Lessons from Cyprus

Pottynut said:

the new-found prospect of mugging ("a la Cypress") of ordinary people to pay off Govt. debt?

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Is that really what is going on here?
I got the feeling that what's happening in Cypress is closer to what should occur when a bank goes bust.
Deposit protection insurance pays out to the level of protection, the rest loose out.

I didn't read anything about it being to pay off government deficit ??

Well perhaps that's not what's happening here....... yet! The Troika's green strongarm heavies (a.ka. "The Government) have found plenty of other ways to mug ordinary citizens without recourse to their hard earned savings.

But Cypress sets the precedent for the next time the proverbial hits the proverbial (as it surely will) and with nothing left on the lower branches An Post and ordinary Bank deposits are starting to look more and more like the next low-hanging fruit, insurance or no insurance.

Will the forced at gunpoint robbing of deposit accounts trigger fear of all depositors in Cyprus?
Would that lead to a possible run on the banks?

Thank god for the Troika.
Keeping ATMS's filled with cash here, Greece and now Cypress.
What were the alternatives?
Cypress tried to do a deal with Russia but got turned down.

I suppose we should have just let their banks collapse and bring their entire economy with it.

Well true... thank God for them.. such lovely people aren't they... the Troika I mean; how in the name of God could we keep paying them back for the money they keep lending us if they didn't keep lending it to us... hell, we wouldn't have been able to pay back those lovely bankers and bondholders the money they gambled with way back when! Thank God we didn't do that because if we did they wouldn't lend us anymore money would they. How much would we have saved though I wonder?

Of course, they've all been telling us as well that Cypress was different....although I seem to remember that we were suppose to be a "special" case, not like the rest and we should be treated in a special way.

From what I read this morning (irishtimes.com/news/politics/german-finance-minister-warns-against-radical-change-to-irish-bailout-terms-1.1339966) someone with what looks more and more like an old agenda doesn't think we're too different.....and he seems to be getting his own way a lot!

I reckon we're not grovelling hard enough yet!

Pottynut said:

Well true... thank God for them.. such lovely people aren't they... the Troika I mean; how in the name of God could we keep paying them back for the money they keep lending us if they didn't keep lending it to us... hell, we wouldn't have been able to pay back those lovely bankers and bondholders the money they gambled with way back when! Thank God we didn't do that because if we did they wouldn't lend us anymore money would they. How much would we have saved though I wonder

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Right, so Eurozone banks should have automatically presumed irish banks were reckless and not creditworthy.

Never you mind what the Irish Regulator, (you know the one charged with overseeing those banks), had to say.

And i'm sure the Irish public for their part, would have been just grand with Eurozone banks refusing them access to credit based upon... what exactly?

What have the Irish public ("us" I mean), ever had to do with anything in this country? We're "grand" with whatever we're told is "grand" aren't we? And we generally think what we're told to think don't we? Aren't we the best and the brightest in the class after all....we must be , cos they keep telling us that anyway?God, we can do tricks as well!

Things are shaping us as we speak - irishtimes.com/news/politics/germany-s-rethink-on-just-where-the-blame-lies-for-the-irish-bank-bailout-1.1339854

An article written from an irish perspective for an irish audience. Quelle surprise.
But how can you blame Germany when they aren't even our biggest creditor?

Central Bank statistics show that euro zone investment to pre-crisis Ireland came in fourth place, behind the UK, the US and other offshore sources. Was there any way to throttle the flow of foreign capital into boom-time Ireland, to stop foreign banks lending so much into the bubble?

“I think it’s fair to say that if anyone in the treasury suggested intervening to limit capital flows to Irish banks in the boom, they would have been taken out and shot,” says Michael Somers.

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Plus it was German taxpayers that picked up the tab (500 million) on the losses of an irish subsidary operating on our shores - Depfa / Hypo Real Estate.

jman0war said:

An article written from an irish perspective for an irish audience.

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Thats what I said!

All we need now is for Wolfgang to tell Michael what his next circus trick has to be and we're off again! But we should be "grand" with that I think!

When does Arthur's day come round again?

Yeah well, we've pretty well proved we can't be trusted to manage our own affairs.

jman0war said:

Yeah well, we've pretty well proved we can't be trusted to manage our own affairs.

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Could we ever? Easter was a right waste of time wasn't it? Still, we'll feel much better kissing German leather for another hundred years

I've had enough now !

Pottynut said:

Well true... thank God for them.. such lovely people aren't they... the Troika I mean; how in the name of God could we keep paying them back for the money they keep lending us if they didn't keep lending it to us... hell, we wouldn't have been able to pay back those lovely bankers and bondholders the money they gambled with way back when! Thank God we didn't do that because if we did they wouldn't lend us anymore money would they. How much would we have saved though I wonder?

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Do you know who the bond holders are?
Do you know what would happen to Irish banks, pensions, credit unions, sports clubs, charities, businesses, households etc if we didn't get a bail out?
Do you know what would have happened to public services and state employees?

The People against Logic crowd, former senator TD apologists for certain rogue bankers, bankrupt builders in pink and former terrorists with economic policies that don't even fly in Cuba any more think we should have given the two fingers to the EU/IMF guys but most people who share the other (real) view of reality know that this is the best option available to us.

Question, was there a levy put on current accounts over 100k or just savings accounts?

At a personal level, I think one of the lessons learned from Cyrpus is to make sure there is some cash held at home (which brings its own problems).

This article gives the views of two of Germany's five "wise men". These guys seem important as they appear to directly advise the German government on economic matters.

They conclude that the deposit raid in Cyprus was wrong but they have come up with a proposal which to me seems difficult to argue against. The following quote is particularly on the button:

Prof Bofinger told Spiegel Magazine that it was a mistake to target deposit holders in banks, the formula used in the EU-IMF Troika bail-out for Cyprus where those with savings above €100,000 at Laiki and Bank of Cyprus face huge losses. “The canny rich in southern Europe just shift their money to banks in Northern Europe to escape seizure,”

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Faced with evidence that Club Med (and presumably Irish) citizens are in fact wealthier than their German counterparts they propose that the template for future bail outs should include a wealth tax/confiscation in the affected country.

This seems to make an awful lot of sense in an Irish context anyway. A simple narrative is as follows. We borrowed from German banks and transferred great wealth into a minority of our citizens' coffers based on totally false evaluations of the value of their land and property. The key point is that all that borrowed dosh is by and large still here making some people windfall tycoons. Their wealth was created from bogus claims (not blaming them of course) and should be fair game in contributing to paying back those loans.

Ideally, any wealth tax/confiscation should be targeted at the bogus windfalls, though this may prove constitutionally difficult.

Another interesting quote from the article:

Critics have long argued that North Europe is equally to “blame” for the crisis since it flooded the South with cheap credit

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This rather smacks of blaming the barman for his customers' loutish behaviour.