Cyprus now looks to take 25 percent from bank accounts of wealthy...(Obama must be drooling)

MSNBC ^ | 3/24/2013 | MSNBC

[Dallas59]

NICOSIA -- Cyprus said on Saturday it was looking at seizing a quarter of the value of big deposits at its largest bank as it races to raise the funds for a bailout from the European Union and to avert financial collapse.

Finance Minister Michael Sarris said "significant progress" had been made in talks in Nicosia with officials from the European Union, European Central Bank and International Monetary Fund.

He confirmed discussions were centered on a possible levy of around 25 percent on holdings of over 100,000 euros (about $130,000) at Bank of Cyprus, and expressed hope that a package could be ready by the end of the day for approval by parliament.

[Dallas59]

There goes investment in Cyprus.....

[BCW]

The Russian mob is going to start killing Crypus govt officials...and Obama will send in US troops for the sake of civility...while taking notes to do the same in the US!

[Opinionated Blowhard]

This is what happens when a society doesn’t have the will to cut spending. When there’s no more money to tax, the government simply takes it. This will end up happening in every Welfare State — including the United States — that has lost the will to control spending and the size of government.

[Dallas59]

Coming a to a bank account / 401k near you!

[Nextrush]

The Age Of Austerity is here and the big political parties in this country will wheel and deal higher taxes and “cuts” in spending on us.

Neither big party will commit themselves to the balanced budget because they’re afraid of losing elections by really cutting spending.

The disaster comes regardless of how much wealth is taxed or seized in the years to come because the political leaders refuse to cut spending to the level where the budget will be in balance.

[pepsionice]

Cyprus ends up being a special case. No one in the government questioned the arrival of the Russians....the lack of taxation on anything they made profit off...or the fantastic amount of money they dumped onto the banks, with no one in the government or the public questioning the wise or unwise investments.

Russians literally flew in and deposited billions onto an island country with barely one million residents. The bank managers literally threw the money into the wind....never having anyone question them.

If you check around....by summer of 2012...almost everyone agreed the whole banking sector was now screwed up. The EU as of last summer, already knew how bad this was, and it was a simple process to blame massive Russian investments. This took less than ten years. If you go back to prior 2000 and the arrival of the Russians and the Euro...they were doing ok. You could probably write a 500-page book on stupid investing and how the Russians disregarded every rule in the book (dump the money and expect results).

As for a comparison? It’d be closer to compare the Cyprus event to 1929 crash...which the banking sector dumped headfirst into Wall Street investments and dragged all of their customer’s money (sitting in plain checking and savings accounts) with them. Cyprus has done the same thing. The EU has a point here....they will only guarantee the accounts of 100k Euro or less, that’s the general rule. That was the insurance rule to protect everyone in the first place. The rest of them? Tough luck. Unwise investments by the banking sector got them into that situation.

[Opinionated Blowhard]

Exactly. If you have saved for retirement instead of blowing your paycheck each week, you will be one of the greedy rich who isn’t paying his fair share.

[FreeReign]

Cyprus now looks to take 25 percent from bank accounts of wealthy...(Obama must be drooling)... He confirmed discussions were centered on a possible levy of around 25 percent on holdings of over 100,000 euros (about $130,000)

130K is "wealthy"?

That said, any such confiscation is Marxist.

[A CA Guy]

The other half of this is I heard these banks paid 25% interest in order to draw funds into the bank to play with.

The Greek government isn't backing the 25% interest rate gains the depositors earned is what I also read elsewhere.

I don't know everything about this, but there is more to this it appears than just taking some savings by vote.

Seems they are getting back the interest and leaving the principle with the depositor. Yet again, if I got 25% interest I'd be pissed as well to see it taken back.

[Dallas59]

This is how it will be twisted in few years. “We can’t fix our economy...but you can!” “Avoid penalties on your money accounts! Donate them to the Government!”.

[Iron Munro]

(Obama must be drooling)

You can bet he is having nocturnal sweats just dreaming about it!

[Washi]

So, are the depositors locked out of their own accounts in the interim?

What is keeping these "wealthy" folks from pulling out their money before it is confiscated?

[Bon mots]

This is what happens when a society doesn’t have the will to cut spending. When there’s no more money to tax, the government simply takes it. This will end up happening in every Welfare State — including the United States — that has lost the will to control spending and the size of government.

Look at the USA:
Government debt: $20Trillion
Gov't Spending: $3.75 Trillion
IRS Revenue: $2.5 Trillion

You know where this is headed...

[LostInBayport]

This is how it will be twisted in few years. “We can’t fix our economy...but you can!” “Avoid penalties on your money accounts! Donate them to the Government!”.

"Saving hurts the economy!"

"If you have a savings account or a retirement account, you are depriving children of the use of that money for a decent education!"

"Having money in the bank is raaaaacist!"

[Bon mots]

Put another way...

IRS Revenue: $2.5 Trillion
Entitlement spending $2.6 Trillion
Interest on debt: $2.6 Trillion
When you count off-balance-sheet debt, the US has some $65Trillion to never ever pay off ever...

[chris37]

I think I’ll be rooting for the mob.

[mjp]

seizing a quarter of the value of big deposits at its largest bank

When bank accounts are seized, it is an assault the rich, and on savings and increases the insecurity of savings.This is an assault on the process of capital accumulation and the process of production.Individuals with surplus funds will have more incentive to hold their funds in hoards of money or accumulations of consumers' goods and less incentive to invest. This will result in less demand for capital goods or less demand for labor.

Less demand for capital goods leads to less production of capital goods and less capital accumulation. This will lead to economic stagnation and lower productivity of labor, which leads to lower real wages and lower standard of living for the average wage earner.

Lower demand for labor leads to lower money wage rates fir the average worker.

This is the future of America if the libtards can achieve their goals

[Dallas59]

I would laugh....but this is true reading in about 10 years.

[monocle]

Cyprus is now eating its seed corn.

[grumpygresh]

Another excuse to expand government, in the name of the people, of course. As small governments centralize, they are gobbled up by larger centralized economic systems. The authoritarians realize that the only way to make the fiat currency game work is one world government.
Hopefully, we will see a break up of the EU with competing currencies.