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Cyprus Is Only the Beginning
31 March 2013
(EIRNS)—It is becoming clearer that the great Cyprus bank heist, i.e., the so-called "bail-in" policy to save the financial oligarchy, is to be applied everywhere, not only in the Eurozone, but also in Great Britain, Canada, and the U.S. as well. According to the Greek blog, Hellasfrappe, it is being legislated in Canada, where on pages 144-145 of the "Economic Action Plan 2013," it reads: "The Government proposes to implement a ’bail-in’ regime for systemically important banks. This regime will be designed to ensure that, in the unlikely event that a systemically important bank depletes its capital, the bank can be recapitalized and returned to viability through the very rapid conversion of certain bank liabilities into regulatory capital. The Government will consult stakeholders on how best to implement a bail-in regime in Canada." We all know now what "certain bank liabilities" means. According to the same blog, the European Parliament will soon be voting on a new law which will make Cyprus-style bank account confiscation a permanent part of the solution whenever major banks throughout the EU should fail. "You need to be able to do the bail-in as well with deposits," said MEP Gunnar Hokmark (Sweden, European People’s Party group), who is leading negotiations with EU countries to finalize a law for winding up problem banks, Reuters reported. "Deposits below EU100,000 are protected ... deposits above EU100,000 are not protected and shall be treated as part of the capital that can be bailed in," Hokmark told Reuters, adding that he was confident a majority of his peers in the Euro Parliament backed the idea. This legislation is based on the EU Commission proposal, which was drafted and forwarded on June 6, 2012, to the European Parliament and European Council. In Chapter One, (48), it states that "Depositors that hold deposits guaranteed by the deposit guarantee scheme should not be subject to the exercise of the bail-in tool. The deposit guarantee scheme, however, contributes to funding the resolution process to the extent that it would have had to indemnify the depositors." What this implies is that depositors whose deposits are not guaranteed, are part of the bail-in operation. The savers with accounts larger than EU100,000, who are going to be robbed, include small and medium enterprises (SMEs), which have business accounts at banks through which receive payments from customers, and from which they make payments to their vendors, to pay taxes and payroll withholdings (e.g. social security contributions), pay employees — i.e., through which they run their businesses. These are the most liquid assets that are in the banks which can be stolen. But steal these and you immediately collapse the economy. The popular financial blog, the Slog [http://hat4uk.wordpress.com] on March 29 gave the example of Bank Santander UK, which it says sent out the following notice to its customers this week: Titled, "Important changes to terms and conditions for Santander business current accounts and business savings accounts" (like what people in Cyprus just lost 85% of the value in), the notice says what the changes are "For businesses with a business turnover up £250,000." That’s SMEs. The Slog points to Paragraph 1(b), which now reads as follows: "Any money held for you in an account with Santander UK plc will be held in its capacity as a bank and not as a trustee. In accordance with Financial Service Authority requirements we are obliged to notify you that the client money rules on money do not apply to a Banking Consolidation Directive (BCD) in relation to deposits within the meaning of the BCD held by that institution. As a result, the money will not be held within the client money rules of the FSA." The Slog translates this as: "We hereby abrogate all responsibility for the business funds you keep with us, because we can no longer be trusted. In fact not only can we not be trusted, if those nasty Government people spot we’re up the swannee and order us to restructure, all bets are off, and the chances are you’ll lose the lot because they’ll steal it for the bailout." This same blog suggests that the banks in the Eurozone justmight not reopen after this four-day bank holiday and we will all be Cypriots. [dea] |