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Comment by celeste vogel-dillon on March 19, 2013 at 14:34

Just read this on Expatia ----- interesting -----http://www.expatica.com/fr/news/local_news/france-says-eurozone-una...

Comment by Brian Milne on March 19, 2013 at 14:16

Sure Norman, I agree about the frighteners. Unfortunately that goes two ways. Look at the UK, they have a bunch of loonies who would run the asylum in the shape of UKIP. What a bunch. Lead by a demagogue who decides who does what, if they may stand for office or not when in many countries he would not be able to hold political office because he has a pending bankruptcy order against his company, has massive debts, on top of which he was a trader in banking who bailed out and more. They then imagine they can leave the EU but will be allowed to keep the trading agreements, etc, etc. They are seen in economic terms as people who create financial disasters that will drag down the economy. They are jumping up and down shouting about Cyprus bringing down the EU and especially the Euro. What for Pete's sakes has the Euro to do with them? The UK is not in so why does a political party plot its downfall as they are? Thus back to square one. Cyprus, despite the jumping up and down by these gloom mongers will not bring down the EU. At this precise point in time one might be better off sticking their money in a Cypriot bank rather than a British or French one since the indicators show that the situation is such that they will hit zero soon and once they have done that, those that survive can only bounce back up and EU/IMF subvention will prop them up. Put money in them soon and it will grow.

Has anyone heard about New Zealand? They are passing legislation which will give their reserve bank rights to seize deposits? It is being called a 'shave' and other countries such as Australia are watching it with similar in mind. It is very similar to what Cyprus tried. As with all depositor charging, especially the Russians who invested in Cypriot banks who started this collapse by not wanting to pay, it cannot go well. If the UK leaves the EU and UKIP has too much influence for external investors to like what they see, then 'shaving' will be inevitable. Around 50% of all the deposits in Cyprus are have been said to be Russian. 'Official' statistics say €20bn of €70bn which is about 28%. Paul Krugman's blog is saying that the figure is most likely higher. I tend to agree and it is probably not 50%, but 35 to 40% might actually be closer. If the UK left the EU and too many concessions were lost then the vast amounts of money depositors have in UK banks that make €70bn look like bird seed would start to bleed out because with lost subventions like agricultural subsidies only higher taxation and 'shaving' could make up those losses. As Cyprus tried, tax the money of the wealthy and they'll take it away and put it somewhere where it is not taxed. 

I think Cyprus will be sorted out, but what has actually happened should be a warning and the frightener message should be that the world is getting 'smaller' and the places to hide away in are being ringed by powerful forces. We may not like what is being done in France but one thing is sure, none of this is likely here because the big money is generally not kept here anyway, so nothing for the government to shave. As much as I hate to say it, but it is one thing they have (accidentally) got right.

I used the UK as my example of the loonies running the asylum but they are appearing in too many places and Grillo's 'Five Stars Movement' being another news making example. It might look like a bit of fun or a great way of ending some kind of confederation of European countries but economically it is as suicidal as the Cypriot government's actions have been. Watch out everybody, there are interesting times coming but if you have any money, then stash it under your mattress rather than trust a bank.

Comment by Theo Fruendt on March 19, 2013 at 11:36

John, I was being sarcastic & maybe should not have written of Berthold Brecht but about Dante's "divine comedy": the decision on expropriation of savers in Cyprus is aimed directly at the four main characters of this morality play outcome of the election in Italy! This is worthy of the wackiest tradition of commedia dell 'arte.

My hope Italy will not be the €uro-killer is fading with the same speed as Cameron and Hollande, are quick on hand to raise pulses with an Anglo-French offensive to weaponize Syrian "rebels", - a bunch of criminals supported by Salafist ideologists and royal Saudi dictators. As with all matters EU, if it can get more pathetic, it will. All hell is breaking loose in the EU. Le Monde insists Europe is not in agony. Oh yes, it is in a coma.

Comment by Norman Clark on March 19, 2013 at 11:17

Hi Brian, of course you are quite right, but there really is an urge in me to 'put the frighteners' on these buggers destroying not just us oldies lives, but those of generations to come.

They (banksters and politicians) really do seem to be doing precisely what they like and 'two-finger's to anyone who doesn't like it.  In the words of someone or other - maybe me - it p***** me off mightily that we the 'sheeple' don't seem to have found a way of getting through to them.

I always remember in days of yore when I was in the business, I always used the word 'fear' in its widest use, as being the prime motivator, but I think I am having to revise that to just 'greed' at least in the case of our great leaders.

Comment by Brian Milne on March 19, 2013 at 9:03

Some great wisdom in there Norman. True, 'we' made the crooks by accepting their faux generosity. Their hands were out with the money that from top to bottom nobody could quite resist. Now that cycle has reached an end, it is at breaking point but cannot concede that. On the other hand, none of the numerous 'great empires' we know of has ever gone down too easily and most have only themselves to blame for their demise. So, seen economically, is this phase of capitalist social organisation. That is not to say that it will collapse, as it eventually will if even 60 years hence rather than today, that it will be replaced by a socialist world, Utopia or any other supposedly 'better' world. It will be replaced by something. Will a 1789 type of change come about? Perhaps not, I think that what the world has made of itself works counter-intuitively to the world of that age, we have too much material comfort in the world where revolution would need to begin to change the world but there is too much angst in the world left from the world wars, the continued 'threat' of nuclear weaponry, even the changes in the late 80s that removed 'them' and 'us' and saw Russia emerge out of the Soviet ashes to become one of the richest nations in the world against all predictions. 

Survival is the instinctive thing that remains but in a world of individuals less self-reliant than a couple of hundred and some years ago revolution also does not work. Urban society is already chaotic, to render that into anarchic chaos would be to see entire nations become ungovernable, to be ungovernable would mean that the anarchy would need to spill over to give respite, food and a notion of 'escape'. Would our little bits of land and couple of chickens be secure? That is the question. The cycle of self destruction would need to be an equivalent of the European 'Dark Ages' between the end of the vestiges of the massive Roman empire and the rise of new and gradual formation of nations. That is all also part of the economic cycle as well as simply social history. It is the point at which banks and the rest of the financial world no longer matter. The extremely rich and powerful oligarchy will be able to do what their historical predecessors did and remain rich and powerful within 'fiefdoms' and some time in the future will be equivalents of royalty and aristocracy in even not by those names. It is not really apocalyptic, simply what we build up and break every few centuries because the world becomes overloaded and saturated with excessive power that has no foundations. Today that is the enormous burden of all the finance in the world that is slopping around but does not actually exist. We old timers, Norman, may not see this. I suspect my children will in their lifetimes. I feel sorry for them.

Comment by Norman Clark on March 19, 2013 at 7:41

I am a bit like Brian on this one, as I too have learned (early) never to trust banks, and/or Governments, and have no debts.  When did you last see a poor politician? Politicians in Australia wiped out our pensions there as 'there is no protocol between France and Australia for payment' (Hmm?)  Ditto in New Zealand, and even Brits don't get them either if they leave the country.

This new scam is proclaimed a 'one-time levy' but it establishes a precedent - as if any were needed by these economic vandals.

However, I think we do need to think about many of the causes of the whole rotten mess - that of banks offering easy money to people who should never have received it.  In many countries including the UK it wa sno secret that people were living way beyond their means, often using a spurious (as it turned out) increased value of their homes to substantiate their spending.  I recall seeing youngsters with almost wads of credit cards with spending limits (limits?!) of up to £2000 a time.  They were walking round with credit of £20-30,000!!

OK blame the banks for making it easy, but there is I suggest a case against those of us who didn't have the brains or sense to realise that borrowed money a) has to be paid back and b) at high interest rates.  Not exactly rocket science is it? 

WE have made the crooks by playing into their hands.

Even those of us who have no overt debts are still vulnerable simply by having  a bank account now, and even stashing it under the mattress wouldn't make a difference if the financial/thought police (aka politicians) decided to send in the troops to ransack your house to get at it.

Not so long ago I went through the exercise of "what happpens if.........?" - in my case 'if my small pension vanished?'  We discovered we had three assets of merit.  1) we had enough land to at least grow subsistence food 2) We had an open fireplace for cooking  and 3) above all we had a source of natural fresh water.

Happily we have just about replicated that with our new purchase, but with less land of our own, but surrounded by fields.

On the downside is of course age, and probable increasing infirmity. Not exactly a paradise on earth, but  a lot better than those people stuck in cities and appartments.  Where will they find these things?  Obviously by raping the countryside - and who could blame them?  Survival is a basic instinct.

Of course this is a apocalyptic scenario, but not one that hasn't been seen before in Europe is it?

I keep hoping to see some brains and leadership breaking out from those far more intelligent than I am, but I must be looking in the wrong direction as I can't see any, anywhere.  Maybe it is time to make our leaders fear us a bit - and not just at the ballot box which today is a mere sop.

I seem to recollect there was something along these lines in 1789?

Comment by Brian Milne on March 19, 2013 at 6:29

John, quite right. I cannot remember exactly but perhaps it was Paul Krugman who compare economies to dogs. They spend a lot of time sleeping, other times laying their looking, then they get up and bark a lot, sometimes they bite. What you never see until you look closely are the ticks and fleas that keep them itchy. Your parasites. 

Comment by John Scully on March 18, 2013 at 22:35

Celeste all these guys take a percent here, a percent there and of course no matter if your investment goes up or down their fees have to be paid. IMHO there are too many opportunistic parasites dealing in financial mumbo jumbo. 

Comment by Chris Iles on March 18, 2013 at 22:31

Take into account £ deflation  and  UK price inflation its a better deal to keep your money in a Cyprus Bank than a UK one

Comment by John Scully on March 18, 2013 at 22:24

I'm not sure I understand your point Theo. One scrimps and saves and deposits one's money with a banker who then through greed and/or incompetence bankrupts the bank. He/She keeps their highly paid job, the civil servants that should have regulated keep their jobs but the depositor (and taxpayer) pays the price. Not really on is it?

For me Theo Brecht's most apposite quote is......

"Do not rejoice in his defeat, you men. For though the world has stood up and stopped the bastard, the b**** that bore him is in heat again." 

Nothing has really been done to curtail the excesses of the Financial Services sector. 

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