Remain calm! All is well!!
Posted on 03/18/2013 10:33:20 PM PDT by Kaslin
During the Great Depression criminals like Bonnie and Clyde, Willie Sutton, Pretty Boy Floyd, John Dillinger and Baby Face Nelson robbed banks. They attained some degree of folk hero status by sticking it to banks that some felt were responsible for the Depression era misery.
With liberal ideas firmly in the saddle, civilizing us, so to speak, we have come a long way from those dreary days. No longer would we applaud such criminals.
Instead, today, we send them to Congress, or parliament, or the legislature, where governments try to achieve folk hero status by robbing banks and depositors alike.
In the 1930s the robbers justified their acts by saying no real people were hurt, just the banks and the insurance plan that covered the depositors.
Governments today have no need of that kind of logic. They get to hurt whomever they wish because, well… they’re the government.
Stick ‘em, up.
May these governments all meet the same fate of the bank robbers of the 1930s.
The current heist under way, disguised as a public service measure, proposes to “tax”- steal would be a better word- cash deposits in banks in order to raise about $6 billion euros to bailout...the government in Cyprus. It’s kind of a reverse TARP, which penalizes people who have saved in proportion to how responsible they have been. The money is needed in order to save the governments of Cyprus and the European Union. And the more you have saved, the worse off you’ll be.
As of now, no deposits, no matter how small, will be free from confiscation if the measure passes; no one will be Too-Small-to-Tax.
And make no mistake about it: The bank “tax” that the European Union is imposing on Cyprus isn’t a tax at all. It’s seizure of property without due process in order for politicians to save a system for which someone should go to jail.
This ladies and gentlemen is what Hope and Change! gets you eventually.
Just at a time when the European political and banking system is unraveling, Obama is proposing that we closely model Europe.
Tax the rich, certainly. But make sure you tax everyone else too.
“On Sunday, a source close to the consultations,” reports Reuters, say that “authorities were hoping to cut the tax to 3.0 percent from 6.7 percent for deposits under 100,000 euros. The rate for deposits above that would then be jacked up to 12.5 percent from 9.9 percent.”
But all is well says the EU.
It’s just a tiny theft in comparison. No big deal.
“Brussels has emphasized that the measure is a one-off for a country that accounts for just 0.2 percent of European output,” Reuters continues.
Hurray for the 0.2 Percent! We can make THEM pay.
With Spain, Italy, Portugal, Ireland and other financial systems teetering, however, confidence in the European banking system- really the world banking system- could be and should be shaken to the core.
If this goes through it will give food for thought to other governments that seem to be ambivalent about the 0.2 Percent.
And yes, that’s Obama that I’m looking at.
Even New York Times Columnist Paul Krugman is saying that there is no better way to shake confidence in the banking system.
“It's as if the Europeans are holding up a neon sign, written in Greek and Italian, saying 'Time to stage a run on your banks!'" Krugman wrote in his column at the Times.
When they write a history of the times we live in, I’m guessing the working title will be: The Age of the Bad Ideas. Politicians, policy-makers and the public have struggled to squarely address the fact that no matter how hard you try, you can not make 2+2= $4 trillion.
And someone has to pay the difference.
In Cyprus, they’ve come up with a great idea of who that “someone” is.
“Investors were responding to the unprecedented decision by eurozone leaders,” writes Euronews.com “to partly fund a bank bailout for Cyprus with money from savers’ accounts. Account holders in Cyprus have been appalled and many tried throughout the weekend to withdraw as much money as possible from their banks. There are fears that similar panic could spread to other eurozone countries.”
Maybe not just the Eurozone either.
With tussles over the debt, social spending, deficits and taxes turning into a revolutionary struggle over what government should and should not do, it’s just a matter of time before some Democrat begins to advocate in earnest a Cypriot solution to our spending troubles.
Do you really think Obama won’t consider it?
Why bank deposits?
Because the Democrats say we need more money.
And in the words of Depression-era bank robber Willie Sutton: “That’s where the money is.”
Russia has already loudly protested. It was not consulted by the EU about this move against its citizens.
If there are no guarantees for depositors and investors, the stability of entire economies is at risk. Brussels wants to go austerity one better.
This is a formula for the dissolution of the EU.
A Good Business environment needs one real thing, predictability. They have to be able to factor in the costs of doing business as far into the future as they can.
When a government starts throwing out all kinds of mandates (pass it before we know whats in it) and then come like a thief in the night to steal 10% of your capitol, then that will destory the ability of business to be able to plan and grow.
Besides, do they think stealing 10% from a business will create more jobs?
Bunc of fools.
Punishing the productive to support the freeloaders. Face it this is all because they refuse to kick abled bodied people off the dole.
Next to cutting social services and forcing people into poverty for the sake of the banks, this has got to be the dumbest idea EU politicians have come up with. In the face of public fury, they’re trying to disown their own Frankenstein.
If this is what it takes to keep the EU alive, Europe is better off without the EU.
They need to cut welfare, they need to get people off the government payroll
People in Europe keep paying more in taxes and are receiving fewer benefits and services.
Politicians going down this path will be thrown out of office in the next election.
Europeans are fed up with austerity.
Remain calm! All is well!!
The problem is not austerity. When you are overspending, you need to cut the spending until you stop running deficits. Mind you, deficits should not have been allowed in the first place.
The problem is that European politicians chose stability over financial responsibility, using nail clippers when they needed to use hedge clippers. Now that the politicians are willing to use hedge clippers, to get their house in order, they now need a neutron bomb.
They are about ten years too late to really do anything without pain.
tab for later
very tersely written,
this is simply the objective truth.
“austerity” is such a stupid word.
If you don’t keep deficit spending forever, they call it “austerity”
Willie Sutton was asked why he robbed banks and he replied “Because that’s where the money is.” Guess where the money is today? In taxpayers’ bank accounts. Never mind that they already got $750 billion TARP money.
A moderate amount of deficit spending to stimulate job growth is acceptable.
Inflicting massive pain on millions of people with no prospect of an economic recovery in sight is a cruel joke. People might put up with it if there’s light at the end of tunnel.
But if you’re to going drown after all after fighting to keep your head above the water, it makes no sense at all.
I welcome you to give up a third of your income to the government and then tell us this is for your own good. Massive tax hikes are deeply unpopular in Europe and they will not balance any budgets there.
Government spending does not help the economy, it is a hindrance to economic growth. The bigger the government the smaller the freedom.
For every dollar government takes out of the productive sector or inflates the currency it puts less than half back into the unproductive sectors as “stmulus”, how anyone thinks that is a benefit I will never know.
This is nothing but a death spiral, there is no light at the end of the tunnel, the tunnel will have a dead end and a cave in.
I agree.
Rational budget cuts are sound.
But killing the economy with massive tax increases discredits neo-liberal economics.
The markets are not happy because there’s not the right kind of fiscal discipline and the markets are not happy because there’s no economic growth to allow massive debt to be painlessly repaid.
Europe is caught up in a proverbial Catch-22.
Socialism does not, and can not work. One, human nature gets in the way, and two there is not enough money in the world to support it.
When you rob Peter to pay Paul, eventually Peter quits working and saving.
As someone once said, a government big enough to give you everything is also big enough to take everything.
“It’s seizure of property without due process in order for politicians to save a system for which someone should go to jail.”....
Coming to a city near you very soon. The demodummies want YOUR money just like the Greeks did of their people. Be prepared for something very similar happening right here.
(Take the gun control issues being pushed all over the place for starters)
Do you think they are actually TRYING to create jobs? I find that very hard to believe. It is like believing that a surgeon who randomly chops off body parts is trying to prevent blood loss. Can he actually be that mad?
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