3.26.2013

Cyprus's International Accounts Have Been Drained, Only the Ordinary Folks Will Lose


Thousands of Cypriots marched today in Nicosia calling for the "Troika to Get Out!"

While Cyprus's banks have been closed for the last 12 days and Cypriots have lined up to withdraw a maximum of €100 per day branch offices of the two largest banks, Laiki and Bank of Cyprus, have remained open in the UK and Russia with no limits on withdrawals or transfers. According to Reuters, the bulk of Russian cash has already fled Cyprus and no one knows exactly how much money has left Cyprus' banks lately.

With credit card transactions stopped for ordinary Cypriots the smart money used an array of techniques to access their money either withdrawing it, transferring it to another casino bank system [Latvia's banks are taking in billions apparently] or simply swapping their deposits into multiple smaller untouchable sized accounts. The 'restructured' banks are supposed to reopen on Thursday and certainly chaos will ensue whenever they do. Large bank deposits in Cyprus are set to lose as much as 40 per cent of their money under a new bailout plan but it appears only the small businesses, pension plans and local savings accounts will still have money to be confiscated.

The teachers, taxi drivers, nurses, etc  that have worked for all of their lives will see their pensions wiped significantly out. The small to medium sized businesses who've always needed to have large accounts, like the grocery stores and shipping companies, to service ongoing transactions will take huge losses. The already high unemployment rates will soar. Everyone will pay for the bad bets of the banksters, everybody except the corporations and the rich who raked in the unearned profits while Cyprus's banking casino was in full swing that is. The Brussels' deal, sealed under pressure from European paymaster Germany, is destined to be the template for future banking crises across Europe. Look for Slovenia, already tottering on the brink, to be the next domino to fall followed by Malta, Luxembourg, Estonia and probably Latvia as soon as their casino implodes.

The only way out for Cyprus, and the others, is to get out of the Dutch, Austrian and German controlled Euro. Then to re-establish, and be in control of, their own currency even if it means a period of functioning on local currencies, barter and Bitcoin for international transfers.

It's important to remember how all these countries and their banks got themselves into all this quicksand. European banks and their fund managers, like greedy capitalist pigs everywhere, believed the comforting lie that the derivative investments - bundled up un-repayable, bubble priced, real estate loans -  being peddled by the Wall St. flim-flamers were sure to rake in lottsa dough. They then turned around and sold bonds to other brain dead investors based on the imagined worth of their derivative holdings. By the time those bonds came due the issuers had already realized their derivatives were worthless so they pleaded to their home countries to save them from their own ignorance and greed. The Eurozone countries then issued sovereign debt bonds to cover their bankster's debts. The national governments', being themselves corrupted by the banksters, announced that despite the world's nosediving international economy - as a result of the US's economic implosion - their country's future unending 'growth' would cover the principle and interest on these bonds. Of course things just got worse and now the only folks with any 'real' capital are the folks who have actually worked to produce something, folks like the workers, farmers, small businesses and pensioners who are now going to pay.

Ain't capitalism grand?