Thread: Socialists ready to make power grab of world citizens’ money

Socialists ready to make power grab of world citizens’ money


[TD]- Judi McLeod
Sunday, March 17, 2013

Get your money out of the banks.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.

Monday in Cyprus is a national holiday, the first day of Greek Orthodox Easter.

Nor is this emergency only inflicted upon the so-called rich as even deposits under 100,000 euros will now be taxed at 6.7%.

“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.

Cyprus is the fifth country to seek a bailout following Greece, Ireland, Portugal and Spain but the terms of the deal are a radical departure from previous schemes.

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.

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.

Get your money out of the banks wherever you are, and do it as soon as possible.

VIDEO AT LINK.

Socialists ready to make power grab of world citizens’ money

http://www.alipac.us/f19/bulldozer-p...nk-run-274553/

http://www.alipac.us/f19/everyone-sh...inning-274551/

http://www.alipac.us/f19/eu-does-aga...ns-bro-274552/

Cyprus parliament delays vote on deposit levy to Monday
By Michele Kambas
NICOSIA | Sun Mar 17, 2013 10:41am EDT

(Reuters) - Cyprus's parliament has postponed until Monday an emergency session to vote on a levy on bank deposits after signs that lawmakers might block the surprise move agreed in Brussels to help fund a bailout and avert national bankruptcy.
In a radical departure from previous aid packages, euro zone finance ministers want Cyprus savers to forfeit up to 9.9 percent of their deposits in return for a 10 billion euro ($13 billion) bailout to the island, which has been financially crippled by its exposure to neighboring Greece.

The decision, announced on Saturday morning, stunned Cypriots and caused a run on cashpoints, most of which were depleted within hours. Electronic transfers were stopped.

The move to take a percentage of deposits, which could raise almost 6 billion euros, must be ratified by parliament, where no party has a majority. If it fails to do so, President Nicos Anastasiades has warned, Cyprus's two largest banks will collapse.
One bank, the Cyprus Popular Bank, could have its emergency liquidity assistance (ELA) funding from the European Central Bank cut by March 21.

A default in Cyprus could unravel investor confidence in the euro zone, undoing the improvements fostered by the European Central Bank's promise last year to do whatever it takes to shore up the currency bloc.

A meeting of parliament scheduled for 10.00 a.m. ET on Sunday was postponed for a day to give more time for consultations and broker a deal, political sources said. The levy was scheduled to come into force on Tuesday, after a bank holiday on Monday.

BREAKS A TABOO

Making bank depositors bear some of the costs of a bailout had been taboo in Europe, but euro zone officials said it was the only way to salvage Cyprus's financial sector, which is around eight times the size of the economy.

European officials said it would not set a precedent.

In Spain, one of four other states getting euro zone help and seen as a possible candidate for a sovereign rescue, officials were quick to say Cyprus was a unique case. A Bank of Spain spokesman said there had been no sign of deposit flight.
The crisis is unprecedented in the history of the Mediterranean island, which suffered a war and ethnic split in 1974 in which a quarter of its population was internally displaced.

Anastasiades, elected only three weeks ago, said he had no choice but to accept the euro zone's aid terms.
"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 a statement.

He is due to make a state address on Sunday evening.

With a gross domestic product of barely 0.2 percent of the bloc's overall output, Cyprus applied for financial aid last June, but negotiations were stalled by the complexity of the deal and the reluctance of the island's previous president to sign.
International Monetary Fund Managing Director Christine Lagarde, who attended the meeting, said she backed the deal and would ask the IMF board in Washington to contribute to the bailout.

RUSSIANS, EUROPEANS

The proposed levies on deposits are 9.9 percent for those exceeding 100,000 euros and 6.7 percent on anything below that.
They would be compensated with shares in the banks. A political source told Reuters that, as a sweetener, Anastasiades would offer depositors equity returns, guaranteed by future natural gas revenues.

"Half of the value of the haircut will be guaranteed by natural gas proceeds," the source told Reuters.

Cyprus is expecting the results of an offshore appraisal drilling this year to confirm the island is sitting on vast amounts of natural gas worth billions.

According to a draft copy of legislation, failing to hand over the levy would be a criminal offence liable to three years in jail or a 50,000 euro fine.

Those affected will include rich Russians with deposits in Cyprus and Europeans who have retired to the island, as well as Cypriots themselves.

"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."
"I've lost several thousand," he told Reuters.

British finance minister George Osborne told the BBC on Sunday that Britain would compensate its 3,500 military personnel based in Cyprus.

Anastasiades's right-wing Democratic Rally party, with 20 seats in the 56-member parliament, needs the support of other factions for the vote to pass. It was unclear whether even his coalition partners, the Democratic Party, would fully support the levy.

Cyprus's Communist party AKEL, accused of stalling on a bailout during its tenure in power until the end of February, would vote against the measure. The socialist Edek party called EU demands "absurd".

"This is unacceptably unfair and we are against it," said Adonis Yiangou of the Greens Party, the smallest in parliament but a potential swing vote.

Many Cypriots, having contributed to bailouts for Ireland, Portugal and Greece - Greece's second bailout contributed to a debt restructuring that blew the 4.5 billion euro hole in Cyprus's banking sector - are aghast at Europe's treatment.

Cyprus received a "stab in the back" by its EU partners, the daily Phileleftheros said.

But it and another newspapers highlighted the danger of plunging the banking system into further turmoil if lawmakers sat on the fence.

"Even if the final agreement is wrong, if this is not approved by parliament the damage will be even greater," Politis economics editor Demetris Georgiades said in an editorial.

Cyprus parliament delays vote on deposit levy to Monday | Reuters

This is coming from all deposits, including their life savings. Do you think it can't happen here?????

Cyprus' savers bear brunt of unprecedented bailout

By Annika Breidthardt and Robin Emmott and Michele Kambas
BRUSSELS/NICOSIA | Sat Mar 16, 2013 7:52pm EDT

(Reuters) - The euro zone agreed on Saturday to hand Cyprus a bailout worth 10 billion euros ($13 billion), but demanded depositors in its banks forfeit some money to stave off bankruptcy despite the risk of a wider run on savings.

The eastern Mediterranean island becomes the fifth country after Greece,Ireland, Portugal and Spain to turn to the euro zone for financial help during the region's debt crisis.

In a radical departure from previous aid packages - and one that gave rise to incredulity and anger across the country - euro zone finance ministers forced Cyprus' savers to pay up to 10 percent of their deposits to raise almost 6 billion euros.
Parliament was due to meet on Sunday to vote on the measure, and approval was far from assured.

The decision prompted a run on cashpoints, most of which were depleted by mid afternoon, and co-operative credit societies closed to prevent angry savers withdrawing deposits.

Almost half Cyprus's bank depositors are believed to be non-resident Russians, but most queuing on Saturday at automatic teller machines appeared to be Cypriots.

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.

"My initial reaction is one of shock," said Nicholas Papadopoulos, head of parliament's financial affairs committee. "This decision is much worse than what we expected and contrary to what the government was assuring us, right up until last night," he told Reuters, without saying whether he would back the measure or whether he thought it would pass.

Papadopoulos is vice-chairman of the Democratic Party, a partner in Cyprus's centre-right ruling coalition and whose support in parliament will be crucial to pass any haircut.

Parliament was expected to convene from 1600 local (1400 GMT) on Sunday to discuss the emergency legislation. Without parliamentary approval, a haircut cannot take place.

'THEFT, PURE AND SIMPLE'

The bailout was smaller than initially expected and is mainly needed to recapitalize Cypriot banks that were hit by a sovereign debt restructuring in Greece.

The deposit levy - set at 9.9 percent on bank deposits exceeding 100,000 euros and 6.7 percent on anything below that - will take place on Tuesday after a bank holiday on Monday.

To guard against capital flight, Cyprus took immediate steps to prevent electronic money transfers over the weekend.

At one cashpoint in the capital Nicosia, a pensioner couple said they had visited several automatic teller machines without success. "We are trying to pull as much as we can," one told Reuters, reaching for a wallet containing four debit cards.

"I'm extremely angry. I worked years and years to get it together and now I am losing it on the say-so of the Dutch and the Germans," said British-Cypriot Andy Georgiou, 54, who returned to Cyprus in mid-2012 with his savings.

"They call Sicily the island of the mafia. It's not Sicily, it's Cyprus. This is theft, pure and simple," said a pensioner.
The levy breaks a euro zone taboo by hitting depositors.

It prompted Spain, considered the next most likely state to seek a sovereign rescue though supported recently by a European Central Bank promise to buy government debt if necessary, to deny savers in other countries risked being similarly penalized.
The bailout was specific to Cyprus and its bloated banking sector and "could not be extrapolated to any other country," an economy ministry source in Madrid said.

In Brussels, Dutch Finance Minister Jeroen Dijsselbloem said it would not otherwise have been possible to save Cyprus's financial sector which, compared with national economic output, is more than twice as big as the EU average.
"As it is a contribution to the financial stability of Cyprus, it seems just to ask for a contribution of all deposit holders," Dijsselbloem, who chaired the ministerial meeting, told reporters.

The island's bailout had repeatedly been delayed amid concerns from other EU states that its close business relations with Russia, and a banking system flush with Russian cash, made it a conduit for money-laundering.

In return for emergency loans, Cyprus agreed to increase its corporate tax rate by 2.5 percentage points to 12.5 percent. This should boost revenues, limiting the size of the loan needed from the euro zone and keep down public debt.

RUSSIAN AID

International Monetary Fund Managing Director Christine Lagarde, who attended the Brussels meeting, said she backed the deal and would ask the IMF board in Washington to contribute.

"We believe the proposal is sustainable for the Cyprus economy," she said. "The IMF is considering proposing a contribution to the financing of the package ... The exact amount is not yet specified."

Cyprus, with a gross domestic product of barely 0.2 percent of the bloc's overall output, applied for aid last June. But negotiations became bogged down.

Moscow, with close ties to Nicosia, will also likely extend a 2.5 billion euro loan by five years to 2021 at a lower cost.

"My understanding is that the Russian government is ready to make (such) a contribution," said the EU's top economic official, Olli Rehn.

Cyprus originally estimated it needed 17 billion euros - almost its annual output - to restore its economy to health.
But because a loan of that magnitude would call into question its ability ever to pay it back, policymakers sought more revenue sources in Cyprus itself.

The Greek units of Cypriot banks were excluded from the deposit levy, Greek finance minister Yiannis Stournaras said.
Cyprus' savers bear brunt of unprecedented bailout | Reuters

Cyprus Targets Its Savers in Bailout Agreement


Submitted by Monetary Metals on 03/18/2013 03:01 -0400

• Bank Run
• Bond
• Creditors
• default
• European Central Bank
• General Motors
• Greece
• Gross Domestic Product
• International Monetary Fund
• Unemployment

After markets closed on Friday, it was announced that Cyprus worked out a deal with the European Central Bank, European Commission, and the International Monetary Fund (“the Troika”). Here is a typical article reporting on the story.

Cyrpus has been in desperate need of a bailout, and was in discussions as early as June last year. They asked for an amount of money roughly equal to their annual GDP (for comparison, this would be about $15 trillion in the US!) The question is how did Cyprus arrive at this end of the road?

The root of the problem is the manufacture of counterfeit credit. Examples of counterfeit credit include Greek government bonds, sold by Greece to finance their social welfare state, Cyprus government bonds, sold by Cyprus to finance their social welfare state, and Cyprus bank debt, including deposits, used to finance the purchase of said Greek and Cyprus government bonds. To a bank, a deposit is a liability and it owns loans and bonds as assets.

As the world now knows, Greece is unable to pay. Greece is now mired in so-called “austerity”, a package-deal of falling government spending, rising tax rates, and no relief from crippling regulations. The result has been falling tax revenues, rising unemployment and social unrest. Holders of Greek government bonds (and Greek bank bonds) have taken losses already and will take more.

I define inflation as an expansion of counterfeit credit. Bond prices may rise for a time, making participants feel richer. But eventually, all debt borrowed without means or intent to repay is defaulted, and this is deflation. Default can come in many forms, and the imposed loss on depositors in Cyprus is no less a default than other forms. Deflation is now imploding in Cyprus.
In the initial proposal, depositors in Cyprus banks are to be stripped of 6.7% of deposits under €100,000 and 9.9% of amounts over that. Electronic bank transfers have been blocked and cash machines have run out of cash. A bank run is the inevitable reaction to the threat of loss of deposits in a bank.

Subsequent to the initial story, news is now coming out that the Cyprus parliament has postponed the decision and may in fact not be able to reach agreement. They may tinker with the percentages, to penalize smaller savers less (and larger savers more). However, the damage is already done. They have hit their savers with a grievous blow, and this will do irreparable harm to trust and confidence.

As well it should! In more civilized times, there was a long established precedent regarding the capital structure of a bank. Equity holders incur the first losses as they own the upside profits and capital gains. Next come unsecured creditors who are paid a higher interest rate, followed by secured bondholders who are paid a lower interest rate. Depositors are paid the lowest interest rate of all, but are assured to be made whole, even if it means every other class in the capital structure is utterly wiped out.

As caveat to the following paragraph, I acknowledge that I have not read anything definitive yet regarding bondholders. I present my assumptions (which I think are likely correct).

As with the bankruptcy of General Motors in the US, it looks like the rule of law and common sense has been recklessly set aside. The fruit from planting these bitter seeds will be harvested for many years hence. As with GM, political expediency drives pragmatic and ill-considered actions. In Cyprus, bondholders include politically connected banks and sovereign governments.

Bureaucrats decided it would be acceptable to use depositors like sacrificial lambs. The only debate at the moment seems to be how to apportion the damage amongst “rich” and “non-rich” depositors.

In Part II (free registration required) we discuss the likely impact to the markets outside Cyprus, such as the euro, the dollar, gold and silver, and the US stock market.

Cyprus Targets Its Savers in Bailout Agreement | Zero Hedge