Posted on 03/18/2013 4:14:31 AM PDT by cunning_fish
MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russian President Vladimir Putin criticized on Monday a levy imposed by the European Union on bank deposits in Cyprus as unfair and setting a dangerous precedent.
"While assessing the proposed additional levy on bank accounts in Cyprus, Putin said that such a decision, should it be made, would be unfair, unprofessional and dangerous," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told journalists.
Russian citizens account for the majority of the billions of euros held in Cypriot banks by foreign depositors, and Russian banks are heavily exposed to the island as a favored offshore centre for big business.
The levy, imposed as part of a 10 billion euro bailout, sparked panic among Cypriots over the weekend and hit Russian and other European financial markets on Monday.
As the Cyprus parliament prepares to vote on the measure on Monday, the government in Nicosia was working on a plan to soften the blow for smaller savers.
Russian Deputy Finance Minister Sergei Shatalov earlier said the tax would be acceptable if it was levied only on interest earned by savers.
There are almost 70 billion euros in deposits held in Cyprus. A little less than half that is held by non-residents, most believed to be Russian.
At the end of last year, Russian banks had around $12 billion on deposits with Cypriot banks and corporate deposits accounted for another $19 billion, according to Moody's credit-rating agency.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
Putin is in gloat mode because Western Europe is propping up fiat currencies and fiat nations while Russia, China, India are voting against fiat paper (illusory) economy by piling up gold. By being buyers on the world market
Those central bankers behind the US Dollar and other fiat currencies despise gold because the better gold/silver look, the worse their fiat currencies look
No one’s stopping Putin from bailing out those banks with his own or Russia’s money, without a ‘haircut’.
As if Russian “black money” isn’t in their banks as well.
Glenn Beck has been discussing this personal bank accounts tax on his show this morning.
Coming to your bank here in the USA soon to punish savers.
Business
The Crazy Cyprus Tax Plan: What Does This Mean For the U.S. & the Rest of the World?
Mar. 17, 2013 7:10pm Becket Adams
no, you need to keep up with the news, they’re not going to be affected. I’m talking about the Russian kleptocrats who have stashed their money there
My understanding is that part of the reason they approved this was to swipe a bunch of ill-gotten gains the Russian Thugocracy has stashed there.
Am I misinformed? *SMIRK*
There are already beltway types talking about our 401K's. No doubt our lefties will see this as a "lets think outside the box" idea. This debt bubble will resolve itself with human blood. Confiscating savings seems like a good way to get the shooting started.
Kind of ironic that it is Russian money that is in Cyprus because it is ill gotten or is there to evade taxes and Putin is defending it. Likely a big pile of ill gotten rubles there in his name.
Russia can make all of Cyprus’ problems “go away”....all they ask for in return is to allow them to build a Navy port there.
Ill-gotten gains from what?
Building pipelines, ports and ships to ship natural gas, oil and other natural resources to windmill-huggers in Germany and elsewhere?
Almost a million Germans already cannot afford to heat their homes and their coal mines and power plants sit idle. Wait until Hans, who sees nothing wrong with no-notice seizure of OPM bank deposits, gets next month’s gas bill from Putin (smirk)
Russia’s so-called new class of “oligarchs” (ie capitalists) were once known in the US by names such as Vanderbilt, Ford, Carnegie, Mellon, Rockefeller - now Buffet Gates Spielberg Zuckerman et al
Laundrying Ivan’s money isn’t profitable enough to finance socialism, this will be imported here if we cant stop social justice liberation theology at our shores.
It may not be wise to steal from the Russian mob......
What? That’s what NPR told me, LOL!
And, yes. This confiscation makes me VERY nervous. The ‘balloons’ being floated these days to see how much people will take are pure evil.
Absolutely. Putin is dead on accurate on this issue.
Who was that guy?
Former pro-western President of Ukraine. Apparently the victim of a massive Agent Orange poisoning.
What is his name?
They are also starting to trade in currencies other than the dollar.
On my phone since power is out so cut and paste isn’t easy except URL.
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viktor_Yushchenko
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