Fanatics who'll do anything to save the euro

Daily Mail UK ^ | 17 March 2013 | Daniel Hannan

[Lorianne]

Asked why he stole from banks, the American robber Slick Willie Sutton is supposed to have replied, ‘because that’s where the money is’.

Eurozone leaders have made the same calculation. Ever since the debt crisis struck, it was clear that, sooner or later, savers would be gouged.

Until now, this gouging has mainly happened through quantitative easing, inflation and record low interest rates. But, in Cyprus, such measures weren’t enough.

It’s true, Eurocrats concede, that Cyprus’s economy is tiny, accounting for just 0.2 per cent of the eurozone. But the patience of the donor countries such as Germany is wearing thin.

Cyprus is seen by many Northern Europeans as a sunny place for shady people. As much as half the money in its banks is Russian.

It is one thing to ask German MPs to cough up to save the euro; quite another to ask them to hand their constituents’ money to the oligarchs who frequent Cyprus with their bodyguards and peroxided molls.

The trouble is, of course, that there is no way to distinguish between the Russian ‘biznesmeni’ and everyone else.

[Jack Hammer]

The precedent has been set; look for it to happen now all over the world.

Obama’s certainly giving it some major thought, that’s for sure.

[jonose]

Good article.
Doesn’t connect dots that euro failing will strengthen dollar.

US companies selling into Europe will be hit hardest by
Double hit of taxes on dollars brought home and
Soft sales in Europe due to exchange rates

[justa-hairyape]

Meanwhile, the eccentrics who kept their money out of banks, the handful of Austrian School economists and the bearded survivalists who kept telling us to buy gold have been proved right.

As one of those occasionally bearded survivalists...

Thanks for the shout out !