The Great Cyprus Bank Robbery

The Great Cyprus Bank Robbery Shows That No Bank Account, No Retirement Fund And No Stock Portfolio Is Safe
Michael, on March 18th, 2013
http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/archives/the-great-cyprus-bank-robbery-shows-that-no-bank-account-no-retirement-fund-and-no-stock-portfolio-is-safe

The global elite have now proven that when the chips are down they are going to go after any big pile of money that they think they can get their hands on.  That means that no bank account, no retirement fund and no stock portfolio on earth is safe.  Up until now, most people assumed that private bank accounts were untouchable and that deposit insurance actually meant something.  Now we see that there is no pile of money that is considered "off limits" by the global elite and deposit insurance means absolutely nothing.  The number one thing that any financial system depends on is faith.  If people do not have faith in the safety and stability of a financial system, it will not work.  Well, the people that rule the world have just taken a sledgehammer to the trust that we all had in the global financial system.  They have broken the unwritten social contract that global banking depends on.  So now we will see a run on the banks, and this will not just be limited to a few countries in southern Europe.  Rather, this will be worldwide in scope.  Yoda may have put it this way: "Begun, the global bank run has."  All over the world, frightened people are going to start pulling money out of the banks.  A lot of that money will go into gold, silver and other hard assets.  And as money starts coming out of the banks, this could cause many of the large banks that have been teetering on the edge of disaster to finally collapse.

Many of you may not believe that they would ever come after bank accounts, retirement funds or stock portfolios in the United States.

Many of you may be entirely convinced that the Great Cyprus Bank Robbery could never happen in America.

Well, where do you think this whole plan was dreamed up?

It was the IMF that reportedly pushed the hardest for the wealth tax in Cyprus, and the IMF is headquartered right in the heart of Washington D.C.

Almost every nation on the planet has to deal with the IMF.  It is an organization that is dominated by the United States and that is always involved when there is an international debt crisis.

If the IMF thinks that it is a great idea to steal from bank accounts to solve a financial crisis in Cyprus, why wouldn't they impose a similar solution in other countries in the future?

And if bank accounts are no longer safe, are there any truly safe places to put your money?

You can trust the politicians when they tell you that an unannounced "wealth tax" will never happen where you live if you want, but that is the exact same lie that the politicians in Cyprus were telling their people until the day that it happened.  The following is from an article in the Cyprus Mail...

And after all, President Anastasiades had emphatically declared in his inauguration speech that “absolutely no reference to a haircut on public debt or deposits will be tolerated,” adding that “such an issue isn’t even up for discussion.” Finance Minister Michalis Sarris made similarly reassuring statements, arguing that it would be lunacy for the EU to impose such a measure because it would threaten the euro system.


At this point, politicians in Cyprus have been given two very unappealing options.  Either they vote yes on the wealth tax and destroy all faith in the banking system of Cyprus, or they vote no and they are forced out of the eurozone.  In either case, we will probably see the financial system of Cyprus collapse and their economy plunge deep into depression.

At this point, the vote has been delayed until Tuesday.  Apparently some additional "arm twisting" was required to get the needed votes.

And there have been proposals to change the terms of the wealth tax.  Reportedly, some politicians want to impose a maximum rate of up to 15 percent on bank accounts of over 500,000 euros so that the rate on smaller accounts can be decreased.

It has also been announced that the earliest that banks in Cyprus will reopen will be Thursday.

But what is happening in Cyprus is small potatoes compared to how this will affect the rest of the world.  The entire planet is watching this unfold, and as a recent article by Lucas Jackson described, faith in the global financial system is being greatly shaken...

It would be hard to over-emphasize how significant the Cyprus situation is.  The EU demonstrated under no uncertain circumstances that they will destroy the rule of law to maintain their own power.  It was a recognition of tyranny that many of us have always assumed was the case but yesterday became reality.

The damage done here is not related to the size of the haircut - currently discussed between 3 and 13% - but rather that the legal language which each and every investor on the planet must rely on in order to maintain confidence in the system has been subordinated to the needs of the powerful elite.  To the power elite making the major decisions in DC, London, Berlin, France, Brussels, et. al., laws are like ice cream, easily melted.

Which begs the question, who is next?  Will it be Portugal?  Greece? Spain?  Italy?  France???

Will they impose a “one-time” tax on your bank account?  Your house?  Your stocks and bonds?  Retirement accounts?


The global elite have declared open season on all large piles of money, and now many people all over the world will consider taking money out of the bank to be the rational thing to do.  This will especially be true in countries in southern Europe since they would probably be the next to have wealth confiscated.

This is so abundantly clear that even Paul Krugman of the New York Times understands this...

It’s as if the Europeans are holding up a neon sign, written in Greek and Italian, saying “time to stage a run on your banks!”

Tomorrow and the days immediately following should be very interesting.


The global elite have truly "crossed the Rubicon" by going after private bank accounts.  It is almost as if they purposely chose the most damaging solution possible to the financial crisis in Cyprus.

Many in the financial world are absolutely stunned by all of this.  For example, David Zervos is describing this move as a "nuclear war on savings and wealth"...

All of us should really take a moment to consider what the governments of Europe have done. To be clear, they initiated a surprise assault on the precautionary savings of their own people. Such a move should send shock waves across the entire population of the developed world. This was not a Bernanke style slow moving financial repression against risk free savings that is meant to stir up animal spirits and force risk taking. This is a nuclear war on savings and wealth - something that will likely crush animal spirits. This is a policy move you expect from a dictatorial regime in sub-Saharan Africa, not in an EMU member state. If the European governments can clandestinely expropriate 7 to 10 percent of their hard working citizen's precautionary savings after the close of business on a Friday night, what else are they capable of doing? Why even hold money in a bank account? Are they trying to start a bank run?


So what motivated the global elite to do this?

According to CNBC, one of the motivations was to go after the Russians that had been using the banking system of Cyprus to launder money...

Indeed, the IMF is reported to have been keen on the levy as a way to stem the flood of Russian money into the island over the last few years which has prompted concerns over money laundering.


Russian money accounts for about 25 percent of all money in the banking system of Cyprus, and obviously the Russians are quite upset by what the IMF and the EU have decided to do.  Even Vladimir Putin is loudly denouncing this move...

Russian President Vladimir Putin called the tax “unfair, unprofessional and dangerous,” according to a statement posted on the Kremlin website. Russian companies and individuals have $31 billion of deposits in Cyprus, according to Moody’s.


And you haven't heard a lot about this in the western media, but the Russians have actually stepped forward and have offered to help Cyprus out of this jam.  For example, there are reports that Russian investors are interested in buying the two banks that were the primary cause of this bailout...

Officials have also said Russian investors are interested in buying a majority stake in Cyprus Popular Bank and increasing their holdings in Bank of Cyprus - the two biggest banks on the Mediterranean island.


And according to Sky News, Gazprom has offered Cyprus a very large sum of money for the right to explore their offshore gas reserves that have not been developed yet...

The uncertainty comes as Russia's finance minister said his country would consider restructuring its loans to Cyprus.

Russian energy giant Gazprom has also reportedly offered financial assistance to Cyprus in exchange for access to the island's gas reserves.


So far the government of Cyprus has rejected the help of the Russians, but could they change their mind at some point?  Apparently the Russians are offering enough money to completely fund the bank bailout...

According Greek Reporter, Gazprom made an offer over the weekend to the Cypriot government to fund the bank restructuring planned under the Cypriot bailout (which is set to cost up to €10bn) in exchange for exclusive exploration rights for Cypriot territorial waters. How reliable this story is remains to be seen, but it does hint at the geopolitical tension which we have been warning about.

Gazprom is known to be very close to the Russian government and despite Russian President Vladimir Putin overtly slamming the deposit tax - calling it "unfair, unprofessional and dangerous" -  it is unlikely that they would let this opportunity pass untouched. Fortunately, the Cypriot government is said to have rejected the deal off the bat, but if displeasure towards the eurozone and the EU grows, the Russian option may become increasingly appealing.


It will be very interesting to see what happens.

Meanwhile, some European officials are already suggesting that other nations in southern Europe should have a "wealth tax" imposed upon them.  The following comes from an article by Paul Joseph Watson...

Joerg Kraemer, chief economist of the German Commerzbank, has called for private savings accounts in Italy to be similarly plundered. “A tax rate of 15 percent on financial assets would probably be enough to push the Italian government debt to below the critical level of 100 percent of gross domestic product,” he told Handelsblatt.


A "tax" of 15 percent on all financial assets?

Could you imagine if you woke up one morning and the government had decided to suddenly steal 15 percent of all the money that you had in bank accounts, retirement funds and stock portfolios?

If I had a bank account in Italy I would be very nervous right about now.

Under normal circumstances these kinds of things don't happen, but governments will use an "emergency" to justify all kinds of things.  I recently came across an article that included a great quote by Herbert Hoover that put this beautifully...

"Every collectivist revolution rides in on a Trojan horse of ‘emergency’. It was the tactic of Lenin, Hitler, and Mussolini. In the collectivist sweep over a dozen minor countries of Europe, it was the cry of men striving to get on horseback. And ‘emergency’ became the justification of the subsequent steps. This technique of creating emergency is the greatest achievement that demagoguery attains."


This is what the elite love to do.

They love to create order out of chaos.

And this is just the beginning.  The Great Cyprus Bank Robbery was just a beta test for what is coming next.

As the global financial system crumbles, the global elite are going to target our bank accounts, our retirement funds and our stock portfolios.  You might want to start thinking about how you will protect yourself.

Crisis-hit Europeans see cruel joke in EU Nobel

Karolina Tagaris
ATHENS | Fri Oct 12, 2012
http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/10/12/nobel-eu-reaction-idUSL5E8LCHVA20121012

"Is this a joke?" said Chrisoula Panagiotidi, 36, an Athens beautician, laughing derisively upon hearing that the European Union had won the Nobel Peace Prize.

Three days ago she lost her job, becoming one of the one-in-four Greeks who is unemployed in the fifth year of a biting recession. Told it was no joke at all, her incredulity quickly turned to disgust.

"It mocks us and what we are going through right now," she said. "All it will do is infuriate people here."

Across a continent where the EU's policies are blamed for deepening the worst economic crisis in living memory, many Europeans said they were simply baffled by the prize. Others were outraged.

"I can't get my head around it. They'd be last on my list. It's such a bland and inert organisation," said Philip Deane, 48, an IT consultant walking along the River Liffey in Dublin.

"Given the state of the economy, the timing is really, really bad."

Ireland, like Greece, has been forced to turn to the European Union and IMF for a financial bailout, delivered in the framework of a strict austerity programme.

Mariana Fotiou, 69, an Athens lottery ticket vendor was furious.

"It makes me so angry. We have a financial war on, don't they realise that? The only morale it will boost is Merkel's," she said, referring to the German chancellor, whose insistence on austerity measures as the price for aid has made her a hate figure in Greece.

Earlier this week Merkel visited Athens. Protesters burned Nazi flags and clashed with police in fury at her presence.

The irony of awarding the prize at a time when the EU is being pilloried in several European capitals, occasionally by crowds of rioters, was not lost on the Nobel Committee itself.

"The EU is currently undergoing grave economic difficulties and considerable social unrest. The Norwegian Nobel Committee wishes to focus on what it sees as the EU's most important result: the successful struggle for peace and reconciliation and for democracy and human rights," said Nobel Committee chairman Thorbjoern Jagland in announcing the award in Oslo.

Ed Balls, a politician from the opposition British Labour Party, joked at a panel discussion in Dublin: "They'll be cheering in Athens tonight, won't they."

"SUFFERING BUT NOT DYING"

Yet even in countries hard hit by the tough economic times, there were still many people who said they understood the logic of awarding a prize to an organisation credited with helping maintain peace for more than half a century on a continent that was ripped apart in two world wars.

"It's a good thing," said 48-year-old Howard Spilane in Ireland, where unemployment has tripled since the crisis hit.

"Europe's in a crisis, but compared to the wars - even compared to the Cold War - Europe is in a better place. People are suffering, but they are not dying. On balance they have achieved a lot."

Such warm responses were also common in parts of Eastern Europe, where many prize membership in the EU as a badge of hard-won European identity and a bulwark against a return of Communist-era totalitarianism.

"I am glad of it, although I do find it strange," said Andras Kocsis, an 18-year-old student in Budapest, the Hungarian capital. "I think it's right, because indeed the EU does a lot for the rights of the people."

But even in the ex-Communist countries, praise was far from universal for an organisation that many have come to resent.

Petr Hajek, deputy head of the office of Czech President Vaclav Klaus, who once supported the EU but has since turned against it, said the EU lacked "democratic legitimacy" and was contributing to "animosity among nations".

"Freedom and democracy are shivering in the corner similar to the way it was in the regimes we experienced in the 20th century in Europe," he said.

In Bosnia, which hopes to join the bloc but still remembers how a hesitant and divided EU stood by during its 1992-95 war, Kada Hotic called the award "shameful". Her son, husband and two brothers were among 8,000 Muslim men and boys massacred by Bosnian Serb forces in 1995.

"The EU had an obligation to protect minorities in Europe but was incapable or unwilling to protect Muslims in Bosnia and even today it is doing so little to prevent conflicts across the world," she said.

Democracy for EU Prez?

Prez election in Europe are getting interesting too:
The European Parliament took a first step on Tuesday towards half a billion Europeans directly electing the EU president, with a vote to introduce a second ballot from which the leader would emerge.

The parliament's constitutional affairs committee wants voters to pick 25 super MEPs from an EU-wide list of candidates

Come its next elections in 2014, the parliament's constitutional affairs committee wants voters across the 27 European Union states to pick 751 constituency MEPs in essentially national contests, but now also 25 super MEPs from an EU-wide list of candidates.

The bill's sponsor, Liberal Democrat MEP Andrew Duff, told AFP on Tuesday that his plans are based in no small part on experience in Scotland, where a second, regional list effectively decides the identity of its head of government...

First step towards 'directly elected EU president'
19 Apr 2011
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/eu/8461420/First-step-towards-directly-elected-EU-president.html

Will German Austerity Help or Hurt the Global Recovery?

http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1995113,00.html

Will German Austerity Help or Hurt the Global Recovery?
By Tristana Moore / Berlin Wednesday, Jun. 09, 2010

Announcing a tough austerity plan when your government's popularity has hit rock bottom is a high-risk strategy, but Germany's Chancellor seems ready to ride out the storm of protest. Even as trade unions warned of a summer of unrest, Angela Merkel put on a brave face when she announced the biggest round of spending cuts since World War II on Monday afternoon. "These are serious times, these are difficult times. We can't afford everything that we want if we also want to look after our future," Merkel told reporters in Berlin after her coalition government hammered out a framework deal to bring down Germany's swollen public debt.

The austerity plan is ambitious — the aim is to save up to $95 billion by 2014 through a combination of deep spending cuts and revenue-raising measures. The savings include controversial cuts to welfare payments for the long-term unemployed and reductions in parental allowance for families. Merkel tried to head off critics by pointing out that the plan was fair because it included cuts to industry and the public sector. Under the plan, 10,000 civil servants working for federal ministries would lose their jobs; 40,000 jobs would be cut in the armed forces; there would be a new "ecological levy" on air travel; a tax would be imposed on the nuclear power industry; and, from 2012 on, there would be a tax on financial transactions. Even prestige building projects have been put on ice: the German government has postponed plans to build a replica of Berlin's former Prussian palace.

"We've lived beyond our means over the past few years," Guido Westerwelle, Vice Chancellor and leader of Merkel's coalition partners, the Free Democratic Party (FDP), bluntly told a news conference on Monday. As a concession to the FDP, which campaigned on a tax-cutting platform in last September's election, Merkel said there would be no hike in income tax and no increase in sales tax, while spending on education and research would be protected. "The last few months have shown — in connection with the crisis in Greece and the euro zone — how crucial solid finances are, and they are the precondition for being able to live in stability and prosperity," said Merkel.

Some economists welcomed the fact that the government steered clear of tax hikes; others said the round of spending cuts was too severe and could stall Germany's fragile economic recovery. "The government should have postponed the cuts until the economy is really back on its feet again," Gustav Horn, director of the Macroeconomic Policy Institute in Düsseldorf, told TIME. He said the austerity plan was "piecemeal," made up of "real cuts in the social security system but halfhearted cuts to business," and pointed out that the financial-market-transaction tax was conditional on other countries' adopting it. "Chancellor Merkel could have introduced a tax on the wealthy and tougher measures against the banking sector — that would have made a difference," said Horn. Germany's focus on deficit reduction could end up affecting the global recovery. There is also concern that German cutbacks may hobble the feeble global recovery. At a meeting of G-20 finance ministers in South Korea on June 5, U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner called for "stronger domestic demand growth" in European countries like Germany and in Japan. As his European counterparts urged speedy implementation of austerity programs, Geithner reportedly counseled reform "in the medium-term."

Still, as Europe's biggest economy, Germany is hoping to set an example of budget discipline for other countries so they in turn will also tighten their belts. Greece, Portugal and Spain have already announced crippling austerity plans — while Britain's Prime Minister David Cameron has warned of "decades of pain" to rein in the U.K.'s massive budget deficit. Although Germany's public finances are in better shape than those of other countries in the European Union, Berlin's budget deficit reached 3.1% of GDP in 2009, and it's expected to exceed 5% of GDP later this year, which would be in breach of the 3% deficit limit set by the E.U.'s rules.

On top of that, Germany has a constitutional limit on borrowing — a "debt brake" — which obliges the government to scale back borrowing over the next few years. "We have a result which will enable us to meet the limit on borrowing in this legislative session," said Wolfgang Schaeuble on the sidelines of the meeting of euro-zone finance ministers in Luxembourg on Monday, claiming there was a "very reasonable [social] balance."

Merkel may have to pay a heavy political price in her backyard. Trade unions, welfare groups and opposition parties slammed the austerity plan as "socially unjust" and threatened to fight the measures when they go through Parliament. "The jobless will bear the brunt of virtually half of these spending cuts," said the head of the Social Democratic Party, Sigmar Gabriel. The Left Party accused Merkel's government of making the jobless, pensioners and families pay for the "reckless gambling" of bankers. "This is an attack on social peace and democracy," said Gregor Gysi, head of the Left Party's parliamentary group, urging Germans to take to the streets.

Already, union leaders are planning a nationwide day of protest with a series of demonstrations in major German cities on June 12. "The government is punishing the weakest in society," Frank Bsirske, head of Germany's public-sector union Verdi, told reporters on Monday, warning that the savings would lead to a spike in unemployment. The German press was also baying for blood, with tabloid paper the Berliner Kurier branding the austerity plan as a "list of horrors" and claiming that every German would have to fork out $1,200 to pay for the cutbacks. The government has "ruined the summer" screamed the left-leaning paper Die Tageszeitung on its front page. Even the conservative daily Die Welt was skeptical that the measures would be able to restore public finances in the long-term. "The poorest of the poor seem to be worst off in the austerity drive, and this will give plenty of ammunition to opposition parties — they'll fight these measures tooth and nail," Uwe Jun, professor of political science at the University of Trier, told TIME. And with members of the social wing of Merkel's conservative party criticizing the austerity drive, Jun predicts "yet more splits in the coalition government."

E.U. weighs Olympic boycott over Tibet

http://www.csmonitor.com/2008/0327/p04s01-woeu.html

from the March 27, 2008 edition
E.U. weighs Olympic boycott over Tibet
The European Union meets Friday to discuss ties to China after the unrest in Tibet.
By Robert Marquand Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor
Paris

If the government of China hopes the world will go for its line on Tibet and the nefarious Dalai Lama and his purported "clique" – Europe isn't buying it.

The response to the Tibetan crisis in London, Paris, and Berlin, rather, is a call for "dialogue" between China and the exiled Tibetan leader, and"restraint" by Beijing.

A boycott of the opening ceremony of the 2008 Olympic Games is being discussed as a leverage point in Austria, Belgium, Britain, and France – to be determined by how China handles the frustrations of its Tibetan minority.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy has "left open the option" of boycotting the ceremony, Germany has blocked talks with China on economic development, and Britain's foreign secretary, David Miliband, says that Tibet demonstrations will be authorized as the Olympic torch is carried through London on April 6.

Prince Charles, a friend of the Dalai Lama, had already decided in January not to attend the opening ceremony, he said, in a letter to a human rights group.

Europeans have long had a fascination with and sympathy for the Himalayan region and its Buddhist spiritual traditions – and the Dalai Lama is a frequent visitor to the Continent.

This Friday, Europe's foreign ministers meet in Slovenia, which holds the rotating presidency of the EU, to adopt a common position on relations with Beijing and "the suffering of Tibet," as French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner describes it.

The question in Slovenia is how to balance appreciation for the progress China has made with concern about the heavy handed tactics of an unelected government that has long eschewed any dialogue with those disagreeing with it. Most European states also have significant business interests in China.

While no European Union state is preparing to boycott the 2008 Games – "Let's not be more Tibetan than the Dalai Lama," who did not advocate boycott, says Mr. Kouchner – there is a general revulsion at the scenes out of Tibet, and at what is seen as an overheated Chinese propaganda effort to demonize the Dalai Lama and hold him responsible for violence.

In a clear rebuke to the Chinese position on Dalai Lama, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown plans to meet the spiritual leader in May, and the Dalai Lama was invited to speak at a conference in Nantes, France, during the games in August.

As the British Foreign Office issued a human rights report critical of China this week, Mr. Miliband said, "There needs to be mutual respect between all communities and sustained dialogue between the Dalai Lama and the Chinese authorities."

On May 22, the Dalai Lama will give a speech at the Royal Albert Hall in London.

On Wednesday Robert Menard, general secretary of Reporters Sans Frontières in Paris, the journalistic watchdog group, stated that Mr. Sarkozy should boycott the opening if China does not release 30 political prisoners who are on the lists of nearly every human rights group, and if foreign correspondents are continued to be banned from working in Tibet.

Mr. Menard's group raced to unfurl a Tibetan flag at the opening ceremony of the games in Athens this week while a Chinese official was speaking – an act widely criticized in the journalistic community, which has depended on RSF to report on press violations.

Prior to the China-Tibet dissatisfaction in Europe, many protest groups here demanded that China stop its support of the Sudanese government, widely regarded as a main culprit in the starvation and chaos in Darfur. The phrase "Genocide Olympics" has been used in Europe among human rights groups to describe the twinning of the Games with China's policy toward Sudan.

Fox Admits Plan For Single NAFTA Currency

http://www.prisonplanet.com/articles/october2007/091007_fox_admits.htm

Vicente Fox Admits Plan For Single NAFTA Currency
Former Mexican president wants North American Union based on EU
Paul Joseph Watson
Prison Planet
Tuesday, October 9, 2007

Mexico's former president, Vicente Fox, made an astounding admission last night on CNN's Larry King Live when he acknowledged the plan for a NAFTA single currency, a "euro-dollar" as King labeled it.

Fox also vowed to help unite the Americas beyond a trade agreement, following what he described as "a new vision, like we are trying to do with NAFTA".

The comments follow Fox's appearance on The Daily Show in which he advocated the creation of a North American Union based on the model of the European Union.

TRANSCRIPT FROM CNN.com.

KING: E-mail from Mrs. Gonzalez in Elizabeth, New Jersey. "Mr. Fox, I would like to know how you feel about the possibility of having a Latin America united with one currency?"

FOX: Long term, very long term. What we propose together, President Bush and myself, it's ALCA, which is a trade union for all of the Americas. And everything was running fluently until Hugo Chavez came. He decided to isolate himself. He decided to combat the idea and destroy the idea...

KING: It's going to be like the euro dollar, you mean?

FOX: Well, that would be long, long term. I think the processes to go, first step into is trading agreement. And then further on, a new vision, like we are trying to do with NAFTA.