With money, or the lack thereof, a popular topic of discussion in Cyprus currently, we go straight to the source, the Central Bank of Cyprus [3], where in prose that can only be described as the definition of unintentionally prophetic irony, we read the following:
The historical development of money in Cyprus has followed the sometimes stormy and turbulent course of the island’s political history. The various conquerors that ruled Cyprus throughout its history introduced their own monetary unit to the island. Hence, among other monetary units, the stater, the obol, Roman and Byzantine coins, the gross, the dinar, the cartzi, the para, the piastre and the pound have been used as the island’s currency.
And now the Euro, although perhaps for not much longer.
One thing is certain: the Cypriot "conquerors" are not going down without a fight. First: the gasoline is about to be taken away from the people who dared to make Angela Merxes angry [4]. Let's see how everyone likes walking for a change. From CyprusMail: [5]
SOME petrol stations may have to close down as they do not have enough cash to pay for fuel shipments, the head of the stations’ owners said yesterday.
“We may have to temporarily close some petrol stations because they have run out of cash. This creates great concerns to those in this profession,” said the head of the petrol station owners' association, Stefanos Stefanou.
“Petrol stations pay for their fuel shipment only with cash and cash is running out,” Stefanou added.
“There are some petrol stations that are still accepting credit cards today, but tomorrow no petrol station will do so,” he said, asking consumers to take cash with them to carry out transactions.
Small shopkeepers’ union, POVEK, issued an announcement yesterday saying that because fuel companies only supplied petrol stations on cash payments, customers also needed to pay with cash at their end.
“Unfortunately there is no other solution for petrol station owners,” POVEK said.
And just to assure there is not only a bank run (when/if the banks reopen) but a gas station run too, we get the following carefully coded line:
“There is no reason for people to rush to petrol stations to fill their tanks,” POVEK said asking consumers to “show understanding so we can all get through this hard time together”.
Naturally, there is nothing that will make a near-hysterical, cashless population scramble to the nearest gas station than being told "there is no reason to rush to fill their tanks."
Gasoline, of course, is just the beginning. Because if that fails to be the required incentive, the malevolent Cypriot "conquerors" will "turn off" the heat, electricity, food, and finally water, until the Cypriot slaves come begging the Troika to take their deposits just to put everything back as it was, no matter if it only lasts for a few more weeks or months before everything comes tumbling down.