The Cyprus Great Bank Robbery

President Nicos Anastasiades said Cyprus had little option but to accept the bailout deal, which imposes a levy on the country’s bank deposits – an unprecedented step in the eurozone crisis. Without it, he said, Cyprus’ banking system would have collapsed on Tuesday. 

Anastasiades said that’s when the European Central Bank would have stopped providing emergency funding to Cyprus’ troubled banks. Such a collapse would have driven the country to bankruptcy and possibly out of the eurozone, he said.

A departure from the eurozone is a preferable alternative to a bank burglary of your saving account. The interview in, ‘Europe’s Citizens Now Have to Fear for Their Money’ admits the worsening plight of added debt.

The euro-zone partner countries seeking to provide Cyprus with a bailout view the participation of small-scale depositors as a necessary evil. This is because any aid provided by the long-term euro rescue fund, the European Stability Mechanism (ESM), would be added on top of Cyprus’s national debt.

Now the excuse used by the establishment press to soften the blow of systematic larceny points to the Russian Oligarchs Lose Friend In Cyprus Banks, as exoneration for tapping the pocketbooks of shady elements. “Cyprus is known as a hot bed of Russian money laundering.” Well, that justification surely does little to make whole the struggling Cyprus natives that can ill afford the hit.

The video, Cyprus savers- EU bailout prompts run on Cyprus banks, tells a sad tale of financial enslavement.

The article, Russian Ruble, Stocks Nosedive on Cyprus Debt Crisis outlines the initial response to the announcement.

Under the terms of the bailout deal, Cyprus will have to impose a levy of 6.75 percent on deposits of less than 100,000 euros and 9.9 percent on deposits with greater sums. Cypriots reacted with shock and rushed to cash machines to withdraw their savings, but many machines refused to pay out.

Not long thereafter, The Telegraph newspaper reports on plan B, a feeble attempt to gain legislative support to pass the measures.

The Cypriot government has submitted a draft bill to parliament scrapping a controversial levy on bank deposits up to €20,000, amid calls from its central bank governor and eurozone finance ministers to ramp the exemption threshold up to €100,000.

The perspective analysis from ZeroHedge warns of the unintentional consequences from this pompous scheme of outright larceny in the essay, Will Russia Kill The Cyprus Bailout?

As Monument Securities’ Marc Ostwald notes “there’s a 50/50 chance Cypriot bailout fails because of the ‘massive danger’ a large amount of Russian cash flees Cyprus following deposit tax plans.” Russia has ~$60 billion exposure to Cyprus, including loans to companies registered in the country and after the haircut 90% of Russian deposits will still be free to leave the country if the levy is approved. 

The critical point is that, should this occur (such a large outflow of Russian cash – dwarfing in fact the size of the bailout package itself) it is hard to see how the Cypriot banking system could survive (even with the assistance of the ECB’s ELA).”

Predictably, Forbes waters down the unprecedented destruction of banking confidence that is so indispensable for the megabanks to rape sovereign nations. “The Bailout For Cyprus: A FAQ To The Latest European Financial Crisis,” makes it sound that the panic is simply business as usual.

And here’s the larger picture. Cyprus is badly indebted. Its debt-to-GDP ratio pushed to 127% in the third quarter of 2012, the latest period tabulated by European Union officials. Such high debt reflects Cyprus’ ill financial health. Only Greece (at 153%) has a higher level. The bailout would begin to reduce its debt, sending it back below 100% of GDP within the year.

So what can be expected in future confiscation of depositor funds? Prepare for the ultimate run on the banks, before the formula from the great vampire squid – Goldman’s Cyprus Post-Post-Mortem: “A Depositor “Bail-In” – And/Or – A Wealth Tax”, is applied on all deposits.

Despite Cyprus being small, and arguably unique, a depositor in a peripheral bank is likely to ask the obvious question: how likely is a deposit tax for me? The answer to this question, we believe, will differ, depending on the peripheral country where it is asked. But it should, in essence, boil down to two issues: (1) how likely are savings to be bailed-in in any future bank rescues; (2) how likely are savings to emerge as a tax-base for any future wealth taxes?

The Cyprus banking holiday is the forerunner of an international overt robbery by banksters. The biblical relief of a Jubilee, that writes down and forgives debt, is desperately required to end the financial slavery to the shylock swindlers. The centralization of global banking has an inevitable financial collapse as the end game.Today Cyprus, Tomorrow the World.

The Cypriot vote to reject the savings tax gives a short breather to a situation that only a breakup of the EU can resolve.