The Cyprus Cash Grab - Coming to America?

Townhall.com ^ | March 19, 2013 | Neal Boortz

[Kaslin]

You were shocked - SHOCKED, you say - at the very idea that the government of Cyprus would order banks to seize 10% of every bank account and hand the money over the government? Well … excuse me for being rude, but maybe if you had been spending a better part of the last 20 years paying attention to the atrocities that happen with nauseating regularity in Washington, instead of going into an annual swoon over March Madness and/or the Oscars, or blindly tuning in to Entertainment Tonight every evening rather than an actual newscast, you might have seen this money grab coming. I’m no rocket surgeon, and I saw it coming (in America, not Cyprus) and I been warning the listeners to my talk show from 1993 right up until my retirement two months ago.

It’s simple. Taxing your income is simply not enough. The left is coming after your wealth. They’ll be satisfied with some of your retirement funds … for now.

If you haven’t been paying attention to the Cyprus story, here’s your short version: Cyprus is in financial trouble. The Cypriot government is led by communists. Trade unions are fighting austerity programs needed to erase huge deficits. Sound familiar? That is similar to the situation in the United States in more ways that you might imagine. So Cyprus did what every other troubled Eurozone country is doing: went to the Eurozone finance commissioners for a bailout. The commissioners said fine, but as a condition of the bailout Cyprus must levy a 10% tax against the outstanding balance in all depository accounts in Cyprus banks. Call it a tax. Or call it stealing. Either way, every Cypriot depositor loses 10% of their account. The government screws up, the people pay. Again, it sounds so very familiar.

Oddly enough, the people of Cyprus weren’t particularly elated over this move, nor were investors and citizens throughout the Eurozone. Imagine that! Cypriots immediately grabbed their ATM cards and started to withdraw as much money as they could from their accounts. Cash in their hands wouldn’t be hit for 10%. It was clear there would be a run on the banks as soon as they reopened. Now the plan to simply seize individual wealth is being delayed, though not abandoned.

Could it happen here? Well certainly it could. Congress could pass and the President could sign legislation calling for the seizure of 10% of every checking and savings account in every bank in America. This might finally be enough to cause a resurrection, but they could do it. So in America the wealth seizure has to be just a bit more selective and subtle. And that brings us to the warning I’ve been voicing for 20 years.

Go back to 1993. Bill Clinton has just been sworn in. The Democrats are running the show. They’ve passed a nice little tax increase – retroactive, mind you – and they feel encouraged. Along comes a lady by the name of Alicia Munnell. She’s been appointed by Clinton to be an Assistant Treasury Secretary for Economic Development. Munnell proposes a plan to come up with some cash to shore up Social Security. Not everyone, it seems, is “fortunate” enough to have a nice little IRA or 401k retirement account. Why this just isn’t fair! Everyone should have a comfortable retirement, not just the people who actually planned and worked for one! So Munnell proposed to Clinton an idea! Let’s just go out there and seize 15% of the outstanding balance of every IRA and 401k. Seize that money and pump it into the Social Security system. As it turns out, Munnell and Clinton never really had the chance to put their plan into action since the very next year the Republicans took control of the House and the Senate in the voter revolution of 1994. Munnell hasn’t gone away though. She now hatches her wealth seizure and redistribution schemes as the Director of the Center for Retirement Research at Boston College.

Never fear .. the idea is alive. House and Senate Democrats are even now toying with various plots to seize retirement and pension plans and pour them into some grand new government operated and controlled pension system .. a system that would be “fair” to everyone. This is just a perfect scenario for Obamian class warfare. “Those rich people are enjoying their fat-cat retirements with the money that should have been used to pay workers a living wage. They steal a comfortable retirement from the middle class and laugh at them from their yachts and private jets.” Yeah … that works. And as you should know, the government would certainly do a better job providing for American’s retirements than could free people interacting in a system of economic liberty.

Cyprus? I hope you enjoy that spectacle as it unfolds. Shake your heads and tsk tsk all you like. Just remember … the Democrat party is watching this episode and celebrating. You’re next.

[Eric in the Ozarks]

Is the Cypriot government freely elected ?

[Diogenesis]

"We are going to do it to YOU.
BUT our families and Moslems will be exempt."

[ClearCase_guy]

If we have any sense at all, we will watch this happen in Cyprus, and watch it happen in Spain, and when it starts to happen in the USA, we won’t watch at all — we’ll just start shooting.

[fruser1]

It’s already happening here. QE1, 2, 3.

Devaluing your cash by printing more does the same thing.

[Old Yeller]

If we have any sense at all, we will watch this happen in Cyprus, and watch it happen in Spain, and when it starts to happen in the USA, we won’t watch at all — we’ll just start shooting the ones who are responsible for it.

There. Fixed it.

[TurboZamboni]

Feds eye retirement-fund tax to cut $16 trillion-plus deficit

http://www.nypost.com/p/news/business/plunder_CrD9s6MElVsEIJj2IVgHuK

Are Democrats Eyeing 401(k)s, IRAs for Tax Hit?

http://news.investors.com/article/587818/201110121453/are-democrats-eyeing-401ks-iras-for-tax-hit-.htm

Maybe Obama’s already looking to Argentina for inspiration.

Google “Teresa Ghilarducci” and learn why she’s been called “The Most Dangerous Woman in America.”

This is something that they have been talking about for a years. I didn’t know the part about making the IRA’s non- transferrable upon death as well. Good grief!

The pool of money in 401(k) and IRA accounts is ginormous.

There’s no way the looters in D.C. can avoid thinking and dreaming about such a treasure chest. But they won’t make their grab directly. That would draw too much heat.

Instead, they’ll tack an amendment onto a “mom-and-apple-pie” type of bill, or a Defense appropriations bill, then we’ll wake up one morning with the bill already signed and the trucks backing up to our financial institutions. Or a tax on any and every transaction you can imagine however loosely related to your retirement money.

Either that or Barry gets a 2nd term and just does so via Executive Order. (anyone who objects is an evil “1 percenter”.) I think the eventual plan is to seize all 401K assets and replace them with a “guaranteed Federal pension” for everyone. One that is “fair”.

[henkster]

“Is the Cypriot government freely elected ?”

I don’t know. Is ours?

[Erik Latranyi]

Mass confiscation of private property is a line that cannot be crossed.

Of course, liberals will sell this to the low-information voter as something great!

The increases in your 401K are due to greedy corporations taking it from your other pocket.

They will tell you that they are replacing your property with stocks in something really good, so it is not confiscation, but an exchange with a massive upside.

Just watch.

The liberals are watching our reaction to Cyprus and see the revulsion. They know it will have to be sold here first, so plenty of people go along with it willingly because they trust Santa Claus.

[henkster]

In addition to the Constitutional and personal liberty problems, which are huge, there is a basic economic problem to these schemes.

Most retirement accounts are not held in cash, they are held in various securities. So you have an account, mostly in stocks, bonds, whatever, that is valued at $100,000. The government comes along and says you owe 15% of its assessed value, or $15,000. Most of us would have to SELL OFF our assets to raise the cash to satisfy the confiscation bill. What happens when EVERYONE tries to simultaneously sell off their portfolios? That’s right class; the price TANKS. But you need to raise $15,000. You wind up selling not 15% of your portfolio of $100,000, your portfolio isn’t worth that any more. You wind up having to sell most, if not all of it.

And the effects of that massive sell off on the economy at large?

A catastrophe. Think nuclear war, without the radiation.

[BCW]

Good thing US Citizens are armed — too bad for those in Cyprus, I believe the Communists don’t allow freedom of arms on the Island...better call John Locke - I think he has a few...

Only 10 out of 100 people have private firearms - of that only 30 handguns are owned by private individuals... and 104,000 shotguns are owned...looks like skeet is on the menu boys!

The Cyprus Military have over 296,000 firearms...they are not shotguns...see where gun control gets the population...

[Da Coyote]

“...Devaluing your cash by printing more does the same thing....”

Exactly.

[The Working Man]

Just like thieves everywhere, they might get away with their ‘deeds’ time after time. Eventually they will get get caught if they continue to do so.

The key thing after that is what should their punishment be?

Don’t ask me, I’m very tempted to go all ‘Old Testament’ on them. Maybe Hammurabi’s code will do?

[MrB]

Don’t forget “QE to infinity, AND BEYOND!”

“We’re going to keep injecting $85 billion per month until it works”

[griswold3]

Wednesday the Unions are having a ‘National Day of Protest’.
Hilarious!
The Fed spends $3.6T in 2012, $3.8 (minus $44B) or $3.756T in 2013 but there are ‘cuts’!?!? You can’t make this nonsense up!

[MrB]

And as Keynes is quoted as saying

“and not one man in a million will know what’s happening”

[Count of Monte Fisto]

The Cyprus Cash Grab - Coming to America?

Too believe that "it can't happen here" guarantees that it WILL happen here. So get prepared and warn everyone you know. If enough people are aware, ready, and locked and loaded then maybe the Banksters will back off.

“There is no safety for honest men except by believing all possible evil of evil men.” -- Edmund Burke

[MrB]

There weren’t any lamp posts high enough in the old testament days...

[GeronL]

resurrection?

did he mean insurrection?

[griswold3]

Let’s not forget the ‘war on savers’ with ZIRP.
The Defamation Of Independence

Mr Bernanke and his colleagues all over the central banking world are well aware of their fundamental problem. If there is one “entity” in all modern societies where the very concept of “savings” is seen as a deadly danger it is government. The act of saving (and access to something WORTH saving) makes for a nation of independent and increasingly prosperous individuals. Such individuals do not look for something for nothing. An individual who can sustain his or her life by their own effort has little need of being “governed” and will not be “ruled”. That makes the job of governance very easy, but the “job” of ruling prohibitively difficult. Since a government does not produce, it cannot “save” in the real meaning of the term. All it can do is to minimise its demand on those who DO save, those who consume LESS than they produce. That is anathema to a government intent on gaining the power necessary to “run” an economy.

The purpose of a “welfare state” is to convince a majority of the people that savings are not necessary. Once a welfare state has been put into operation - as it has been all over the developed world for a century or so - those in power go further. Their new task is to convince their subjects that the act of saving is not only unnecessary, it is dangerous to their “prosperity”. This would seem at first glance to be both a ridiculous and a formidably difficult task. It is. It has taken our “powers that be” a long time to succeed.

But succeed they have. The majority of the subjects of government all over the world have swapped independence for “entitlements”. That act, all by itself, has impoverished every nation in terms of REAL wealth. The higher the pile of IOUs pile up - the greater the impoverishment becomes. - h/t Zerohedge