Cyprus not even subtle about stealing from its citizens

[MooseBreath]

Incredible event in a so called "developed" country - the government is simply reaching into people's private savings and taking whatever they want.

I'd like to think that if this happened here there would be carnage on the streets.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-21814325

[Jon the Hat]

Absolutely outrageous. Revolution required!!!

[Finnegan]

Wtf, that's beyond bonkers.

[Guest BlueBrett]

The eurozone has to be disbanded.

[leicsmac]

Yet again, people who have naff all to do with the financial crisis are punished. Why the fvck does this seem to be the case around the world?

I don't mind an open rate of taxation that's high enough for high-quality public services, but this is nothing more than state-sanctioned robbery.

[Zingari]

When I first read it I was outraged , but thinking about it a bit more it is a fairer way to bail out your own economy than lumbering future generations , Or just leaving it to taxpayers who may not have any savings.

Many of the savers were getting generous but unsustainable high interest rates for many years previously

At least the bank account holders are getting valuable shares in the bank, which hasn’t happened when taxpayers bought our banks

I still feel uneasy about the power of the EU to practically force the government to rob your bank account though .And if it happened to me I’d be livid at the thought of losing 9% of my savings (easily about 50 quid)

[FoxesAreBlue]

Bit unfair on those that have been a bit careful with their money whilst those that haven't saved a penny get of Scott free!!

[lavrentis]

Eurozone and EU out

[lavrentis]

What is sad watching the EU crashing and burning is all the innocent millions it is affecting as well.

[Benji]

When I first read it I was outraged , but thinking about it a bit more it is a fairer way to bail out your own economy than lumbering future generations , Or just leaving it to taxpayers who may not have any savings.

Many of the savers were getting generous but unsustainable high interest rates for many years previously

At least the bank account holders are getting valuable shares in the bank, which hasn’t happened when taxpayers bought our banks

I still feel uneasy about the power of the EU to practically force the government to rob your bank account though .And if it happened to me I’d be livid at the thought of losing 9% of my savings (easily about 50 quid)

Depends if the bank goes bust.

[Kyle_Le_Don]

Could leaving the EU end up making us a proud nation again?

[Fox92]

Could leaving the EU end up making us a proud nation again?

It's a step that I'd like us to take, but we've still got a way to go before to become a 'proud nation'.

[BoneDog]

We'll be lucky to have a nation to be proud of the way things are going. The EU wants to crush all nation states and we will respect their authoritay.

[z-layrex]

Could leaving the EU end up making us a proud nation again?

Too many chavs/****** in this country now for us to be a proud nation again, and it's them who breed the most so we're ****ed.

I see the UK like I see Russia. Grotty.

[purpleronnie]

I kn

Too many chavs/****** in this country now for us to be a proud nation again, and it's them who breed the most so we're ****ed.

I see the UK like I see Russia. Grotty.

Thats sad, so many beautiful places and amazing people...but hey ho.

[Kyle_Le_Don]

=(

[Saxondale]

That is madness.

According to Reuters news agency, almost half of the depositors in Cyprus are believed to be non-resident Russians.

Tax those fvckers though.

[Steven]

A few things. One the levy should only have been on deposits over 100,000 Euro. Second if it did not happen the depositors would lose all their money, or nearly all. Thirdly when are the lazy, archaic, arcane Southern European countries going to drag themselves into the 21st Century at their own expense.

[Strawberry Sebastian]

horrible shouldn't be allowed people are poor enough already now the politicians taking their money even more and giving it to bankers. already got massive bonuses now need more so just nicking from the poor.

[breadandcheese]

When I first read it I was outraged , but thinking about it a bit more it is a fairer way to bail out your own economy than lumbering future generations , Or just leaving it to taxpayers who may not have any savings.

Many of the savers were getting generous but unsustainable high interest rates for many years previously

At least the bank account holders are getting valuable shares in the bank, which hasn’t happened when taxpayers bought our banks

I still feel uneasy about the power of the EU to practically force the government to rob your bank account though .And if it happened to me I’d be livid at the thought of losing 9% of my savings (easily about 50 quid)

http://www.telegraph...ts-people.html

This is a good article about why the structure of the bail-out is wrong on moral grounds. I've picked out the best quote as to why the current structure of the deal is wrong.

All deposits in Europe up to €100,000 are fully protected against loss if a bank goes bust. So any depositor with less than that amount must have felt absolutely safe. Instead, they will lose 6.75pc of their entire savings.

Those with more than €100,000 would have lost everything above the threshold. In other words, someone with €120,000 on deposit would have lost €20,000. Under the government’s tax plan, though, they will lose 9.9pc – or just €12,000. The deposit tax has saved them €8,000.

Extend that to depositors with €1m, and it gets far worse. Instead of losing €900,000, that super-rich saver ends up €99,000 out of pocket. That’s a direct transfer of €801,000 from Cyprus’ ordinary people to just one of those “oligarchs and mafiosiâ€.

In his statement yesterday, President Anastasiades suggested he could have restricted the tax to just those with over €100,000 but they would have suffered “losses of over 60pcâ€. In the domesday scenario he painted, that would have pushed the “whole banking system into collapse with all the attendant consequencesâ€.

He may have had a point, and those with more than €100,000 on deposit would have also included honest local businesses. But a better balance could have been struck than 9.9pc to 6.75pc.

From a purely pragmatic point of view and as Robert Peston made the point on the radio this morning, if depositors can no longer trust the guarantee of the €100,000 savers deposit protection guarantee, then bank runs are made more likely as savers look to protect their savings at the first sign of trouble.

[MooseBreath]

It does set a precedent for how these things are dealt with. Perhaps we'll see it happening soon on Greece and Spain and then maybe it'll spread north.

[digitalalba]

For hundreds of years, the banksters have organised a monetry system that doesn't fullfill the needs of the ordinary man and woman in the street, and whats even worse, is that we've supported it without knowing via the votes we've been casting every 4 or 5 years, yes, its true.

Google anything along the lines of Labour or conservatives with banksters or Rothschilds and you'll see how cosey they are, heres one http://www.google.co...bNrHv0gWJ2YCICg

Who are the Rothschilds?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ym4TTmOJ4I8

Watch the very next video

"the governments don't rule the world".

Think about things for a minute, there are MILLIONS of people in America that are in THIRD WORLD poverty, how many in the UK or Europe? How does that equate to politicians telling us generally that they 'do a good job'?

Did you know, that in America, if the monetry system that they have was in the interests of the ordinary man in the street, that minimum wage would be one hundred dollars per hour? http://www.huffingto..._b_2705428.html Should it be £65ph here?

Watch TV channel RT, sky channel 512, in particular

http://rt.com/shows/keiser-report/

http://rt.com/shows/...ng-set-summary/

http://rt.com/shows/crosstalk/

[Carl the Llama]

I haven't got the faintest idea how a capitalist economy works.

[harpendenfox]

_{aside from the rights and wrongs of the Cyprus scenario, it does raise interesting questions about finance and distribution of wealth. Here in the UK we have a national debt of just over £1 trillion. Given that government expenditure is primarily spent on provision of services and benefits (because that figure doesn't include bank bailouts), and is still increasing at a rate of about £125 billion per year, what hope do we have of ever paying it off? The only two levers available are to cut services or increase taxes. Meanwhile UK individuals and companies have over £4 trillion in savings and investments. Clearly it would be desperately unfair to tax the savings of people who only have a small amount of savings, but a tax on those more able to afford it which would help to eliminate deficit over a period of time, say five years, seems fair. If, say, all savings over £200,000 were subject to a one off tax of, say, 20%, you could argue that those being taxed would hardly feel much pain.}

[breadandcheese]

_{aside from the rights and wrongs of the Cyprus scenario, it does raise interesting questions about finance and distribution of wealth. Here in the UK we have a national debt of just over £1 trillion. Given that government expenditure is primarily spent on provision of services and benefits (because that figure doesn't include bank bailouts), and is still increasing at a rate of about £125 billion per year, what hope do we have of ever paying it off? The only two levers available are to cut services or increase taxes. Meanwhile UK individuals and companies have over £4 trillion in savings and investments. Clearly it would be desperately unfair to tax the savings of people who only have a small amount of savings, but a tax on those more able to afford it which would help to eliminate deficit over a period of time, say five years, seems fair. If, say, all savings over £200,000 were subject to a one off tax of, say, 20%, you could argue that those being taxed would hardly feel much pain.}

Are you actually proposing the government confiscate private property? Trampling over the rights of private property is a very slippery slope.