Ask yourself, "Who will send us a gun after we surrender ours?"Posted on 02/12/2014 6:38:41 PM PST by DeaconBenjamin
At first we thought Reuters had been punked when we read about the latest proposal by the European Commission, but after several hours without a retraction, we realized that the story is sadly true. Sadly, because everything that we warned about in "There May Be Only Painful Ways Out Of The Crisis" back in September of 2011, and everything that the depositors and citizens of Cyprus had to live through, seems on the verge of going continental. In a nutshell, and in Reuters' own words, "the savings of the European Union's 500 million citizens could be used to fund long-term investments to boost the economy and help plug the gap left by banks since the financial crisis, an EU document says." What is left unsaid is that the "usage" will be on a purely involuntary basis, at the discretion of the "union", and can thus best be described as confiscation.
The source of this stunner is a document seen be Reuters, which describes how the EU is looking for ways to "wean" the 28-country bloc from its heavy reliance on bank financing and find other means of funding small companies, infrastructure projects and other investment. So as Europe finally admits that the ECB has failed to unclog its broken monetary pipelines for the past five years - something we highlight every month (most recently in No Waking From Draghi's Monetary Nightmare: Eurozone Credit Creation Tumbles To New All Time Low), the commissions report finally admits that "the economic and financial crisis has impaired the ability of the financial sector to channel funds to the real economy, in particular long-term investment."
The solution? "The Commission will ask the bloc's insurance watchdog in the second half of this year for advice on a possible draft law "to mobilize more personal pension savings for long-term financing", the document said."
Mobilize, once again, is a more palatable word than, say, confiscate.
And yet this is precisely what Europe is contemplating:
Banks have complained they are hindered from lending to the economy by post-crisis rules forcing them to hold much larger safety cushions of capital and liquidity.
The document said the "appropriateness" of the EU capital and liquidity rules for long-term financing will be reviewed over the next two years, a process likely to be scrutinized in the United States and elsewhere to head off any risk of EU banks gaining an unfair advantage.
But wait: there's more!
Inspired by the recently introduced "no risk, guaranteed return" collectivized savings instrument in the US better known as MyRA, Europe will also complete a study by the end of this year on the feasibility of introducing an EU savings account, open to individuals whose funds could be pooled and invested in small companies.
Because when corporations refuse to invest money in Capex, who will invest? Why you, dear Europeans. Whether you like it or not.
But wait, there is still more!
Additionally, Europe is seeking to restore the primary reason why Europe's banks are as insolvent as they are: securitizations, which the persuasive salesmen and sexy saleswomen of Goldman et al sold to idiot European bankers, who in turn invested the money or widows and orphans only to see all of it disappear.
It is also seeking to revive the securitization market, which pools loans like mortgages into bonds that banks can sell to raise funding for themselves or companies. The market was tarnished by the financial crisis when bonds linked to U.S. home loans began defaulting in 2007, sparking the broader global markets meltdown over the ensuing two years.
The document says the Commission will "take into account possible future increases in the liquidity of a number of securitization products" when it comes to finalizing a new rule on what assets banks can place in their new liquidity buffers. This signals a possible loosening of the definition of eligible assets from the bloc's banking watchdog.
Because there is nothing quite like securitizing feta cheese-backed securities.
And topping it all off is a proposal to address a global change in accounting principles that will make sure that an accurate representation of any bank's balance sheet becomes a distant memory:
More controversially, the Commission will consider whether the use of fair value or pricing assets at the going rate in a new globally agreed accounting rule "is appropriate, in particular regarding long-term investing business models".
To summarize: forced savings "mobilization", the introduction of a collective and involuntary CapEx funding "savings" account, the return and expansion of securitization, and finally, tying it all together, is a change to accounting rules that will make the entire inevitable catastrophe smells like roses until it all comes crashing down.
So, aside from all this, Europe is "fixed."
The only remaining question is: why leak this now? Perhaps it's simply because the reallocation of "cash on the savings account sidelines" in the aftermath of the Cyprus deposit confiscation, into risk assets was not foreceful enough? What better way to give it a much needed boost than to leak that everyone's cash savings are suddenly fair game in Europe's next great wealth redistribution strategy.
probably will be soon
Nut-job Conspiracy Theory Ping!
To get onto The Nut-job Conspiracy Theory Ping List you must threaten to report me to the Mods if I don't add you to the list...
“It’s time to hang politicians from lamp posts and burn their buildings to the ground.”
Unfortunately (for them) that is likely the only way the proles will get their attention.
The almight POTUS (pen of the US) is busy taking notes.
All the more reason to keep the cash on hand somewhere NOT in a bank.
Somehow one of my favorite quotes has gone missing and it’s ticking me off. Wouldn’t bother me if I could recall it sufficiently but I can’t and I don’t remember who said it.
Have you any recollection of a quote that indicated if all money was redistributed evenly it would eventually return to the original holders.
It’s important because it’s profound and if I found out it is one of the things wiped from existence by big nanny it couldn’t piss me off more.
There are those close to this admin. that believe 401(k), IRA etc are examples of wealth and privilege that should not be allowed.
Remember also the mutterings in Hillarycare days and since 2009 that retirement accounts should be (partly) used to fund health reform.
IRAs and the like represent assets = independence, something these types of gov’t detest.
“It’s time to hang politicians from lamp posts and burn their buildings to the ground.”
That would be a modest start.
Ask yourself, "Who will send us a gun after we surrender ours?"I remember the quote, but don’t have a source.
If all the money and property in the world were divided up equally at, say, 3 o’clock in the afternoon, by 3.30pm there would already be notable differences in the financial conditions of the recipients. Within that first 30 minutes, some adults would have lost their share. Some would have gambled theirs away and some would have been swindled or cheated out of their portion (thereby making some others richer). The disparity would increase with growing momentum as time went on. After 90 days, the differences would be staggering. And, I’m willing to wager that, within a year or two at the most, the distribution of wealth would conform to patterns almost identical with those that had previously prevailed.
John Paul Getty
Dave Chapelle did a skit on that, in which blacks were given millions in reparations; the white news anchors were commenting on how eager blacks seemed to give the money back. One guy bought a truck loaded with menthol cigarettes, while another actually became the wealthiest man in the world by gambling his money in dice games. They also had the stock for phone companies go up as millions of delinquent accounts were paid up...
coming soon to a dictatorship near you
Bkmk
BBTT
The ruling class has been eyeballing the billions locked up in 401K accounts for a while now. They haven’t had the courage to take this on for fear of a backlash. But the current rulers are showing signs that they don’t give a damn about any backlash.
Bookmark
It's already been talked about in public...by "our leaders"....
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.
