Did The Shit Just Hit The Fan?

Cyprus President Delays Parliament Vote on Plan for Deposit Tax
Cyprus’s President Nicos Anastasiades will seek approval to impose losses on the island- nation’s depositors tomorrow, a day later than planned as he seeks more time to convince lawmakers to back him. Anastasiades, less than a month in the job, will meet with the country’s lawmakers tomorrow, before the Parliament session on the legislation begins at 4 p.m., the Press and Information Office said in a statement on its website. The vote on his decision to accept a rescue that includes the euro area’s first move to penalize depositors was initially slated for today.
“If tomorrow Cyprus’s Parliament rejects the bill, Cyprus opens the road to chaos,” said Afxentis Afxentiou, who was governor of the Central Bank of Cyprus from 1982 until 2002, said on CYBC. If the bill is rejected, “Cyprus will turn into Libya. Even with the pain, we need to follow a normal course, with hope we’ll see better days.
The debate on the law, which will impose a levy of 6.75 percent on deposits of less than 100,000 euros and 9.9 percent of more than that, will be preceded by more meetings between Anastasiades and political leaders. Anastasiades, who met with his ministers today, will convene another meeting of the cabinet tomorrow morning, CYBC said.

My view:

As we expected, given the Nihilistic philosophy of the European Union, nothing is sacred, including the bank deposits of pensioners in Cyprus, to protect their unholy Euro currency union.

This time, Brussels has gone too far by strong-arm tactics attempting to force a "levy" (really, theft) of cash in bank accounts.

The Eurocrats have broken an ancient code.

They have moved the proverbial boundary stone.

They are fulfilling Winston Churchill's prophetic statement on socialism.


Socialism is a philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance, and the gospel of envy, its inherent virtue is the equal sharing of misery.

This misery has now become apparent in Cyprus.

What is troubling, is the vulnerability the global system has to systemic contagion from poor decisions regarding this tiny country of 1 million inhabitants.

It is possible we will see contagion move quickly to Spain, Portugal, Belgium, Italy, Ireland and elsewhere.

As a personal anecdote, here is my banking experience Friday afternoon.

I am in process of buying a used vehicle.  My wife calls ahead two days prior to ensure the bank, a major one in our town, has the funds required.  We arrive to collect our $5,000 - really not much cash for a significant institution and are told they don't have sufficient funds.  We agreed to take a bank draft for the majority of the funds and a little cash for the balance.

So my question is this.

What the hell are the banks going to do when the general public starts to get edgy over their deposits and they don't even have five grand in the vault on a Friday afternoon?!

It is time to start to protect ourselves because clearly no one else will!

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