Cypriot bank savers forced to pay towards Euro/IMF bailout

[Mrs Magpie]

Yes you're right I do look confused as I've just noticed the thread now has a more constructive title. It was originally titled - Naked theft by the scum that is the EU hierachy

I'll save my posts for a more relevant debate.

It's two threads on the same subject that have been merged...which is why we like unambiguous thread titles as it makes the pogofish effect less likely.

 

[isvicthere?]

So the owner(s) of this site object to free speech?

Yeah, that's exactly it.

 

[Mrs Magpie]

Yeah, that's exactly it.

Posts by Swagger... remind me of that best put-down you have for clueless hecklers (well, the one I like best anyway).
No, no, mate, you're doing it wrong, you're meant to make me look like a cunt.

 

[Gramsci]

This is the most jaw dropping thing I have seen in a very long time. In the UK we have personal bank deposits guaranteed by the government up to £80k. Reading around the internet this morning it seems Cypriots thought they had something similar. It's made me look into diversifying my (very modest) cash ISA into other things.

Very interesting comment piece on Economist.com
http://www.economist.com/blogs/schumpeter/2013/03/cyprus-bail-out

Article makes it clear this is socialism for the rich:

But there is no moral imperative for whacking Cypriot widows and leaving senior bank bondholders untouched, as appears to be the case here; or not imposing any losses on sovereign-debt investors in Cyprus; or protecting depositors in the Greek operations of Cypriot banks, as has also happened. The euro zone may cloak this bail-out in the language of fairness but it is a highly selective treatment

Staggering that even a mainstream magazine like the Economist can see this is really about bailing out those who caused the crisis.

 

[ViolentPanda]

Halfway? It's a bit further down the track than that!

If it were "further down the track", public provision of any service, in any EU state would already be a thing of the past.

 

[butchersapron]

Article makes it clear this is socialism for the rich:




Staggering that even a mainstream magazine like the Economist can see this is really about bailing out those who caused the crisis.

Even the New York Times managed to work out that:

Under an emergency deal reached early Saturday in Brussels, a one-time tax of 9.9 percent is to be levied on Cypriot bank deposits of more than 100,000 euros effective Tuesday, hitting wealthy depositors — mostly Russians who have put vast sums into Cyprus’s banks in recent years. But even deposits under that amount are to be taxed at 6.75 percent, meaning that Cyprus’s creditors will be confiscating money directly from pensioners, workers and regular depositors to pay off the bailout tab.

 

[cantsin]

I'm genuinely encouraged by some of the anti-E.U. sentiments I've read on this thread. The E.U. is a liberal entity. Or didn't you know that?

So..... A structure designed purely to help continue and build the neo liberal / market globalisation programme within Europe, to ensure a fluid , transient labour market and a unified trading block, and you think a largely irelevant but much bleated about 'social chapter' tacked on makes it somehow a 'liberal entity' ?

 

[ViolentPanda]

Rather surprised by some of the knee-jerk pro-eu posts at the start of this thread. Cyprus has been used by the russian mafia to launder money for the last few decades, that's largely why they are in trouble - through using the mafia money to buy up now worthless shit in greece, and now the mafia wants its deposits back. So in order to prop up this system, the neo-liberals at the Eu have decreed that ordinary savers (as well as the mafia types) have to have 7% of their savings taken off them and then given back to that mafia and to ultra-rich investors in the rest of the EU with the result of further attacks on wages, social services and so on. But hey, anyone that opposes anything the eu does is just a right-wing little englander - and all savings taxs are exactly the same.

TBF some people tend to see most questions as only having two possible answers - binary opposites, they don't often "do" subtle analysis, mores the pity!

 

[ViolentPanda]

So you wouldn't mind paying a one off 10% tax on your savings?

I wouldn't, but that's simply because 10% of my total savings would just about by someone 2 pints of best at London prices.

 

[ViolentPanda]

I wonder just how long before callmedave and oinkborne hear of this and decide to try something like this out on the 99 percent of us in the UK in order to protect the 1 percent {And to cover their inept attempts to get the UK's economy going}

Cameron and Co don't have to worry about armed citizenry taking potshots at them, though, unfortunately.

 

[coley]

If it were "further down the track", public provision of any service, in any EU state would already be a thing of the past.

I was thinking of 'phase one' ....consolidation of power, erosion of democracy,appointment of unelected federal ministers etc,the dismantling of social provision will gather pace during phase two

 

[Mrs Magpie]

Staggering that even a mainstream magazine like the Economist can see this is really about bailing out those who caused the crisis.

Increasingly critical articles about the effect of austerity on the poor are turning up in the Telegraph too....

 

[ViolentPanda]

I know Cypriots over here, some pretty elderly, who will be affected. They're not money-launderers and aren't exactly rolling in it. They tend to be low-paid, hard-working and generally thrifty.
This kind of action worries me as we have no debt, only savings. I've always thought credit cards, stuff on the never-never was a recipe for disaster as you never know what's around the corner. I can see now why some favour keeping cash under the mattress rather than trusting banks.

A lot of ordinary Anglo-Cypriots, Anglo-Turks here etc invested there because of the higher rates on savings compared to what's been offered by UK savings institutions for the last 5 years, same in Germany with their Turkish minority, so that's a lot of ordinary working class and petit bourgeois people who're going to find their retirement funds lighter. Some of these banks do enough business here and in Germany to have branches beyond the usual single "financial district" branch in The City. There's going to be a lot of pissed-off people.

 

[J Ed]

A lot of ordinary Anglo-Cypriots, Anglo-Turks here etc invested there because of the higher rates on savings compared to what's been offered by UK savings institutions for the last 5 years, same in Germany with their Turkish minority, so that's a lot of ordinary working class and petit bourgeois people who're going to find their retirement funds lighter. Some of these banks do enough business here and in Germany to have branches beyond the usual single "financial district" branch in The City. There's going to be a lot of pissed-off people.

According to this Cypriot banks in the UK will be unaffected by the levy/theft, presumably the ones in Germany won't be affected either...

What I want to know is how many Cypriot bankers/politicians withdrew their savings before they announced the levy/theft!

 

[ViolentPanda]

Isn't this just likely to cause a run on the Cypriot banks? If the government grabbed 7% of my savings I'd have the rest of my money out as soon as the banks reopened before they could come back for another slice.

Nah, they've presented the depositers with a fait accomplit.

 

[coley]

Nah, they've presented the depositers with a fait accomplit.

Aye but would you trust the bastards not to come back for a second bite?

 

[Belushi]

Nah, they've presented the depositers with a fait accomplit.

I'd still get my money out in case they came back for more.

I wouldn't be too happy with my cash on deposit if I were in one of the PIIGS either

 

[coley]

I'd still get my money out in case they came back for more.

I wouldn't be too happy with my cash on deposit if I were in one of the PIIGS either

Aye, if they get away with this, and they will, what's to stop the EU pressuring the rest as a precondition to further bailouts? Its the bare faced cheek of it, as the OP stated its bliddy theft

 

[two sheds]

Silas Loom, bioboy, Corax, two sheds, 19sixtysix, isvicthere? all express attitudes that could be described as "shoulder-shrugging" (which is what I said)

Amazing how difficult right wingers find the concept of 'tax'.

Pointing out that this wasn't a 'theft by the scum' as in Sas' thread title but was rather a tax.

Clearly what should really happen is the people at the top who have created the current problems thus adding to their phenomenal wealth over the last couple of years should pay. Problem solved.

Is that what you're after Sas? Or would you prefer the present government's approach of taking the money off people who don't actually have any, rather than taking it off people who do?

Not sure how you see that as 'shoulder shrugging' unless I can start criticising you for shoulder shrugging when our government takes money off people with benefits, which is the only other option that seems to be available.

I'm not sure why it being a levy makes it any better/worse. And yes it would have been much better if it had been people on only above say €100,000 who had to pay it - as I said at the start of my second post. My major point is that the right wing starts foaming at the mouth when people with money have to pay tax, while they seem quite happy when instead people with no money at all have to pay.

 

[ViolentPanda]

Increasingly critical articles about the effect of austerity on the poor are turning up in the Telegraph too....

Because they're finally cottoning onto the fact that although the idea of a neo-Victorian Britain turns them on, it'll mean problems for them as well as us, not least from us.

 

[ViolentPanda]

According to this Cypriot banks in the UK will be unaffected by the levy/theft, presumably the ones in Germany won't be affected either...

What I want to know is how many Cypriot bankers/politicians withdrew their savings before they announced the levy/theft!

Only protects savers if they use the "local" branches rather than banking direct with the Cypriot parent branches. In these days of electronic banking, one is as likely as the other.

 

[coley]

Pointing out that this wasn't a 'theft by the scum' as in Sas' thread title but was rather a tax.



Not sure how you see that as 'shoulder shrugging' unless I can start criticising you for shoulder shrugging when our government takes money off people with benefits, which is the only other option that seems to be available.


I'm not sure why it being a levy makes it any better/worse. And yes it would have been much better if it had been people on only above say €100,000 who had to pay it - as I said at the start of my second post. My major point is that the right wing starts foaming at the mouth when people with money have to pay tax, while they seem quite happy when instead people with no money at all have to pay.

I think appropriating people's money with out their permission equates to theft, if they have loads of laundered money in Cyprus then the correct way forward would have been to freeze all dubious accounts, not robbing a lot of poor peters to pay fat cat Paul's .

 

[butchersapron]

But don't you think that this type of system exists because ordinary people put up with it? They turn a blind eye and never get angry, and if the bank bailout had come from a big central pot of money, people still don't get angry because they don't connect cause and effect. But if people lose 7-10%o f their savings maybe they'll be a bit more interested in government and finance.

I know it must be bad for people who have lost money and I'm prepared to be persuaded I'm wrong but I don't see this as the EU being pro big business, the opposite, by saying to everyone, you're in the same boat they're making people take responsibility. If they just did a bailout the money would still have come from ordinary people I think.

Nicos Anastasiades was elected not three weeks ago with the central promise no taxes on deposits, that was a key plank of his platform. He was returned quite easily. Did the people show enough interest for you in this case?

 

[two sheds]

I think appropriating people's money with out their permission equates to theft, if they have loads of laundered money in Cyprus then the correct way forward would have been to freeze all dubious accounts, not robbing a lot of poor peters to pay fat cat Paul's .

So tax is theft, eh, yes I thought you'd probably believe that.

So you're in favour of the tory government's approach? I don't see them freezing dubious accounts. At least it seems that people with €100,000 in Cyprus will be paying some tax. In the UK the tax for 'fat cat Pauls' at the top has gone down while the real 'poor peters' - those who have no fucking savings at all because they're living hand to mouth - have had even more money taken off them. They're the undeserving poor, though, so don't count.

 

[junglevip]

Think artist, think taxi driver think:

 

[Lo Siento.]

Pointing out that this wasn't a 'theft by the scum' as in Sas' thread title but was rather a tax.

Not sure how you see that as 'shoulder shrugging' unless I can start criticising you for shoulder shrugging when our government takes money off people with benefits, which is the only other option that seems to be available.

I'm not sure why it being a levy makes it any better/worse. And yes it would have been much better if it had been people on only above say €100,000 who had to pay it - as I said at the start of my second post. My major point is that the right wing starts foaming at the mouth when people with money have to pay tax, while they seem quite happy when instead people with no money at all have to pay.

False dichotomy, surely? I'm in no way in favour of benefits cuts, and the idea that the alternatives are either a regressive savings grab or cutting social services is part of the problem here. Your idea that, well, it's "just a tax" IS shoulder shrugging.

The fact that Europhobe/EUSSR ranters are hypocrites doesn't make this shit acceptable by any means

 

[coley]

So tax is theft, eh, yes I thought you'd probably believe that.

So you're in favour of the tory government's approach? I don't see them freezing dubious accounts. At least it seems that people with €100,000 in Cyprus will be paying some tax. In the UK the tax for 'fat cat Pauls' at the top has gone down while the real 'poor peters' - those who have no fucking savings at all because they're living hand to mouth - have had even more money taken off them. They're the undeserving poor, though, so don't count.

You seem to be making a lot of assumptions based on no facts whatsoever, I have no problem with people paying tax, however this is about the Cypriot govt stealing money as a result of pressure exerted by the EU in order to secure a bailout, I find it disturbing that ordinary people can have their savings sequestered in such a way. If you want to discuss the Torys high handed treatment of the poor there are threads dealing with that, this is about the ability of a government having the ability to steal from its citizens.

 

[Kaka Tim]

Fuckin hell. The Cypriot government will have to go into hiding. The government raiding peoples savings is a major major breach of trust - esp weeks after an election where they promised not to do it. Its the sort of shit corrupt dictatorships pull.

Its like Germany in the 20s - people seeing their live savings go up in smoke.

 

[Tankus]

SikhWarrioR said: ↑

I wonder just how long before callmedave and oinkborne hear of this and decide to try something like this out on the 99 percent of us in the UK in order to protect the 1 percent {And to cover their inept attempts to get the UK's economy going}​

Cameron and Co don't have to worry about armed citizenry taking potshots at them, though, unfortunately.

But it has already has been done here ......Gordon brown raided £100bn out of peoples pensions while doing his part in laying the foundations for our current issues ,during his boom too..
It makes the Cypriot raid look small beer in comparison. The only difference is the time delay in its consequences , but they are the same ....

 

[ViolentPanda]

But it has already has been done here ......Gordon brown raided £100bn out of peoples pensions while doing his part in laying the foundations for our current issues ,during his boom too..

He stopped tax relief on pension contributions, he didn't "raid" pensions. He didn't dip into people's accounts.
I'm not mad about the cunt myself, so fuck you for making me defend him because you can't be arsed to get your facts right, you soapy cunt!