Major European Bank Runs Now Taking Place - Nigel Farage

Farage:  “They were quite prepared to break their own deposit guarantee scheme initially, but they have now gone for a much, much more spectacular coup in terms of the amount of money they are going to steal from big companies, and from bigger savers (deposits over 100,000 euros)....

“I must say the thing I find the shabbiest about it is there insisting that it doesn’t need to be subjected to a vote in the Cypriot Parliament.  I very much hope that the members of the Cypriot Parliament say, ‘To hell with that, we demand another vote.’

It’s funny isn’t it, the Germans are going to have a vote on it in their Parliament, but the Cypriots are being told that they shouldn’t have a vote on it.  If that’s not moving into a German dominated Europe, I don’t know what is.  

I said last week that I felt any savers who had money in other eurozone banks, particularly in the Southern eurozone countries, really ought to think seriously about getting their money out.  Well, this afternoon something far more serious has happened.  The Dutch Finance Minister, about an hour and a half ago, said that he saw the Cyprus eurozone bailout as now being a template of how they intend to act in the future.  So the burden of all of this will now fall on the private sector, and not on the public sector.
Frankly, what that now says is that anybody that has money, or anybody that has big money sitting in a Spanish or an Italian bank, and particularly if you happen to be a financial officer for a company, it would be criminally negligent of you to now leave your money or a company’s money in a Spanish or an Italian bank.

A deposit in a bank is not a riskless form of saving - Now A Warning? + EUROGROUP SKETCH: Two farts discussing Cyprus

By Tim Price: Like Lehman Brothers before it, Cyprus may well come to be seen not so much as the cause of further crisis but as yet another symptom of the ‘long emergency’ that continues to suffocate the western economies.
We would describe this emergency as, fundamentally, an inevitable crisis triggered by an unsustainable explosion of credit; western banks and western governments are now like Macbeth’s “…two spent swimmers, that do cling together / And choke their art.”
The prime minister of Luxembourg, Jean-Claude Juncker, has provided two clear insights into this world of deceit:
“We all know what to do, we just don’t know how to get re-elected after we have done it.”
And,
“When it becomes serious, you have to lie.”
This is what we now have by way of government: a self-serving elite who cannot be trusted, operating to a timetable defined by, and limited to, the electoral cycle.
This liberty deficit is possibly more severely damaging than the supposedly intractable fiscal one that lies beneath it. Yet whatever emerges from the disaster, Cyprus has reminded us of a couple of awkward truths:

1. A deposit in a bank is not a riskless form of saving.

The Russians Have Already Quietly Withdrawn All Their Cash From Cyprus!

Submitted by Tyler Durden: Yesterday, we first reported on something very disturbing (at least to Cyprus' citizens): despite the closed banks (which will mostly reopen tomorrow, while the two biggest soon to be liquidated banks Laiki and BoC will be shuttered until Thursday) and the capital controls, the local financial system has been leaking cash. Lots and lots of cash.

Alas, we did not have much granularity or details on who or where these illegal transfers were conducted with. Today, courtesy of a follow up by Reuters, we do.

The result, at least for Europe, is quite scary because let's recall that the primary political purpose of destroying the Cyprus financial system was simply to punish and humiliate Russian billionaire oligarchs who held tens of billions in "unsecured" deposits with the island nation's two biggest banks.
As it turns out, these same oligrachs have used the one week hiatus period of total chaos in the banking system to transfer the bulk of the cash they had deposited with one of the two main Cypriot banks, in the process making the whole punitive point of collapsing the Cyprus financial system entirely moot.

No Bank Account is Safe Today (Not Just The Ones in Cyprus) + The Max Keiser Chiefs Warned You in 2005!

MK: Max Keiser warned that Refco was the first sign that all was not okay in the global derivatives market.

GLOBAL LOOTING: Bernanke shifty on US depositors. + UK Nuclear Smoke Signals + Imminent Global 'death spiral'

The Slog: The global roll-out of thieving from citizen savers continues. I missed this three days ago, but I’m grateful to a US Slogger for pointing it out to me: on March 22nd, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke refused to say that the United States will not use Cypriot techniques of taxing the people by confiscating a percentage of their savings accounts.

During a press conference held to explain his view on economic conditions in the United States, Bernanke said his meetings with the Federal Open Market Committee drew him to the conclusion that the economic outlook is “following its own pre-established expectations”….which could of course mean down a mineshaft or up in an Atlas rocket.
However, when pressed about whether an EC-style approach to Cyprus (involving taking money from savers) might be on the cards in the US, Bernanke spoke less than plainly.
The government of Cyprus last week accepted the principle of stealing funds from private citizens as a condition to get a so-called ‘bailout’ from the five-humped camel of eurozone aid. “I was wondering if you can tell me,” one reporter asked optimistically, “how if a run on the banks happens in Cyprus, how that might affect U.S. markets. And also is it possible for the U.S. to levy a tax on regular deposits here? Or why not?”
Bernanke replied somewhat oddly, “the only trigger for actions such as the ones taken in Cyprus would be if depositors panicked”. I say ‘oddly’ because surely the catalyst for panic would be, um, if news leaked that the US Government was indeed about to rob depositors.
Either way, by not stating clearly whether it could happen in the U.S. or not, Bernanke effectively suggested that the door is open for money-seizing in the U.S.

Britain & Wahhabism + Unknown Unknowns

Press TV:  No one can reject the role of the British Colonel, fashioned in Hollywood as the Lawrence of Arabia, in Arabs' fight against the Ottoman Empire and the subsequent formation of Wahhabi Saudi Arabia. However, that is not the whole story as far as Britain is concerned because Brits were there when the Wahhabi reading of Islam was first founded and before even the Saudi Arabia existed.

Upset American Lady Despairing With The USA

Morris: She tells us what us happening in America. America is Sinking fast. A letter is referred to in the text, and this is how it starts:
The Honorable Senator John Cornyn, State of Texas
United States Senate
517 Hart Senate Office Building
Washington, D.C. 20510
Re: Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and that agencies preparation for war against citizens of the United States of America.
Dear Senator Cornyn, It is with gravest concern that I write to you today concerning the recent appropriation of weapons by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) that can only be understood as a bold threat of war by that agency, and the Obama administration, against the citizens of the United States of America.

THE CYPRUS HEIST GOES THROUGH: And it’s an Orwellian masterpiece

Haircuts are just so yesterday. Today we have closures, restructures, freezing….
….and no need to consult Parliament

The Slog: Somewhere, George Orwell is spinning in his grave – although he wouldn’t be even remotely surprised by the 1984-style nonsense being hailed as a compromise by the Troikanauts (above) and Nicosia’s embarassed leaders.

This is the deal: the levy is called something else scrapped, and none of the deposits below €100,000 will be stolen included.
The new lunacy idea sees Laiki Bank closed. The entirety of its €4.2bn in deposits over €100,000 will be placed in a “bad bank”: why you would put healthy deposits in a bad bank eludes me, but we’re really just moving the stash around here: the bad bank’s resources will be confiscated. We’re talk a 100% haircut for all these savers.
And don’t be fooled by the Berlin propaganda about Russian money-laundering. First up, being a rich Russian doesn’t automatically make you a crook; and secondly, nowhere near all – possibly under half – are Russian anyway: UBS, several Israeli banks, a number of French banks will have depositor’s money taken out of them to pay for the ambitions of Brusels-am-Berlin.
There’s more: all the bondholders in Laiki also take a 100% haircut.
The remaining smaller deposits at Laiki will be transferred to Bank of Cyprus, the nation’s largest lender, which in turn will be shrunk and completely ‘restructured’. Here, the term being used for thieving other people’s deposits over €100,0000 is ‘frozen’. In fact, I have it on very good authority that these too will disappear…and become Yul Brynner-style haircuts.

VISUAL COMBAT FINE ART PRINTS: NEW EDITIONS

WB7: I was able to obtain large format files of each of these two images. Both of them look absolutely stunning in print. The first began as a vintage illustration by Thomas Nast and the second began as a vintage illustration of a Victorian dandy. The character Mad Ben is destined to become another Banzai7 classic.

I have had a tremendous response to my first offering of the PhD Quack and FIAT Fornicatio, both of which are still available. I welcome input from those of you who purchased either or both of those. I know some of you are still waiting for delivery and I will initiate a postal tracking search if requested.
This has been a learning process for me and you can expect the quality of the works to continue to trend upwards, both in terms of technique as well as collectibility and relevance of content. I am also investigating the feasibility of gallery events and other potential outlets consistent with my desire to maximize the participatory nature of what I am doing.
I have decided to organize my offerings around a main series of prints which I will announce regularly. These two may be considered the third and fourth in the main series. I will continue to accept special requests as well.

Afraid Of The Truth: Brazilians slam zionist EU Orwellian sanctions against Press TV members

EU Banned Press TV: Brazilians (and SGW;-) condemn the zionist instigated West's campaign against Press TV. Following a string of bans by European satellite companies against the channel, the European Union has recently imposed travel and financial restrictions on press TV's CEO Mohamad Sarafraz, and Newsroom Director, Hamid Reza Emadi. According to this legal expert the move is in violation of freedom of expression and the right to self-defense. This is not the first time such restrictions are imposed on Press TV in Europe.

Excluding Parliament + Total Wipe-Out 100% Haircuts "In The Best Interests Of The People..." (Updates)

Submitted by Tyler Durden: The European Union finance ministers have just agreed to the terms of the Cyprus-Troika deal (which we fear could mean 100% haircts for the uninsured Laiki depositors as unsecured claims in a Chapter-7-style liquidation). With democracy now a complete farce since not even Parliament will be allowed to vote on deposit confiscation as part of a financial sector bankruptcy deal, here is the island nation's shill president explaining what just happened:

• ANASTASIADES (AKA EPHIALTES) SAYS AID DEAL IN BEST INTEREST OF CYPRIOT PEOPLE

Damascus: Bashar is OK - Western Backed Mercs Demoralised - Israhell looking for a way to assist the slaughter head on - Anonymous

Morris: Syrian Army is Winning, just Turkish generated rumors for demoralized militants. The opposition is falling apart somewhat. Israhell would like the conflict to spill over to a regional war. Anonymous source. Source