We Are All Cypriots

A mere pebble in a huge pond....Cyprus is a land draped in sun and a fabulous warm Mediterranean climate. It has long been a paradise for tourists, though it has had it troubles too as the Greeks and Turks have battled it out for control of the island for generations.  As a mere side note and to place my story into this picture, my family and I vacationed in Cyprus in 1974 and were on the last plane that left the island.; a day later, our hotel in Famagusta was bombed.  I was only young but I have memories of tanks.  

Late yesterday, President Nicos Anastasiades briefed his nation on the radical plan to save Cyprus from it burden of debt.  

Here are the highlights of the deal with EU and IMF:

• Depositors with under 100,000 euros deposited must pay 6.75%
• Those with more than 100,000 in their accounts must pay 9.9%
• Depositors will be compensated with the equivalent amount in shares in their banks
• The levy is a one-off measure

As reported by the BBC...

The deal reached with euro partners and the IMF marks a radical departure from previous international aid packages.

President Nicos Anastasiades defended it as a "painful" step, taken to avoid a disorderly bankruptcy.

It had, he said in a statement, been a choice between the "catastrophic scenario of disorderly bankruptcy or the scenario of a painful but controlled management of the crisis".

But not everyone will share the pain....

"even more egregious, the word from Brussels is that while depositors will get hit, the senior creditors who own bonds in the banks (including, naturally, some of the racier hedge funds) will escape scot-free...overnight a widow’s life savings, carefully saved up over decades, have been gouged, simply because EU bureaucrats decided to protect hedge funds"....

So who in their right mind thinks this deal is equitable?  Who is sharing the blame?  Not the banks that caused the problems in the first place! They are immune and have political pardon from all wrong doing.  It is the working class, the humble servants of the elite who pay the bill and suffer the consequences. 

So why Cyprus?  Why was this not done to Greece?

I believe if has to do with the patient.  Do scientist experiment on humans before they first experiment on mice?  Cyprus is one of the smallest members of the EU. Once the plans have been implemented and assessed on Cyprus the EU and IMF will go back to their Frankenstein lair and reformulate their plans for the rest of Europe.  One thing is for certain it will not end with Cyprus....it is just the beginning...

Though Cyprus is a small nation and has little economic impact on the EU...the brash actions taken by the banking elite has enormous ramifications for any currency other than gold. Who feels safe with their deposits now....a warning shot has been fired and the bankster elite will stop at nothing from stealing your money and filling up their coffers.