Posted on 03/19/2013 1:35:58 PM PDT by Kaslin
I can just imagine Jay Leno taking to the streets in order to ask the average American citizen, “What do you think about Cyprus?”
More than likely, the answer would be, “I really prefer oak or maple for my flooring, I never really thought about cypress.”
Jay would reply with, “No, the country Cyprus. The IMF, EU, and ECB, the “troika,” just put a tax on bank accounts. Well, no. Actually, they just stole a portion and froze the rest of the money in spite of the increased guarantees.”
The average American would then respond, “There’s a country named Cyprus? Taxes? So what, we get taxed on our savings all the time. Oh, they stole part and froze the rest? Hmmmmm…..who cares, it couldn’t happen here in America. By the way, what are the IMF, EU, ECB, and the “troika?” (End of interview.)
I started to think that not knowing Cyprus is a country or to not understand the term “troika” is perhaps excusable, after all, it might be due to March Madness.
But to think those types of financial and economic events couldn’t happen here, hmmmmm.....In 1933, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt declared a national bank moratorium (he closed all banks.)
Then, via Executive Order 6102, the government confiscated all gold and gold certificates, exchanging them for paper. Consequently, if you didn’t surrender your gold, you went to jail. The price of gold was set at $20.67 per ounce.
Yet, within a year, the government reset the price to $35.00 per ounce, effectively fleecing the American public by 69%.
And speaking of rip-offs, just remember that in order to support the UAW in 2009, President Barack Obama rejected the rule of law for GM senior and subordinated debtholders, thus relegating them to the back of the line.
Next, consider that former SEC Chairman Mary Schapiro along with current SEC Commissioners Luis Aguilar, Troy Paredes, and Daniel Gallagher have all previously warned the general public about the risks involving money market accounts, effectively stating that there is neither a guarantee on the return of capital nor is there a guarantee regarding the liquidity of the funds. In page after page of SEC documents, notifications were clearly written that money market investors are not being reasonably rewarded for the risk that they’re currently taking.
In addition, after extensive 2011 Congressional analysis failed to discover where the missing $1.6 billion of MF Global customer money had gone, J.P. Morgan was recently found to not have disclosed the risks taken and monies lost by the excess deposits as compared to the loans domiciled at J.P. Morgan.
Finally, following the “lost decade” of investment (2000-2009) which shed a very bright light on the failure of self-directed retirement accounts, former Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner discussed the possibility of nationalizing IRAs and 401ks as a way of preserving the wealth of Americans.
So, regarding the current situation involving the third largest island in the Mediterranean Sea, can it happen right here in our country?
Unfortunately, it has happened, it is happening right now, and it will continue to happen. Indeed, Cyprus could very well prove to be much more than just another alternative to oak and maple.
I’m sure a minority of folks in the US would be unhappy about such an event, but the 2012 election indicates the majority would care or wouldn’t be affected.
Forget overt theft. They’ve been at it for decades through intentional inflation. Sure, they leave your money in the account, but they run off with its purchasing power.
yup.
The gold confiscation was a bit trickier than that.
The Act of April 2, A.D. 1792 of the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, Section 9 defined the dollar as a unit of pure silver weighing 371 4/16th grains (24.057 grams).
Even after Roosevelt’s gold confiscation, dollar holders could readily exchange a federal reserve note or a silver certificate for a 90% silver dollar that weighed 26.73 grams. That is, a dollar holder could exchange paper currency for a coin with a dollar’s worth of silver, 24.057 grams pure silver.
Americans had less reason to distrust the government back in the 1930’s. The government claimed that gold had to be nationalized to overcome the Depression. Since they still could get a dollar’s worth of silver for a dollar, they were comfortable about exchanging gold for currency.
The real ripoff happened in the 1960s, when the government quit redeeming dollars for silver.
Nixon finally capped the dollar when he formally quit even pretending that it was worth anything in particular.
The average idiot doesn’t care.
When this happens here it will be framed as protecting the poor against the evil 1%.
The people who worked hard and honestly will be hurt. 0bama’s voters will benefit.
certainly can see the feds taking money except they'll use the word "holding" the money....
this is how it'll end for America....
those stinking ira's they enticed us to use...those stinking 401's...in the end, it was a ponzi scheme too....those first in got the goods, those later, lost....
to think we could have had all those vacations and new cars and new boats...but no, we had to save, we had to be responsible...
Back in the last post-Nixon gold run up, there was a story about that confiscation. It seems that two brothers were either tipped off or could see the handwriting and converted $20,000 worth of Gold Notes into coin. Weeks after Roosevelt's announcement, the Feds tracked the brothers down and make 'em turn in the gold for paper money. They took it all the way to the Supreme Court, who said there was nothing wrong with that since they got $20,000 in paper for the $20,000 in gold. Justice Roberts must have had an ancestor in that court.
Anyone who has a savings account in this country has been and continues to be “fleeced” by near-zero interest rates. The U.S. government’s strategy is different from the Cyprus model but the result is the same.
No one has yet noted that ObamaCare just overtly stole over 3% of all equity in our homes. They just took it. But thanks to the supreme court as lone as the government calls something a tax they can do anything.
$85 billion per month in “printed” money has the same effect as overt theft.
And, like all leftists, their policies are never wrong, they just haven’t been implemented to their full extent,
so they’re going to do this “until it works”.
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