This page has been archived and commenting is disabled.
Iceland, Cyprus... And These Two Countries?
Overnight, Reuters published an article highlighting something we noted first over three years ago: the unreasonably large size of a local financial sector as represented by its total assets compared to the host nation's GDP.
Specifically, Reuters alleges that "Cyprus' troubles stem from its exposure to Greece and the huge losses its two largest banks, Bank of Cyprus and Marfin Popular, had to stomach when euro zone leaders agreed in late 2011 to write down the value of private-sector holdings of Greek government bonds. In total, Cyprus requires 17 billion euros, nearly equivalent to its economy's annual output, to rescue its banks and deal with the government's own bills. Relatively small in the context of the Greek and Irish EU-IMF bailouts, at 240 billion euros and 67.5 billion euros apiece, for an island of just 1 million people it is a huge burden and speaks volumes about how large and unwieldy its banking sector had become."
More importantly, Reuters points out the similarities between Cyprus and Iceland in one key metric: total financial assets to the underlying GDP: "The [Cyprus] banking sector is now roughly eight times the size of the economy compared to 10 times for Iceland and over four times for Ireland before their crises. Banks in both countries used cheap funding to gorge on speculative investments." The issue for Cyprus of course was the composition of the liabilities matching these assets, which were mostly in deposit form, which was the alleged reason why the Eurogroup decided to proceed with deposit haircuts in order to shrink the overall financial balance sheet: arguably there were no other liabilities it could haircut. And yes, Cyprus is very comparable to Iceland in that regard. That much is known.
What may not be known is that it is specifically the fact that the underlying economy was tiny by comparison, i.e., small, relatively inert, non-aggressive government, in both Iceland and Cyprus that made them a depositor's safe haven... until of course confiscation day.
What is certainly not known, at least for now, is that slowly but surely financial markets and more importantly depositors, will start looking at all countries that have a very high ratio of financial assets, and thus deposits, to host GDP, as an indicator of where the "Cyprus Virus" may strike next.
Which is why we present readers with a pop quiz: the chart below show the ratio of total financial assets to host nation GDP. The tragic cases of Cyprus and Iceland are well-known, as per Reuters, and highlighted on the chart. We urge readers to guess what the supposedly very stable countries X and Y are on the chart, whose total financial system assets to GDP are approaching those of Cyprus, especially since depositors in their banking systems may be due for a very unpleasant surprise next if indeed Iceland and now Cyprus are the case studies.
Hint: Russian billionaire oligarchs are quite familiar with both X and Y.
We will provide the answer shortly after Bernanke's press conference today in which he will once again reaffirm he will monetize US debt as long as the US runs a $1+ trillion budget deficit, i.e., forever.
»
- 42268 reads
- Printer-friendly version
- Send to friend
- advertisements -
Allegations that Reuters is controlled by the Rothschild cartel with studies like this send a chilling signal as to how much the banksters know about what direction this 'Cyprus Virus' is going. It all fits together in the end.
I'm going with Panama and Switzerland. Although, the west will ride to the rescue of Panama for obvious reasons. I do also hope that the graft-ridden banking world of Zurich is brought to its knees in the very near future!
Ireland and Spain?
Beware of tiny Islands with large banking systems
.
The answer is the UK for the left bar and Switzerland for the right.
Question I'd like to see answered is who put the squeeze on the Cypriot banks to invest(??) all that dirty Russian money in Greek debt paper. Couldn't have been the same IMF and ECB that now want to steal from those same deposits now would it? Of course not how silly of me.
Goldman Sachs?
luxemburg and malta
I would have said the UK off the bat. Then Switzerland did cross my mind, since the KRB stole about 3000 tonnes of gold before the USSR went belly up and transferred a lot of the gold to Zurich. The IMF at the time when they saw that the reported Russian gold reserves were about 200-350 tonnes said..said "O, our figures must have been wrong". Also Switzerland has a huge financial indusrty relative to the rest of its economy. But I was a bit reluctant to say Switzerland. The UK definitely. Boris Berezovsky used to be seen walking around south Mayfair near Shepards Market with his bodyguards sometimes ike a scared rabbit. You'd be scared if you were him too.
I don't understand that tiny giraffe, have the Russians taken it to a new level? WTF also...
It appears it was an ad for DirecTV
http://www.brandchannel.com/home/post/2011/04/05/Petite-Lap-Giraffe.aspx
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=xVxxLYmypv8
Ooh! Ooh! USA and UK?
7.7x - UK, 6.8x US
Y = Japan, X = UK
Brazil and India
Dimon and Blankfein, with a side of Kashkari.
Ah, Man, its Mars and Venus. Now I gotta change my plans for retirement.
Judging by the comments the crisis is over and has been forgotten already ...
Bank run? What bank run?
Detroit and Chicago
Double post. Del
Sal says Wyoming
jcz.jpg
Oh look............a GREEN backdrop for the fucking fed clowns to spew forth more lies today.
That'll be a lovely contrast with the red horns.
Italy and Spain
MALTA und LATVIA
USA & Japan
Luxembourg and Malta
If you can't see original data don't bother to draw conclusions from some graph showing a percentage that is supposedly based on original data.
Nobody has any idea if any of this data is correct, as a result, it should be entirely discounted.
IRELAND AND MALTA?
O O. call me Miss Crabapple! UK is Y.
It's Belguim and Portugul.
Uk and Japaaan
The Eurozone as a whole requires negative nominal rates. There is no hope of just passing this off on Cypriots by hoping negative nominal rates can be avoided. This is why it has such a negative effect on markets as a whole.
Switzerland and Netherlands.
Spanish solution to the banking crisis:
Mattress safes
http://www.cajamicolchon.com/
0% tax, 0% commission. Your money close at hand.
commentary at El Mundo
Apparently you can actually buy one!
This will be X=Switzerland and Y=UK I guess.
I should say I'm almost sure of that.
So I guess I won a beer :)
I'm pretty sure Y is my wife's credit card.
I will go X = US Y= UK
I'm going to throw out a wild guess and say Israel and the UAE.
Italy and Spain surely?
The UK is rock solid, Boy George told us, today, in the budget. It was a corker, we got a penny off beer which is great as it offsets the cost of bread which has gone up 20% in the last 6 months alone. /sarc
I think I played this game before. France and UK? But only if we exclude the off book toxic "assets". If you included off book assets then there wouldn't be enough room on the graph to present the USA I reckon.
...
Oh and who'd-a-known-it. Lagarde isn't as squeaky clean as that glowin red face of hers. Following in the footsteps of her esteemed predecessor no doubt.
She knows how the game works. There's a quo, a status one.
Luxembourg and the UK
Chile, Hong Kong, Singapore? ;-)
Ireland, Spain, Italy, Argentina, UK?
Luxembourg and Lichtenstein.
final answer
so...cyprus banks still arent open right?
I'm guessing Italy and Spain.
X and Y are whatever bullshit the original author later makes up, and then provides no way for you to verify as being correct.
Bitcoins Bitchez
And one is def the UK
This is going to get very, very, very ugly...
Pundits are right when they say that because the US is the the world currency, that this insulates them to some point... BUT... what will bring down the entire system is going to be a black swan event like Cyprus, or a natural disaster which causes the system to collapse. When something like this begins, even the US won't be able to contain it.
Prepare accordingly.
where honest men fear to tread :
Are Russian killers on the streets of Britain? | World news | The Observer
Not good news for Cyrpiot bankers if they don't take heed of Moscow!
I will go for X = the current "Freedom Champion" empire and Y = the preceding "Sun Never Sets" empire
malta and UK?
Dunno, guessing UK and Switzerland? City of London and SUI bank accounts still keep secrets for Oligarchs.
"Who are those guys??" -- Butch to Sundance Kid
Still fascinated by Sinclair's ongoing take on the IMF vs Russian oligarch war. Says multi-nation IMF lost huge to bunch of Russian KGB oligarchs and now the IMF has no choice but to bail out Cyprus to rescue the EU. Lagarde takedown Russian payback?
Describes EU elites as arrogant bumbling meglomaniacs, full of own hubris, and convinced of their own invincibility. Cyprus was a huge mistake and they'll have to pull this out of their ass. Are idiots and not the geniuses they would have us believe. Says recent takedown in gold by hedgies (like Fink's Blackrock) was in advance of planned Cyprus depositor confiscations which was supposed to continue to be bearish for gold as it was to be seen as an alternative funding pathway from QE money printing.
(Yes, hard to believe the 'geniuses' actually thought confiscations would actually be bearish for gold. They absolutely assumed any reaction by EU depositors or Russians would be no big deal. This is bullish for freedom and gold because they really are that stupid.)
I agree with UK and Switzerland.
British Virgin Islands and Gilbrator
my guess based upon:
As of 2012, Gibraltar has 0.103 Big Four accounting firm offices per 1,000 population, the second highest in the world after the British Virgin Islands, and 0.6 banks per 1,000 people, the fifth most banks per capita in the world
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gibraltar#Economy
posted after results:
well, at least i was on the right planet.
I think Uk and Ireland may be the next two but these must be Japan and Spain with Japan as y and Spain as X
luxembourg and malta?
If the Germans were as smart as they think they are, they would "bail-out" the Cypriots for exclusives rights to the natural gas. Then, they could hide behind Uncle Sam and tell the Russians to go fist themselves.
Oh, and my guess was X = Lichtenstein and Y = Switzerland.
Just guessin'.
whats the answer Tyler, the suspense is killing me
X= Some
Y= All
And the answer to one hand counting money in the forest is?
Hint: Russian billionaire oligarchs are quite familiar with both X and Y. HEY WAIT A SECOND WHAT ABOUT CAYMAN ISLANDS. SWITZERLAND OR THE WHOLE TRUST LAWS.. FOR AVOIDANCE AND FRAUD.....
Bahamas
Cyprus
Liechtenstein
Luxembourg
Monaco
Panama
San Marino
Seychelles
Campione d'Italia, Italy
Jebel Ali Free Zone, United Arab Emirates
Labuan, Malaysia
Curaçao (Netherlands)
Bermuda (United Kingdom)
British Virgin Islands (United Kingdom)
Cayman Islands (United Kingdom)
Jersey (United Kingdom)
HECK WORLD BANK DOES NOT EVEN LIST SOME OF THESE COUNTRIES GDP T0 BANK ASSETS.. HEY GAO ADMITS IT CONGRESS PAYS OLlIGARCS TO REPATRIOT.
hegemonyA January 2009 U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) report said that the GAO had determined that 83 of the 100 largest U.S. publicly traded corporations and 63 of the 100 largest contractors for the U.S. federal government were maintaining subsidiaries in countries generally considered havens for avoiding taxes. The GAO did not review the companies' transactions to independently verify that the subsidiaries helped the companies reduce their tax burden, but said only that historically the purpose of such subsidiaries is to cut tax costs.
AND THE ANSWER IS???...
TELL US THE ANSWER OMFGGGGGGGGGGGGG
UK and US for sure.
Finland and Norway
Switzerland and Luxemburg
Did we ever get an answer on this???
HELLOOOO??? LOOKS LIKE SOMEONE (ZH?..) FORGOT TO POST THE ANSWER...!