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1) Have your Standard Preparedness Supplies in Order. 2) Have Cash. 3) Have Precious Metals. 4) Buy a safe, then buy another one. 5) Off Shore Banking.

First they purloin the savings and bank deposits in Laiki and the Bank of Cyprus, including the working funds of the University of Cyprus, and thousands of small firms hanging on by their fingertips. Then they seize three quarters of the country’s gold reserves, making it ever harder for Cyprus to extricate itself from EMU at a later date. The people of Cyprus first learned about this from a Reuters leak of the working documents for the Eurogroup meeting on Friday. It is tucked away in clause 29. "Sale of excess gold reserves: The Cypriot authorities have committed to sell...

Growing wealth inequality means that the wealthy have nowhere to hide and that events like those in Cyprus will happen in more countries around the world, including developed nations, said Marc Faber, the contrarian investor and publisher of the Gloom, Boom & Doom Report. "It will happen everywhere in the world, in Western democracies," Faber said "Squawk on the Street" on Tuesday. "You have more people that vote for a living than work for a living. I think you have to be prepared to lose 20 to 30 percent. I think you're lucky if you don't lose your life." "If...

DELETION of data allegedly took place on computers belonging to senior Bank of Cyprus (BoC) executives, according to the leaked findings of a probe into the circumstances that forced the island’s biggest lenders to seek state assistance. Alvarez and Marsal, the firm tasked with investigating why Bank of Cyprus and Laiki sought state assistance, said the information provided by BoC was incomplete and data deleting software were found on the computers of two senior executives. “Our computer forensic technologists have found that the computers of two employees, (former CEO) Mr. (Andreas) Eliades and (senior manager group treasury and private banking)...

At least 1,600 Greek businesses - from shipping, retail to tourism - will suffer from the Cyprus bailout deal announced on Sunday after a showdown between Brussels and Nicosia, according to Vasilis Korkidis, head of the National Confederation of Greek Commerce (ESEE). “The tragic situation in Cyprus will certainly have immediate effects on the Greek market, since a large part of the domestic businesses maintain close ties with Cypriot companies,” Korkidis said in a statement on Tuesday. He was particularly critical of the capital controls and the impending haircut on large deposits (over 100,000 euros) expected to be more than...

I have served as a flag-man among the pirates of offshore banking... (snip) ...why the plunder of Cyprus is probably one of the most brilliant acts of wholesale theft the world has ever known, why the stolen treasure may be thousands of times greater than has been suggested, and why the names of the victims, and the full value of the loot, will remain a mystery forever... (snip) Though it may be easy to think of offshore depositors as foreign outlaws, pirates or simply “Russians,” this is not nearly the case. Cyprus was a leader – in some circles and...

“Government is theft.” The old libertarian battle cry came to mind when the news hit, two weeks ago, that Cyprus was about to confiscate 7 percent of all the insured deposits in the island’s two biggest banks. Nicosia also planned to siphon off 10 percent of uninsured deposits, those above 100,000 euros ($130,000), and use that cash as well to finance Cyprus’ share of a eurozone bailout. The reaction was so scalding that the regime had to back off raiding insured deposits. The little people of Cyprus were spared. Not so the big depositors, among whom are Cypriot entrepreneurs and...

Yesterday, we first reported on something very disturbing (at least to Cyprus' citizens): despite the closed banks (which will mostly reopen tomorrow, while the two biggest soon to be liquidated banks Laiki and BoC will be shuttered until Thursday) and the capital controls, the local financial system has been leaking cash. Lots and lots of cash. Alas, we did not have much granularity or details on who or where these illegal transfers were conducted with. Today, courtesy of a follow up by Reuters, we do. The result, at least for Europe, is quite scary because let's recall that the primary...

With news this evening that the Cypriot banks will not now be re-opening tomorrow (as perhaps - as we noted earlier - a little more of those precious deposits leaked away during the closures than expected): CYPRUS BANKS TO REMAIN CLOSED THROUGH MARCH 27: CENTRAL BANK We thought it useful to consider Cyprus in relation to the longest bank closures in history. Cyprus has now shutdown its banking system longer than Argentina, Ecuador, and Uruguay and as far as President Anastasiades comments that capital controls are temporary - we can only hope for the depositors sake - that it's not...

The decision of the government in Cyprus to simply take money out of people's bank accounts there sent shock waves around the world. People far removed from that small island nation had to wonder: "Can this happen here?" The economic repercussions of having people feel that their money is not safe in banks can be catastrophic. Banks are not just warehouses where money can be stored. They are crucial institutions for gathering individually modest amounts of money from millions of people and transferring that money to strangers whom those people would not directly entrust it to. Multi-billion dollar corporations, whose...

FOR all the criticism of bailouts since the financial crisis struck, virtually no one has suggested that depositors in banks be made to suffer along with their investors, employees and customers. Until this week, when the euro zone proposed that, in return for a bailout of the failing banking system in Cyprus, depositors pay a “tax” of 6.75 percent of their deposits — 9.9 percent for deposits above 100,000 euros. Because bank deposits in Cyprus, and virtually everywhere, are insured, the plan shocked many people who figured that this insurance was the one financial safety net that was still truly...

Apparently it takes a former Federal Reserve senior economist to ground everyone in reality. The European Union is no more and disintegrating rapidly: "The European project is crashing to earth,” Athanasios Orphanides told the Financial Times in an interview. "This is a fundamental change in the dynamics of Europe towards disintegration and I don’t see how this can be reversed.” ...This week’s events had made “a mockery” of EU treaties, he added. “It suggests that in Europe not all people are equal under the law.”“We have seen other eurozone countries, the Netherlands, for instance, put national interests ahead of the...

As expected, Russian depositors are fleeing Cyprus (and the EU/IMF) seeking protection from the tax crazed Troika/IMF/EU. http://mobile.reuters.com/article/idUSBRE92L0PI20130322?irpc=932 Of course, Russia and other foreign depositors should help clean up the mess in Cyprus. Not Northern Europe or Germany. Paul Krugman has a nice summary on his NYTimes blog: http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/03/21/cyprus-the-sum-of-all-fubar/ Notice that moving deposits to the USA is not discussed. Could it be that our Federal Reserve has already levied a tax on US depositors already? Via quantitative easing? Yes, savers are certainly experiencing a heavy tax via money printing. Stay tuned. Like the warning in “Twister”, “An F5 is coming!!”...

In the wake of declining to raid the country’s private bank accounts as part of the terms of a proffered bailout package from the EU and IMF, Cyprus was hoping they might be able to entice Russia to work out an alternative rescue plan for them, partially in exchange for some kind of claim on Cyprus’s gas reserves.So much for that plan. Russian gas giant Gazprom and oil company Rosneft did not display any interest in Cyprus’ hydrocarbons deposit offer to Russia, an Energy Ministry source told journalists. …Another problem is Cyprus’ territorial disputes with Turkey, he added.Asked to assess...

That provoked a threat from the ECB that it would cut off emergency lending to banks in Cyprus, with effect from next Monday night. The government of Cyprus is now trying to come up with an alternative plan, more palatable to parliament, before the ECB’s deadline. On Thursday, reports emerged that Cyprus Popular Bank PCL — also known as Laiki Bank — will be split into a “good bank” and “bad bank” to avoid bankruptcy. Bank deposits totaling €100,000 or less, would also be protected, according to Cyprus central-bank Gov. Panicos Demetriades. Still, that implies that deposits of more than...

The euro currency union, a centerpiece of Europe’s efforts to knit its far-flung nations into a coherent whole, edged toward a rupture Thursday when the region’s central bank said it was ready to pull the plug on Cyprus. The stark ultimatum came in a terse statement Thursday from the European Central Bank’s governing board, which said that on Monday it would cut off the flow of euros to Cyprus’s struggling banks unless the country’s leaders reach agreement with the International Monetary Fund and other European nations on the terms of a $20.5 billion bailout to save their country from financial...

Slowly but surely we have seen the walls that once limited what government could do pulled down. Retroactive tax increases are now permitted. U.S. residents can be taxed as punishment for private services they choose not to purchase. Can confiscation of assets with due process, in the name of the greater national good be far behind—even though such a move would violate the constitutional protections we all currently enjoy? The welfare state is out of control and cannot pay its bills. It is writing checks it literally cannot cash, having to take out IOU after IOU to get the markets...

Cypriot parliament rejects ruling party request to postpone vote!!! PIMCO says it is cutting allocations to Eurozone after Cyprus deposit levy!!! zerohedge‏@zerohedge Cypriot parliament rejects ruling party request to postpone vote zerohedge‏@zerohedge PIMCO says it is cutting allocations to Eurozone after Cyprus deposit levy – PM https://twitter.com/zerohedge Juergen Baetz‏@jbaetz NICOSIA (@AP) #Cyprus’ Parliament’s speaker says vote on bank levy will go ahead today, despite delay request by the governing party. #sigh Cyprus parliament rejects deposit levy: reports http://www.marketwatch.com/story/cyprus-parliament-rejects-deposit-levy-reports-2013-03-19-14912938?link=MW_home_latest_news Former Cyprus Central Banker Goes Off On The EU And Says The European Project Is Dying “We are witnessing historic times. What...

Well, Cyprus rejected the bank deposit levy that rattled financial markets around the world. After all, if the EU/IMF can call for such an extreme tax on a nation’s depositors, where will they stop? March 20 (Bloomberg) — European policy makers must weigh how far to push Cyprus after lawmakers in the Mediterranean nation rejected an unprecedented levy on bank deposits, throwing into limbo a rescue package designed to keep it in the euro. Neil Farage, the leader of the UK Independence Party (UKIP) has an interesting take on the Cyprus problem: let Cyprus declare bankruptcy and leave the banks...

The National Government are pushing a Cyprus-style solution to bank failure in New Zealand which will see small depositors lose some of their savings to fund big bank bailouts, the Green Party said today. Open Bank Resolution (OBR) is Finance Minister Bill English’s favoured option dealing with a major bank failure. If a bank fails under OBR, all depositors will have their savings reduced overnight to fund the bank’s bail out. “Bill English is proposing a Cyprus-style solution for managing bank failure here in New Zealand – a solution that will see small depositors lose some of their savings to...