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"This is a nuclear war on savings and wealth," writes Jefferies' David Zervos of the Cyprus...
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Sunday, March 17, 7:46 PM ET"This is a nuclear war on savings and wealth," writes Jefferies' David Zervos of the Cyprus bailout. "This is a policy move you expect from a dictatorial regime ... not in an EU member state. If the EU governments can clandestinely expropriate 7-10% of their (citizens' savings) after the close of business on Friday night, what else are they capable of doing ... Why keep your money at a Spanish or Italian bank when you can jump to Germany or France ... Why even keep money in the EU banking system at all."
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Now the taxes on all sorts of things are taking more then 10 % from all Americans. Even the middle class.
wisdom???
Gees the party who passed it didn't read it either. Ask the great Speaker lady of botox ! You'll have to pass it so your can read it. Now MANY of those in the party who featured it have to explain it to there constituents.:>(
Glad I have oodles of $s to get my medical care.And, glad I don't live in the USA. As the days pass and when thee exchanges are finally set up your going to see ALL the bad things that England Canada and Costa Rica etc.. see. Your going to use multi year calendars for appointments. And, what ever you do.. Die before 70 !
But eventually it will be us that are the suckers. Once the guns are confiscated there will be little left to hold back the bureaucrats, politicians and financial elite from taking most of the liberty and freedom that we have left.
All private citizens everywhere in the world should be very upset at this development and very concerned if it is allowed to stand. When you lose your liberty and freedom it doesn't really matter what investment decisions you've made.
Please, enough with the hysteria. Is it ceaseless here in SA?
1) Eventually, we're all dead. I'm more worried about meanwhile.
2) There are over 200 million privately-owned guns in America. They're going to be "confiscated" by whom and what army? They can't even pass gun-control measures after massacres, but "they" are going to confiscate your guns?
Think you find something else more important to worry about, like making your financial future more secure.
"If ye love wealth better than liberty, the tranquility of servitude than the animated contest of freedom - go home from us in peace. We ask not your counsels or arms. Crouch down and lick the hands which feed you. May your chains sit lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that you were our countrymen!"
Tell me that three days ago you would have thought that an EU member state would arbitrarily decide to take 6-10% of all their citizens deposits from their bank accounts.
My financial future is irrelevent if I have no freedom or liberty. So I don't think anything is more important.
Heck, I'm even someone that believes we have always had gun and munitions control in this country and have no issues with updating the laws. But I'm also someone that is truly amazed that we have allowed: 1. Wiretapping with no warrants. Capture and scanning of all emails by the government. Car monitoring devices with no warrants 2. Drone useage in the US to spy on citizens. 3. Detention and indefinate holding of citizens with no warrants nor representation. 4. Financial databases being constructed to collect all private transactions of our citizens by our government. 5. TSA molestation if citizens want to board a commercial airplane. 6. All cars required to have "black boxes" capable of monitoring our every movement (of course - trust us we'll only use it in the case of accidents). The list goes on and on.
The "They" seem to have accomplished all the above with but a peep from its citizens. Yes, the taking of guns will take some time and effort - seems the first step is the database for background checks - have to know where the guns are before you can go get them. But at this point I put nothing past the state. Our freedoms and liberties are being eroded day by day - bureaucrat by bureaucrat - regulation by regulation - rule by rule (some even in direct contradiction of other rules) - tax by tax - fee by fee - law by law.
And yes, eventually I"m dead - probably sooner than eventually for myself. And I think I owe it to my children to ensure they have the same and liberties that I experienced. Without them its back to the USSR - truly amazing to think that we supposedly "won" the Cold War just 20 years ago and now seem to becoming more and more like our opponent!!!
You make some genuine points, but this is an investment site. The endless political palaver isn't very useful and gets tiresome.
Imagine the reverse: investors go the the top political blogs and start telling everybody to buy IBM or sell Apple, not discussing politics. They'd be hooted out of town.
So I'd buy your statement completely if I were inserting my political "palaver" in articles about IBM or Apple - but I don't believe I do that. Enjoy the rest of your weekend.
Regards
Or the Italian panic a few weeks back.
Too much politics, yes. ...unless Cypress is the ghost of Creditanstalt!
Well, yes. What the heck does Zervos think that the unelected bureaucrats of the EU are?
True, Cyprus is a tiny economy. But if the rest of Europe see how the EU allows the Cypriots to get away with such blatant treaty violations, I'm sure other European nations--much bigger ones--might think of trying the same. And when that starts, the only safe place for money in Europe is Switzerland, outside the EU.
Where do you see that? It sounds like the 10% asset grab is going through, despite its contravention of EU regulations.
Seriously, do you people really expect a bunch of old white dudes to hop in their pick-up trucks and stage a coup in Washington, D.C.? If you do, then you shouldn't be here posting on Seeking Alpha. You need to go "off the grid", buy some farmland, become self-sustainable, and move to Wyoming or Montana. The idea of a Civil War or coup being staged in the United States is beyond ridiculous, especially the idea that it would be even remotely successful, or that whatever form of order would be established afterwards would actually be wanted by those who survived.
"The problem with socialism is that eventually you run out of other people's money." - Thatcher
37%-40% of Cyprus bank account assets are held by "foreigners". But that includes the many British and French retirees. That includes all the ex-pats that live and work there. That includes all the Russian DUAL CITIZENS that have their money there.
Russian Oligarchs are just the boogeyman being used by the bureaucrat to justify their theft.
In the end, the reason governments chase more power is that governing is easier when you have more power. There's no evil conspiracy here; it's just that protecting human- or property rights is a major hassle.
This particular way of maneuvering Cypress to an EU exit will obviously backfire for the European banks in troubled markets - maybe even lead to an EU wide banking system. Whoa ... maybe that's the end game the EU has in mind.
Thank goodness I don't live in Europe.
"Cypress" - the tree or the semiconductor company?
It's hard to take your opinion seriously when you don't even know the difference between a conifer and a Mediterranean island.
1. Cyprus accounts have paid 4-5% interest in the past several years. Far more than Germany. So, the 6-9+% "tax" is basically a clawback of the interest spread between German and Cyprus banks over the past 2 years. Hopefully, you didn't move 200k into Cyprus yesterday.
2. Depositors are getting bank stock for their money. Better then the banks collapsing and them losing all the money. In the US the gov bailouts (C, GS, MS, etc) ending up breaking even or making money for the equity portions. So, these people may yet be made whole (or better). Again, better odds then if the banks collapsed.
3. Wouldn't all this make equity assets more appealing? If I'm gonna take a risk by having my money in a bank account for 1% - I'd rather have it in the S&P500 making 2.5%+ dividend income and possible capital gains. There's only so much money I can keep in a safe at home (and even that can burn down).
Another factor is that sovereign debt borrowing rates often are used to determine lending rates in each country. So for businesses that needed credit, the rates were often more favorable in countries where the government managed the economy better.
While I would imagine you thought your comment was a humorous way to troll for a response, there is a serious way to view the current status of Europe. Germany can do no more, and no less, than manage their own country, and try to show that managing a budget is possible. In some peripheral countries, a spiral of self interest for rewarding public workers is leading to debt levels exceeding GDP. The same thing is happening in California, and a few other places in the United States.
Come on, Germany can do more than that. It already ousted Berlusconi and put its own puppet in power in Italy, only to have the puppet get kicked out in the next election. It tried to rob mom-and-pop bank deposit holders in Cyprus, but is now running away with its tail between its legs. That's how bullies behave. I think Germany should do more to take over all of the EU. Why can't Germany dictate policy to all Europeans?
If you want to have discussions about conspiracy theories, you may find other forums that cater to that. Of course, seeing as how you like to stereotype and categorize individuals to fit into your world-view, I doubt you wanted a serious reply.
you want some investing info? where do we start? let's see... % of snp5k over 200dma- check; % of russell3k in highest rate of daily close increase over the trailing 30 day mark for the last 18 trading sessions-check; two of the lowest volume midday two one-hour trading sessions (11-noon; 2-3pm) in the last 21 years-check;
you know, i watch this orchestrated manure every day on more computers in a single setting than most people have probably touched in a lifetime;
i have never ever seen such mitigated bs as the hourly stuffing resulting from healthy permanent market operations by outfits using truly funny money;
this crock will go to untold heights of nominal valuation just as it did from aug 82 at 100; but will the world be richer, will the people be better, yeah; let's see, dial the clock back to aug 1938 when my grandfather returned from his native Munich Germany and wrote in his diary that the state fervor of runaway economic success as being experienced masked the dangers of Adolf Hitler's dictatorial grab of power and that the daily misery of the Weimar inflation he had lived through would most likely be replaced by horrors unimaginable that could destroy Europe;
how prophetic and i told my partners when we sold our high tech business in feb 2000 that it was a top of tops and the best thing to do was to buy bonds and pm because stocks were way overvalued;
John Adams was quoted as saying "there are two ways to enslave our people, the first with the sword and the second with debt";
my statement to all bulls is that nominally we'll achieve great new heights after ONE MORE CATASTROPHIC COLLAPSE that sets the stage for the bounce to end all bounces because the ONLY way to eliminate the debt is to inflate the underlying currency or else seize the capital goods of private holders, which will not and cannot happen on a scale sufficiently large to truly pay back the debt