http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com
http://albertpeia.com/bankstersstealingagain.htm
‘Cyprus is a beta test. The banksters are
trying to commit bank robbery in broad daylight, and they are eager to see if
the rest of the world will let them get away with it. Cyprus was probably
chosen because it is very small (therefore nobody will care too much about it)
and because there is a lot of foreign (i.e. Russian) money parked there.
The IMF and the EU could have easily bailed out Cyprus without any trouble
whatsoever, but they purposely decided not to do that. Instead, they
decided that this would be a great time to test the idea of a "wealth
tax". The government of Cyprus was given two options by the IMF and
the EU - either they could confiscate money from private bank accounts or they
could leave the eurozone. Apparently this was presented as a "take it
or leave it" proposition, and many are using the world
"blackmail" to describe what has happened. Sadly, this decision
is going to set a very ominous precedent for the future and it is going to have
ripple effects far beyond Cyprus. After the banksters steal money from
bank accounts in Cyprus they will start doing it everywhere. If this
"bank robbery" goes well, it will only be a matter of time before
depositors in nations such as Greece, Italy, Spain and Portugal are asked to
take "haircuts" as well. And what will happen one day when the
U.S. financial system collapses? Will U.S. bank accounts also be hit with
a "one time" wealth tax? That is very frightening to think
about.
Cyprus is a very small nation,
so it is not the amount of money involved that is such a big deal. Rather,
the reason why this is all so troubling is that this "wealth tax" is
shattering confidence in the European banking system. Never before have
the banksters come directly after bank accounts.
If everything goes according to
plan, every bank account in Cyprus will be hit with a "one time fee"
this week. Accounts with less than 100,000 euros will be hit with a 6.75%
tax, and accounts with more than 100,000 euros will be hit with a 9.9% tax.
How would you feel if something
like this happened where you live?
How would you feel if the
banksters suddenly demanded that you hand over 10 percent of all the money that
you had in the bank?
And why would anyone want to
still put money into the bank in nations such as Greece, Italy, Spain or
Portugal after all of this?
One writer for Forbes has called
this "probably
the single most inexplicably irresponsible decision in banking supervision in
the advanced world since the 1930s." And I would agree with that
statement. I certainly did not expect to see anything like this in
Europe. This is going to cause people to pull money out of banks all over
the continent. If I was living in Europe (and especially if I was living
in one of the more financially-troubled countries) that is exactly what I would
be doing.
The bank runs that we witnessed
in Cyprus over the weekend may just be a preview of what is coming. When
this "wealth tax" was announced, it triggered a run on the ATMs and
many of them ran out of cash very rapidly. A bank holiday was declared
for Monday, and all electronic transfers of money were banned.
Needless to say, the people of
Cyprus were not too pleased about all of this. In fact, one very angry
man actually parked his bulldozer outside
of one bank branch and threatened to physically bulldoze his way inside.
But this robbery by the
banksters has not been completed yet. First, the Cypriot Parliament must
approve the new law authorizing this wealth confiscation on Monday. If it
is approved, then the actually wealth confiscation will take place on Tuesday
morning.
According to Reuters, the new president of Cyprus is
warning that if the bank account tax is not approved the two largest banks in
Cyprus will collapse and there will be complete and total financial chaos in
his country...
President
Nicos Anastasiades, elected three weeks ago with a pledge to negotiate a swift
bailout, said refusal to agree to terms would have led to the collapse of the
two largest banks.
"On
Tuesday ... We would either choose the catastrophic scenario of disorderly
bankruptcy or the scenario of a painful but controlled management of the
crisis," Anastasiades said in written statement.
In
several statements since his election, he had previously categorically ruled
out a deposit haircut.
The
fact that the new president had previously ruled out any kind of a wealth tax
has a lot of people very, very upset. They feel like they were flat
out lied to...
"I'm
furious," said Chris Drake, a former Middle East correspondent for the BBC
who lives in Cyprus. "There were plenty of opportunities to take our money
out; we didn't because we were promised it was a red line which would not be
crossed."
But
apparently the wealth confiscation could actually have been far worse.
According to one report, the IMF and the EU were
originally demanding a 40% wealth tax on bank account holders
in Cyprus...
As
the President of Cyprus proclaims to his people that "we'
should all take responsibility as his historic decision will
"lead to the permanent rescue of the economy," it appears that the
settled-upon 9.9% haircut is a 'good deal' compared to the stunning 40%
of total deposits that Germany's FinMin Schaeuble and the IMF demanded.
Could
you imagine?
How
would you feel if you woke up someday and 40% of all your money had been taken
out of your bank accounts?
At
this point, there is still some doubt about whether this plan will actually be
adopted or not.
Right
now the new president of Cyprus does not have the votes that he needs, but you
can be sure that there is some high level arm twisting going on.
Originally
the vote was supposed to happen on Sunday, but it was delayed until Monday to
allow for some extra "persuading" to be done.
And
of course the people of Cyprus are overwhelmingly against this wealth
tax. In fact, one poll found that 71 percent of the entire population of
Cyprus wants this plan to be voted down.
The
funny thing is that Cyprus is not even in that bad of shape.
The
unemployment rate is around 12 percent, but in other European nations such as Greece and Spain the unemployment
rate is more than double that.
Cyprus
has a debt to GDP ratio of about 87 percent, but the United States has a debt
to GDP ratio of well over 100 percent.
So
if they will go directly after bank accounts in Cyprus, what will stop them
from going after bank accounts in larger nations when the time comes?
In
the final analysis, this is a game changer. No longer will any bank account
in the western world be considered to be 100 percent safe.
Trust
is a funny thing. It takes a long time to build, but it can be destroyed
in a single moment.
Trust
in European banks has now been severely damaged, and that damage is not going
to be undone any time soon.
A
recent blog post by the CEO of
Saxo Bank, Lars Christensen, did a great job of explaining how incredibly damaging
this move by the IMF and the EU truly is...
This
is a breach of fundamental property rights, dictated to a small country by
foreign powers and it must make every bank depositor in Europe shiver. Although
the representatives at the bailout press conference tried to present this as a
one-off, they were not willing to rule out similar measures elsewhere - not
that it would have mattered much as the trust is gone anyway. It is now
difficult to expect any kind of limitation to what measures the Troika and EU
might take when the crisis really starts to bite.
if
you can do this once, you can do it again. if you can confiscate 10 percent of
a bank customer's money, you can confiscate 25, 50 or even 100 percent. I now
believe we will see worse as the panic increases, with politicians desperately
trying to keep the EUR alive.
Depositors
in other prospective bailout countries must be running scared - is it safe to
keep money in an Italian, Spanish or Greek bank any more? I dont know, must be
the answer. Is it prudent to take the risk? You decide. I fear this will lead
to massive capital outflows from weak Eurozone countries, just about the last
thing they need right now.
This
is the biggest moment that we have witnessed since the beginning of the
European financial crisis.
Financial
authorities in Europe could try to calm nerves by at least pretending that this
will never happen again in any other country, but so far they are refusing to do
that...
Jeroen
Dijsselbloem, president of the group of euro-area ministers, on Saturday
declined to rule out taxes on depositors in countries beyond Cyprus, although
he said such a measure was not currently being considered.
Such
a measure is "not currently being considered" for other members of
the eurozone?
Yeah,
that sure is going to make people feel a lot more confident in what is coming
next.
I
have insisted over and over that the next wave of the economic
collapse would originate in Europe, and we may have just witnessed the decision that will
cause the dominoes to start to fall.
The
banksters have sent a very clear message. When the chips are down, they
are going to come after YOUR money.
So
what do you think about the bank robbery that is taking place in Cyprus?
Please feel free to post a comment with your thoughts below...’