In
the light of the Cyprus heist, the UK, US, and Spain are considering
depositor 'haircuts' too. Ze Germans
have this in mind for everyone.The Slog: Apologies for this, but WordPress has managed to swallow up an earlier post I made. Instead, it posted something in draft, and trashed the other one.
So herewith a summary plus update.
The Spanish finance Minister has floated the idea of a 0.2% depositor levy there. The Bank of England and the FIDC have issued a joint paper suggesting something similar, only bigger, in the event of an emergency in the UK or US.
Clearly, the idea of embezzling depositor funds is catching on. But Germany – who else? – is taking things a step further by suggesting that somebody else’s depositors be raped.
And for this little experiment, the Germans have chosen Italy. Refer if you like to an earlier Slogpost about Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung printing bollocks about personal wealth in Italy being higher than that in Germany.
Now Joerg Kraemer, chief economist of the German Commerzbank, has enlarged on this mendacity, and called for private savings accounts in Italy to be levied at 15%. “A tax rate of 15 percent on financial assets would probably be enough to push the Italian government debt to below the critical level of 100 percent of gross domestic product,”
he told Handelsblatt yesterday.
Net financial assets of the Italians amounts to 173% of GDP. This was significantly more than the net financial assets of the Germans, which corresponds to 124% GDP, said Kramer Handelsblatt Online. “So it would make sense, in Italy a one-time property tax levy,” suggested the Bank economist. “A tax rate of 15 percent on financial assets would probably be enough to push the Italian government debt to below the critical level of 100 percent of gross domestic product.”
Do please read the piece at the link above – it’s repeated again at the link below. It shows how Berlin (aka Schäuble) is systematically building up a body of shibboleth crap in order to support the infinite German capacity for “I am not to blame, oh woe is poor me”.
Source
banzai7
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CYPRUS: Brussels v Moscow – threats, lies and doubts on all sides
Slog banking source suggests Russian back-pedalling
Russian Finance Minister Anton Siluanov….concerned about cost of Cyprus bailout?
The “no” vote from Nicosia and wholesale decamp to Moscow is producing mixed signals all round
The Slog: Brussels continues to salt the press with opinions and TINA ( there is no alternative)
pieces this morning, the bottom line being that “we are not convinced
there is an alternative to levying depositors, and total bailout
put-line of a €10bn package from the eurozone”. But then, Dutch Finance
Minister Jeroen Dijsselbloem, who chairs the meetings of finance
ministers and probably drafted the release, said that the euro group
“stands ready to assist Cyprus in its reform efforts.”
In Moscow, the man with the fib for every occasion, Barosso of
Portugal, has told the Kremlin that “the EU Governments were not
informed of the Cypriot decision” about a levy, and so the EC couldn’t
warn them about it. Apart from EU Governments being a different group of
people to the EC, Schäuble’s opening gambit of a 40% levy, and massive
Russian bank deposit withdrawals on the Tuesday and Wednesday before the
deal, this explanation makes sense.And from the ECB soon after dawn today came a time-limit: accept the bailout deal by Monday, or else. Presumably a door somewhere in the Central Bank issued the threat, as Mario Draghi is hiding under a duvet somewhere in the attic.
So all the B-am-B axis has to offer are lies, obfuscation and
threats. Elsewhere in Moscow, the situation is more complex still.
Cypriot Finance Minister Michael Sarris continues to hold talks, hopeful
that the Russian companies and individuals who already have $31 billion
of deposits in Cyprus will affect Russian political opinion in his
favour. But although Russian President Vladimir Putin has already called
the levy “unfair, unprofessional and dangerous”, there were one or two
signs of Kremlin back-pedalling overnight.Sarris stressed yesterday that Cyprus is offering Russia “opportunities” including banking and natural gas assets in return for help in bailing out the island nation. He added pointedly, “We are asking for help clearly, but something that would make also economic sense for Russia,” Sarris told reporters in Moscow this morning before going back into the negotiations.
But a banking source with business interests in Russia suggested to me last night that Russian Finance Minister Anton Siluanov and his team are expressing anxiety about whether what the Cyprus team says it wants is really enough.
“I get the sense that they see the ten billion as something that will get the Cypriot government nowhere fast,” said the informant. “I think they’re right. There’s no point to the Russians giving too little and it being eaten up by more borrowing. So they need to decide what they want and how much they’re prepared to pay for it. The moot point then is whether Cyprus could swallow what they want.
But, as things start to heat up, you can always rely on a CDU MP to say something truthful and tactful. “Cyprus has rebuffed the outstretched hand of its partners. The vote is an act of collective unreason and the people of Cyprus must now pay a high price,” sympathised Hans Michelbach, a finance expert in the Merkel Government. Arbeit macht frei, and all that.
Stay tuned: this can only get sillier. And stand by for rebellion contagion in Greece.
Source
banzai7
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