Due to an “emergency deal reached today in Brussels”, a one-time 9.9% tax is to be levied on Cypriot bank deposits of more than 100,000 euros effective Tuesday, March 19.
Virtually overnight and with no warning of any kind, the emergency tax deal was imposed on the people of Cyprus without vote or debate. People ran to ATM machines today only to discover that the taxed amount of their cash had already been frozen.
“If it can happen in Cyprus, it can happen anywhere,” worried British correspondent Anna Grayson told Canada Free Press (CFP) in an overseas telephone call today.
“Is this why the U.S. Department of Homeland Security has purchased millions of hollow point bullets, is this why rumors of an underground bunker being built for Obama are circulating?”
The bottom line of the Cyprus story is that politicians are forcing a new 10 billion euro bailout—to be paid directly from the bank accounts of ordinary people.
The people of Cyprus, most of whom never saw this coming, never had a chance. Without social media they would not have known their accounts were frozen as of today.
People poured into the streets, making a run on ATM machines. A crowd of around 150 protesters massed in front of the presidential palace late in the afternoon at the beginning of the three-day religious holiday on the island.
People poured into the streets, making a run on ATM machines. A crowd of around 150 protesters massed in front of the presidential palace late in the afternoon at the beginning of the three-day religious holiday on the island.
No one will escape the bailout deal which will apply to everyone from pensions to Russian oligarchs, who are alleged to have billions stashed away in what officials claim is a bloated Cypriot banking sector. (Sky News, March 16, 2013).)
The blueprint laid by cunning EU Socialist finance ministers comes at a time when the USA is being led by a Socialist president.
This is how the EU robbed the people of Cyprus:
Banks first cooperated with the EU by sealing off the amount of the proposed levy—a 6.75 percent tax on deposits under €100,000 and 9.9 percent on those above —making it impossible for depositors to access their full amount. The only means bank customers have left is the ability to draw from the rest of their funds via ATM machines this weekend. Many depositors made their way to the machines on Saturday to drain their accounts.
But the few banks that opened on Saturdays did so only briefly, and no international transfers will be able to go through until Tuesday, with Monday being the holiday. Cyprus’ Parliament is expected to meet Sunday to pass the required legislation., or after the deed was done. The deal also needs the approval of several eurozone parliaments; at the time of writing it was unclear how fast they can act and what will happen to bank deposits in the meantime.
The blueprint laid by cunning EU Socialist finance ministers comes at a time when the USA is being led by a Socialist president.
This is how the EU robbed the people of Cyprus:
Banks first cooperated with the EU by sealing off the amount of the proposed levy—a 6.75 percent tax on deposits under €100,000 and 9.9 percent on those above —making it impossible for depositors to access their full amount. The only means bank customers have left is the ability to draw from the rest of their funds via ATM machines this weekend. Many depositors made their way to the machines on Saturday to drain their accounts.
But the few banks that opened on Saturdays did so only briefly, and no international transfers will be able to go through until Tuesday, with Monday being the holiday. Cyprus’ Parliament is expected to meet Sunday to pass the required legislation., or after the deed was done. The deal also needs the approval of several eurozone parliaments; at the time of writing it was unclear how fast they can act and what will happen to bank deposits in the meantime.
What’s happening in Cyprus should send a chill over the entire world.
Politicians working with complicit big banks need no rule of law; no parliament debates to close in on the bank accounts of average people.
Politicians working with complicit big banks need no rule of law; no parliament debates to close in on the bank accounts of average people.
Late last night, after markets closed for the weekend, following an extended discussion the European finance ministers announced their "bailout" solution for Russian oligarch depositor-haven Cyprus: a €13 billion bailout (Europe's fifth) with a huge twist: the implementation of what has been the biggest taboo in European bailouts to date - the impairment of depositors, and a fresh, full blown escalation in the status quo's war against savers everywhere.
But it doesn't stop there: a partial "bail-in" of junior bondholders is also possible, as for the first time ever the entire liability structure of a European bank - even if it is a Cypriot bank - is open season for impairments. The logical question: why here, and why now? And what happens when the Cypriot bank run that has taken the country by storm this morning spreads everywhere else, now that the scab over Europe's biggest festering wound is torn throughout the periphery as all the other PIIGS realize they too are expendable on the altar of mollifying voters and investors in the other countries that make up Europe's disunion.
While "saving", pardon the pun, yet another insolvent country merely has the intent of keeping it in the Eurozone, and thus preserving Europe's doomed monetary block and bank equity for a little longer, this idiotic plan will achieve two things: i) infuriate not just Russians but very wealthy, and very trigger-happy Russians. The revenge of Gazpromia will be short and swift, and we certainly would not want to be Europeans next winter when the average heating level of Western European will depend on the whims of Russian natural gas pipeline traffic; ii) start a wave of bank runs first in Cyprus and soon everywhere else that has the potential of being the next Cyrpus.
Sure enough, here come the bank runs:
While the tax on deposits will hurt wealthy Russians with money in Cypriot banks, it will also sting ordinary citizens. Some ATMs in the country have run out of cash, Erotokritos Chlorakiotis, general manager of the Cooperative Central Bank, told state-run CYBC.
Forzen assets and "national bank holidays" are baaaaack:
Funds to pay the levy were frozen in accounts immediately, ECB Executive Board Member Joerg Asmussen said. The levy will be assessed before Cypriot banks reopen on March 19 after a March 18 national holiday. Sarris said electronic transfers will also be limited until then.
Europe's response: this is a unique situation. Just like the Greek bailout was unique; just like the Irish and Portuguese bailouts were unique; just like the bailout of Spanish banks was unique.
“As it is a contribution to the financial stability of Cyprus, it seems just to ask a contribution of all deposit holders,” Dijsselbloem said, noting the country’s financial industry was five times the size of its economy. The plan includes “unique measures” that address the “exceptional nature” of Cyprus and show “inflexible commitment to financial stability and the integrity of the euro area.”
Congratulations Cyprus savers - you were just betrayed by both your politicians, and by Europe - sorry, but you are the "creeping impairments" in the game known as European bankruptcy. And so is anywhere between 6.75% and 9.9% of your money, which you were foolish enough to keep with your banks (where at least you were compensated with a savings yield of... 0%).
More importantly, as of this morning Europe has finally grasped that there is a 6.75% to 9.9% premium to holding physical cash in your mattress rather than having it stored with your local friendly insolvent bank.
Luckily Cyrpus is so "small" what just happened there will never happen anywhere else: after all in Europe nobody has ever heard of "setting an example". Or so the thinking among Europe's unthinking political elite goes.
And congratulations Europe: just when people almost believed you things are "fixed" you go ahead and prove to the world that you are as disunified (because size doesn't matter in a true union), as confused, as stupid and as broke as ever.
“This is a clear-cut robbery,” Andreas Moyseos, a former electrician who is now a pensioner in Nicosia, told the New York Times. Iliana Andreadakis, a book critic, further added: “This issue doesn’t only affect the people’s deposits, but also the prospect of the Cyprus economy. The E.U. has diminished its credibility.”
And indeed, following the massive run on banks in Cyprus, many are concerned that a minor panic could spread to the rest of the Eurozone. After all, it has just set a precedent for taxing private bank accounts at exorbitant rates without warning.
The really shocking aspect of the policy is that it targets “ordinary savers,” in the words of the New York Times. In the past, banks and shareholders have been forced to take losses, but the average person’s bank account was left relatively untouched. Italy once imposed a .06 percent tax on every bank account, but the rate was miniscule compared to what those in Cyprus are being asked to contribute.
Also see:
The words and deeds coming out of Washington in the last three days bring little comfort to the Israeli government as it prepares for Barack Obama’s first visit as president Wednesday, March 20.
According to an authoritative leak, Washington has effectively cancelled the Europe-based missile shield system that was designed to protect that continent and Israel against Iranian ballistic missile attack. The cancellation was part of the plan announced by Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel last week to install 14 additional missile interceptors in California and Alaska to build up United States defenses against a threatened North Korean attack.
The European-based missile shield has been put forward by Moscow repeatedly as a major obstacle to Russian-US cooperation on nuclear arms reduction and “other issues” – meaning the really hot-button ones of a nuclear Iran and the Syrian civil war.
By meeting Moscow’s complaint, Barack Obama was gambling heavily on coming out of the understandings he reached with Russian President Vladimir Putin with an acceptable settlement of the Iranian nuclear controversy and the future of the Assad regime in Syria.
So far, his winnings are slim.
Russian officials are not rushing forward to welcome the reshuffling of missile shields between Europe and America. Kremlin circles were quoted Sunday by The New York Times as commenting stiffly that there would be no reaction until they were fully briefed by American officials next week.
In any case, Tehran wants no part in the diplomatic softball game the Obama administration is playing with Moscow. Indeed, Iranian officials are behaving exactly like their North Korean partners – with threats.
Saturday, March 16, Deputy Chief of Staff of the Iranian Armed Forces Brig. Gen. Massoud Jazayeri broadcast two bellicose messages on the Revolutionary Guards website sephanews.com:
1 “Our commanders have been authorized to respond to any kind of hostile move by the enemy.”
2. The Iranian general went on to declare: “Mr Obama, do not make a mistake: we too have all our options on the table. Before you get deeper in the region’s quagmire, go back home!”
In Tehran’s tightly controlled publicity environment, General Jazayeri would not have dismissed the prospect of the US activating its military options with such contempt without authorization from the highest level, i.e. supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
He was effectively telling the US president that, after pulling American forces out of the Middle East and relegating the handling of the Syrian issue to Moscow, “Mr.Obama” had burned his military options in the Middle East and should go home.
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