is an interesting question: FRNs -that is, U.S. paper currency - are legal tender by law. What specific law says electronic digits denominated in dollars are legal tender? If there is not a specific law and dollar denominated digits are legal tender by implication, could anything else denominated in dollars be legal tender, by implication?
You WILL pay your taxes in dollar$.
Other than that,
the seller will inform you what currencies or commodities he is willing to accept for what you want.
'Technically bankrupt, domestic banks stand at €126.4 billion in size, or over 7 times the size of the economy. Without a bail-in, depositors would be wiped out and Cyprus would undergo economic collapse, bringing along with it all the attendant social misery and deprivation of a depression.'
If memory serves, ZH has shown that the exposure to junk paper for the largest US banks goes far beyond '7 times the size of the economy' so I guess that means we're guaranteed an attempt to 'bail-in' the economy with more than just our tax dollars. The discussion about converting 401k's and IRA's to Treasuries was started years ago. I guess once that piggy bank has been broken into, depositor's accounts are next(MFG was a trial run, yes?). I guess PM's and minimal bank accounts or use of Money Services(for bill payment or transactions) are the best options to avoiding the inevitable. Or am I just being paranoid?
You're not paranoid, I read an article back in 1992 that justified legislation aimed at taking 401Ks and IRAs and converting them to a government program. The projections that the US was going to go bankrupt in the future have been around a very long time.
The ObamaCare legislation passed in his first term was actually born in the 1970s or earlier.
Every "idea" aimed at making the government stronger by taking from the people has a genesis of at least 30+ years. It's just a matter of time.
The tone of this article is hilarious.
The guy suffers from memory loss!
Its the scions of Pax Americana, home of free enterprise Oligarchs, who created this mess and with the help of Euro Oligarchs from banksta and Political circles (as in HK etc), unleashed this social and economic nightmare on the world.
Now drowning in debt, having done NOTHING worthwhile to stave off the rot generated in private oligarchy world, ONE part of the Euro Oligarchy realises they will lose all the benefits of voter's confidence if thet don't reign in those VERY private sector oligarchs who created this mess. By de facto nationalising the banks kept under ECB sterilisation and QE funding, but also by adding on wealth taxes to pull in money from where it lies, in dark tax haven places.
Its 12th hour desperation strategy before the iceberg destroys world capital markets all over.
But some people still want their tea served properly on the Titanic and the music to play on as usual...for sake of principle and private wealth privileges.
"We PAID our first class tickets on this cruise. We want impeccable service abroad, so play on!"
"Right ho! sirs, here we go. Marche Funèbre! "
gazprom smell blood in streets; buffet playbook...
I agree with you
Even if your premises are correct, this amounts to grabbing the money AND shooing it away. Never mind blowing up the other leg of the fiat ponzi system called deposit insurance (or fraud ?)
ww1-3 engineered and so was this
one end point is an attack on RUS Fed from NWO banking Cartel for not playing ball hard enough
low hanging fruit catalyst, like Japan and North Korea, you leave powder kegs around and blow them up when appropriate
one some level its about feeding the hounds and on another level its about control and crystallizing the EU superstate while making Russia look bad as part of WW3 prep
(my gut) -nice write-up, if a bit dry
So in other words. The governments and banks will steal your money openedly now due to their desperation. The people are not just taxed in every way but what little they have had left has to go to the elite too and their gambling problems.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5mDi49Qj1xk
The foreign banks and lenders being backed by politicians of bigger and stronger countries and global financial institutions are insisting that the Cyprus banks repay them in full even though this is likely to push the Cyprus economy in recession in the foreseeable future.
Moneylending to Cyprus by the foreign banks and lenders was a commercial decision whereby they received a higher interest rate to compensate for the risk they took in lending to Cyprus. The losses of this mess ought to be borne by lenders who enjoyed supernormal profits in good times and knowingly took the decision to lend to Cyprus banks. The losses should not be borne by the depositers and taxpayers of Cyprus or the taxpayers of other European countries by funding endless bailouts.
The best way out of this mess for the citizens of Cyprus is default.
http://www.marketoracle.co.uk/Article35345.html
www.letstalkmoney2012.in
Q: Who are those foreign banks and lenders?
A: The same stupid muppets that got bailed out by Bernanke's AIG back door bailout and/or got ass raped by the squids in the Abacus genre of deals.
Stupid fucking canards who have no idea how to conduct due diligence or conduct risk evaluation because they rely on the moron hazard of their fat assed fucking Tante Mutti and Dr Dingleschauble.
Let the venom out. Cleanse your soul.
Proof that you can sell shit for shinola to the 'smartest guys in the room'.
Taxpayers have the magic to create a temporary metamorphosis.
Now depositors can become alchemists too.
wealth has become so concentrated that now they are fighting amongst themselves
this is truely getting interesting...
my bet is with the big stick theory.
that is a big stick with no conscience
we are seeing the worst humans act according to everything that always worked.
leverage of power by money influence and threat.
Getting to the logical endpoint of "it takes money to make money". Eventually only one person is left with any money.
"wealth has become so concentrated that now they are fighting amongst themselves
this is truely getting interesting..."
This is true, but please also remember that taking a haircut of depositors money is 1000 times better than stealing that money from them from the darkness of financial maneuvers, like the FOMC is actually doing to us in the US. Maneuvers that people won´t understand until it is too late.
At the least they are giving the people of their Country the opportunity to understand what is being done to them.
And I agree with what was said above, this is an internal Germany Merkel problem due to the upcoming elections...
Untiil next time,
Engineer
Hello, how may I help you?
I'd like to invest my funds.
Yes, I see ... and it's gone.
Gone? Not here? My money?
Yes, gone. Disappeared. You have no money. Next, please.
Rinse, Repeat.
All funds are belong to us now.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NmFo-LKHGY0
Ahhh....CNBC says No worries!
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/cramer-bears-overhyped-cyprus-bailout-1053...
It only got worse from there.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d7Wz0pWnWIU
"Slowly emerging method that can be used to end the crisis in the euro zone"
http://goo.gl/hF4yn
If you go into business with losers, you become a loser yourself. Germany has no one to blame except themselves.
this is a(nother) giant step toward uglyville.
American libs brush it off as preposterous and "could never happen here..." just like private property cannot be seized by the government in the USA and given to someone who has a "better" use for said property....?
anyone recall the KELO Decision ?
The governmental taking of property from one private owner to give to another in furtherance of economic development constitutes a permissible "public use" under the Fifth Amendment. Supreme Court of Connecticut decision affirmed.
Excellent point. I do remember. Government sanctioned theft.
1991. Rhode Island gov. closes 45 banks and credit unions. The deposits could not all be covered. Some lost it all. Its never really different this time. Thieves will do what they have to to get what they want. Get out while you can.
Still trying to figure out how a small island that serves as a tax-haven (holds lots of money for some very rich folks so they can avoiding paying the taxes to support the services they enjoy back home) is going broke to begin with. Are they just that stupid? They better have another look at the fee structure for holding all that money again. Morons.
You see, there was this thing called the PSI on a peninsula a short distance across the water from that little island
Greek Bonds
So they are morons, fuck em then, they deserve it. Move on people.
And who advised them to buy Greek bonds? My bet is a squid with the initials GS.
Sticks and stones. If I advise you to shoot yourself in the fucking head, would you do it? Sorry, I just don't buy the "it's somebody else's fault that the whole world has gone to shit" excuse. If GS is so bad, eveyone needs to stop doing fucking business with these fuckers.
Well I just paid my Facebook Ad account to "Facebook Ireland" .. sadly it wasnt "Facebook Cyprus" ...
When you realize that what we use for money these days is based on debt (future value) then it's not such a stretch. Money should be based on current value - an asset not a liability.
The Troika has run roughshod over the rule of law. By calling for a universal bail-in of depositors (the securest part of bank capital ladder) before extracting money from shareholders, junior and subordinated bondholders, the EU bureaucrats and IMF have unilaterally ripped up the legal framework for property rights. This is a truly worrying and frightening progression – actually regression – in economic freedom.
Ha Ha Ha...and this differs from ObamaCare how?
Yes, Miss.
The only difference I recall is that there was a plebiscite of sorts, going on with Scumbama Care.
Calls to Congressmen were running 99% against, and probably still are.
Like the Cypriot gas reserves that haven't even been produced yet, Obamacare's promises are just that -- promises.
Meanwhile, they want your cash up front. Just like 419 scammers do.
Hope is for dopes, kids.
Obamacare Death panels run by Banksters.
Russia is getting pulverized today. Those darn Chinese are at it again. / hahahahahahaa
Later today, another US Government announcement.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UHBqJj0znYo
took out a largely unknown European aristocrat, Archduke Franz Ferdinand
You are of course off-the-wall ! He was only the heir to the Throne of the Austro-Hungarian Empire which is the reason he was killed. The key component between the Russian Empire and German Empire..........but Ben Davies probably hasn't a clue being from RBS in metals trading..............He graduated with a BSc from Loughborough University where he majored in accounting and economics
It wasn't a single shot either. Gavrilo Princip was one of a group of conspirators (the Black Hand), his friends had tried to kill FF earlier on the day using hand grenades and later Princip shot twice at the Archduke's car, killing both FF and his wife.
Similar to the Irish RA trying to kill Prince Charles.
There is an opportunity here. People have lost faith in banks.
I say we create a business enterprise wherein we allow people to store their money with us. To be profitable, we will use some portion of those funds make investments and whatnot, but we will garauntee the availability of their funds at all times on sheer volume.
What'd ya think? Seems a safe proposition. Right?
If you can get legal authroization from the government to print money, you are good to go.
BS. Everytime the government passes another income-tax law, it is basically the same thing. Stealing from the citizen.
As predicted yesterday, the Russians might seize the opportunity to turn Cyprus away from the Euro. Here is the chance for Russia to come in with a better deal that would kick the euro out of Cyprus. Much to gain from rescuing Cyprus for Russia.
In the latest report is this:
"European lenders are evidently nervous about the possibility of Russian involvement in a Cyprus bailout deal. French news agency AFP reports that Angela Merkel, German chancellor, stressed that Cyprus only hold talks with the EU-ECB-IMF troika of creditors, in a call with Mr Anastasiades yesterday evening."
Yet it looks like the Cyprus President is going to meet with Putin anyways.
"Mr Anastasiades is likely to meet with Mr Putin today"
So here is the breakdown. If Russia makes a deal with Cyprus that they can not refuse, it may or may not be the first strike in taking down the euro that will eventually lead to the fall of the dollar also. Anyone remember what Lindsey Williams said? He indicated that after the Euro crashes, the dollar will follow a week later. All as planned of course. They are sadly dependent on each other. How the banks will crash and and be replaced by honest banking without some kind of false flag event brought to you by the terrorists in isreal, or the americans that work for these terror creating banksters, is yet to be seen. Everyone knows the euro is finished after this fiasco and ONLY a false flag event to create more distractionary profiteers war for isreal and the bankster puppet-masters that own them will take the attention off the crashing euro. Eyes wide open for this.
This should be interesting to see how this all goes DOWN. One thing is for sure. No one is going to trust any of these banks anymore as the crash of these TBTF banks is inevitable. Everyone knows that. Time to start planning on what to do after that, barring some contrived world war by isreal and obama in the coming lap-dog meeting this week.
Cyprus is where the Russians TRADE Roubles for Euros.
Roubles backed by oil and gold should be more valuable than Euros.
Yet it looks like the Cyprus President is going to meet with Putin anyways.
"Mr Anastasiades is likely to meet with Mr Putin today"
Wouldn´t you do the same thing? If he gave me the opportunity to meet with him I´d take it with both my knee caps intact rather than wait to meet with them broken in pieces...
I bet it was Anastasiades who initiated the call for a meeting ASAP though, probably last Friday night come Sat morning by the look of things. Not like Putin summoned him to explain himself, what has he done to Russia? Putin/Russian has a lot to potentially gain here and knows it, so is not going to want to muck it up.
Australia's ABC finally got a clue and put a story about the seriousness of the Cyprus/European situation on the front page. Only took 3 days and two days of losses in stocks. They had a DAS story on Monday but almost hid it in the 'Business' section. Complacent idiots.
http://www.nasdaq.com/article/us-stocks-fall-cyprus-tax-raises-euro-cris...
Nothing to do with complacancy..
Do you really think those in power want the sheeple knowing just how far they are willing to go to get their hands on your wealth?
http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/politics/4848766/Troops-betrayed-in-Cyprus-bank-grab-as-Russians-seize-2billion.html#ixzz2NzRDRnUg https://twitter.com/russian_market
It's good to have an FSB ... incredible.
Booya!
"The controversial one-off tax was announced on Saturday as part of a 10billion euro bailout.
But Russian oligarchs and big investors emptied accounts in the days beforehand, prompting claims they were tipped off by bank insiders. A source told The Sun: “It leaked out. Bankers warned their best clients. Government officials warned their friends and relatives.
“Billions disappeared from accounts in days, most from accounts held by Russians.”
Yeah, so the banksters cheat and help others profit at the cost of the poor. What else is new? Many people already knew this was the case where some got their money out, and most will not.
Thursday is going to be interesting to see if a bank run happens......I think and HOPE it does.....I can´t believe anyone would keep their money in a failing bank at this point...let alone one that thnks your money is theirs with just a little rule change...so far it has been very very calm...wierd in fact...we truly are sheep going to the slaughter house peacefully......
At this point in time, only a person in a coma would use fiat currency stored in an insolvent banking system at zero percent interest as a store of value.
People need to read Jim Sinclair comments on the Cyprus issue here:
http://kingworldnews.com/kingworldnews/KWN_DailyWeb/Entries/2013/3/19_Sinclair_-_Cyprus_Disaster_Is_Much_Bigger_Than_Being_Reported.html
I see they waited for the end of winter to do it, must be hoping on US Nat Gas imports next year. Well done Kingworld.
And if any person deposits money in a bank they should therefore expect a high level of interest as reward for taking on this risk.
We are not rewarded at all, in fact the interest does not keep up with inflation, so they are not paying for any risk.
Therefore, Bank of Mattress is the safest option for everyday purchase needs as well as PMs of course.. not stored in a bank
QE is money printing. Money printing is theft through interest rate manipulation in the short term and inflation in the long term. Few seem to complain about this ongoing theft of what seems to be around 300 bp per year. There is a rather low threshold in deceiving a critical mass of sheep. We can hope that this event prompts the sheep.
The sheep remain sheep no matter what happens, do not even dare to hope they will become self-aware. Even if they panic and stampede and riot 99.9% have no real idea why, it is just a reaction. Same reason real sheep jump over nothings, they saw another sheep do it, so they better do it too.
Somebody answer me this: When you put money in a bank how can they loan it out "many times"? They only have it once. Fractional reserve banking means they can loan out 95% of it or whatever, and only keep 5% of it on hand, but they can't loan the same dollar to 2 diferent people.
Its called musical chairs. They created the FED to manufacture more chairs if one of the big banks cant find one when the music stops.
No, they create money. The money deposited is the 5%, so if you deposit $1 it can be lent out 20 times, creating $20. That money gets spent, redeposited by someone else and the same thing happens again.
When debts are repaid the money is destroyed, but you pay the bank interest on money it conjured out of thin air. Where do you get this extra money to pay the bank? Someone else will have borrowed it into existence.
Eventually all money belongs to the banks.
You forgot to add the best bit there Grimbert.
The accumulating interest keeps rising exponentially, so the new loans also have to keep rising exponentially to pay down the interest bill - but obviously there's an implicit limit to that called global debt-saturation.
So when the rate of new loan creations can't keep up with the needs to pay this spiral rise in interest on the old existing loans, due to too much debt everywhere, and thus not enough viable solvent borrowers with actual collateral, we then get what we have today. The end-of-the-beginning of a global systemic collapse, and the lingering painful death of a global reserve currency, and a global banking system headed for complete collapse - to finally clear the debts. The euro will go first.
The politician-pets of the Banksters keep trying to delay and prevent this collapse, via using Central Banks to print waves of money, given in loans to the giant broke zombie banks, who thus remain afloat temporarily. But temporary can be many years. Historical research of Rogoff and Reinhart in the book, "This Time is Different", indicates that the major collapse usually takes about 7-years (on average) after the initial crisis (i.e. Sept 2008), before serial Regional or in this case Global Sovereign debt collapse occurs in all affected over-indebted countries, where Sovereign public debt exceeds an average of about 90% of GDP. That is what historically routinely occurs, and that is a LOT of countries today, so this is a part of that ramp-up to what will be a far more devastating debt-collapse sequence to follow at some point.
Just as Cyprus's over-indebted banks have run out of time, all such zombie banks and Sovereign debt holders are steadily running out of time and options. Increasingly desperate and compounding unwise acts are now occurring.
THIS TIME IS DIFFERENT: A PANORAMIC VIEW OF EIGHT CENTURIES OF FINANCIAL CRISES
Carmen M. Reinhart Kenneth S. Rogoff - Working Paper 13882
http://www.nber.org/papers/w13882.pdf
http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=ak5fLB24ircC
--
The debt bomb just got bigger - Max Keiser, the host of RT's ‘Keiser Report,’
March 18, 2013 15:49
http://rt.com/op-edge/debt-cyprus-financial-confiscation-441/
Right, just like you can't sell the same house or title to two different people, yet they did. Why? Simple, there are no real consequences for these fuckers bad behavior. Besides debt is money now, no debt (i.e. slavery for the debtor), no money. Nothing changes until the fucking guillotines roll some fucking heads.
Because the 95% they loan out becomes a deposit in some other bank (or even the same bank). 95% of that 95% can then be lent out again, becoming another deposit. When all is said and done, each initial dollar of "high powered money" has 20 claims on it. All it takes is two parallel claims to be exercised and the game is up.
Of course this textbook explanation is nothing like reality. In truth, banks aren't constrained by a minimum reserve requirement at all. They loan first, regardless of available reserves, then worry about finding reserves later if needed. Should they not have enough cash on hand to meet a run, they just hit up the interbank markets, or the more expensive discount window, or, worst case, get cash by swapping some shitty ABSs with the Fed for reserves, overpricing said "assets" in the process of course.
Finally, the most important thing to recognise is that all this above is less than half of the banking sector. Shadow banking takes the basic concept and applies it to EVERYTHING that could conceivably be converted into money. You deposit anything at all with any financial scumbag and guess what? It's being turned into a "reserve" in a fractional reserve lending scheme. It's true for your gold, your stocks, your superannuation, your bonds, your insurance policies, your mortgage, every asset with a market.
Yes, it's fraud, fraud that's institutionalised, legalised and all pervasive. When you make as much money as these crims have, then you get to make the rules.
When little people do it, it is called check kiting, which is illegal, of course.
If the US goes Cyprus will the US politicians have their accounts zapped as well?
Like we have to wonder what the answer is.
Yikes!
A strong-armed robbery drama in Cyprus to cushion bondster gamblers bottoms.
All this angst just to provide a temporary respite from Mr. Grim.
He'll accept this sacrifice for now, but he will claim your soul in the end.
Because that is his nature and his realm is Chaos.
'Once you deposit your money into a bank, you give up your right to ownership, ie, It’s a LOAN!'
Utter, malicious horseshit. It's a bailor-bailee relationship, not a loan.
Thanks for spreading bankster propaganda.
Ben Davies is the new Simon Black.
Another irony of the day was that in return for the British protectorate the Ottoman Empire received military support against Russia in Asia
This Ben Davies is so poorly-educated it is tragic. British Foreign Policy aimed to keep Russia out of the Med and control The Straits. The Ottoman Empire was collapsing and Britain and Germany did not want Russia taking Bulgaria or controlling The Straits. The Treaty of Berlin 1878 gave Disraeli the prize of Cyprus which was very useful to anchor the British position and protect the Suez Canal.
Does this idiot ever recall the Crimean War 1854 ? It was British Foreign Policy to protect Turkey from the days of the Otchakov Crisis in the 1780s right through to Chanak 1922.
"This should leave any individual in Europe under no illusion that the political elite will enact whatever it deems fit to protect their positions in the name of the euro and their own positions of power."
Second amendment.
Precisely. You steal my wealth and the liberty I need to prosper and I have the right to forcibly remove you from power.
People need to read the comments of Jim Sinclair here on Cyprus:
http://kingworldnews.com/kingworldnews/KWN_DailyWeb/Entries/2013/3/19_Sinclair_-_Cyprus_Disaster_Is_Much_Bigger_Than_Being_Reported.html
I Don't think they want to deal with the Russian Mafia?