Former Cyprus Central Bank Head Slams 'Blackmailing'
European Leaders
In a brief 30-second clip during a Bloomberg TV interview, none other than Anthanasios Orphanides, the former Central Bank of Cyprus Governor, explains the terrible reality of what just happened in Europe:
"What we have seen in the last few days is a very serious blunder by the European governments that are essentially blackmailing the government of Cyprus to confiscate the money that belongs rightfully to the depositors in the banking system in Cyprus.
" He then concludes quite clearly, "It is not clear how this can affect in a positive manner the European projectgoing forward."
The Cypriot then goes on to explain how the EU is making a mockery of the idea of a banking union...
If embed is not working click image for link...
On Cyprus being blackmailed.. - link
and on the EU making a mockery of the banking union - "In order to keep the European Union together, they needed to form a banking union, which meant they needed to have a common credible deposit insurance guaranteed for everybody in the euro area..." - link
Australian Government Set to Seize Money from Citizens Bank Accounts
Fri 15th March 2013
Guest Writer for Wake Up World.
The ‘Australian Government’ is now set to ‘legally’ seize money from citizens bank accounts without their knowledge or approval.
After legislation was rushed through parliament, the government will from May 31 be able to transfer all money from accounts that have not been used for three years into their own revenues.
Legislation amended late last year means any account that has not seen activity within three years can be transferred into the Commonwealth’s hands – previously the rule was seven years.
This will mean that accounts with anything from $1 upwards that have not had any deposit or withdrawals in the past three years will be transferred to the Australian Securities and Investment Commission and thus hundreds of millions of dollars in inactive bank deposits are likely to flow to the Federal Government from May.
The money can be reclaimed from ASIC but the process can take months.
As the new law comes into effect at the end of May 2013 banks are advising customers to make transactions as small as a dollar to ensure they are not transferred to ASIC.
Experts warn this will have a negative impact on people that may have put money away in a special account for their children’s education or decided to put an inheritance in a separate account for a rainy day.
The banking industry believes the Government’s changes to inactive bank accounts legislation is just revenue raising.
Mr Munchenburg says the legislation was rushed through at the end of last year.
“A lot of suspicion at the time that the Government is rushing this through because they were more concerned about their own financial bottom line than they were about reuniting consumers with their accounts,” he said.
“It was never clear to us why it had to be rushed through if it was only focused on reuniting consumers with accounts.”
Mr Munchenburg says three years seems an arbitrary time limit as the Government failed to consult the industry on the change.
“I don’t know why three years has been chosen over seven,” he said.
“Certainly, if the Government believed that seven years was too long, we would have expected them to talk to us about what is an appropriate timeline or how to deal with accounts where people have deliberately left them alone, and then we’d avoid some of the problems that we are concerned will affect customers.”
This cash grab comes as economists warn the government is on track to hand down a $15 billion budget deficit in May as company tax receipts collapse.
Before Christmas, Treasurer Wayne Swan junked the government’s previously “rock solid” promise to produce a surplus in 2012-13. The government had also been committed to surpluses in future financial years, too.
In the UK this practice also exists and has for quite a number of years, with the exception that in Britain the dormancy period is a far greater one before assets are seized from such, supposedly, dead accounts.
While, it would appear, in Australia the money seized from such “dormant” accounts will be gobbled up by the treasury in the UK, at least, the money goes for so-called “good causes”, though decided upon and administered by the government.
The act of the Australian government, as the banking expert said, appears to be aimed at bolstering the country’s finances and nothing more.
Article Source
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Germany Enters With The Grace Of A Bull In An Liquidating Cyprus China Shop
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-03-19/germany-enters-grace-bull-liquidating-cyprus-china-shop
Could Cyprus Take Down the EU Banking System?
The EU continues to flounder around as Cyprus, a country whose GDP accounts for just 0.2% of the Europe’s economy, has proven the truth behind all of the “solutions” thrown around by the ECB and EU politicians: that they really don’t have a clue how to fix the problem plaguing Europe.
Why is this?
Because at the end of the day, there is really only one solution to this whole mess: DEFAULT… both by the banks and by EU nations as a whole.
http://www.zerohedge.com/contributed/2013-03-19/could-cyprus-take-down-eu-banking-system
UK Sends Planeload Of Cash To Its Cyprus Troops As A "Contingency Measure"
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-03-19/uk-sends-planeload-cash-its-cyprus-troops-contingency-measure
US Deposits In Perspective: $25 Billion In Insurance, $9,283 Billion In Deposits; $297,514 Billion In Derivatives
The $25 billion in touted deposit insurance is supposed to preserve and protect (granted not in their entirety) some $9,283 billion in total US deposits. A far bigger problem, however, is when one considers the "asset" side of the US banks' ledger: remember deposits are unsecured liabilities. And for US banks, sadly, over the counter derivatives represent the vast majority of "off the books" assets. According to the latest OCC quarterly report, the total derivative notional outstanding of the Top 25 holding companies is $297,514 billion, or nearly $300 trillion. In other words there are 32 times more notional derivatives than there are total deposits, while the ratio of gross derivatives to deposit insurance is a concerning 11,900-to-1.
And with that, we hand it back to the ABA to comfort all US depositors that Cyprus could never possibly happen in the US.
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-03-19/us-deposits-perspective-25-billion-insurance-9283-billion-deposits-297514-billion-de
US Bankers To US Depositors: "Don't Panic, Nothing To See Here"
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-03-19/us-bankers-us-depositors-dont-panic-nothing-see-here
The European Commission’s push for common rules which would see companies pay tax where they make sales, rather than where they are based – a move that could damage Ireland’s attractiveness to multinationals – is “not history”, a senior commission official has said.
The push for a common consolidated corporate tax base was first put on table two years ago after a decade of preparation, Philip Kermode, director of the commission’s directorate-general for taxation, told an Oxford University conference.
Progress on the issue is currently in the hands of the Irish EU presidency, which “must regard this as a somewhat poisoned chalice”, said Mr Kermode, who is one of Ireland’s highest-ranked officials in the commission.
http://www.irishtimes.com/business/eu-common-tax-base-still-on-agenda-says-senior-commission-official-1.1330438
The push for a common consolidated corporate tax base was first put on table two years ago after a decade of preparation, Philip Kermode, director of the commission’s directorate-general for taxation, told an Oxford University conference.
Progress on the issue is currently in the hands of the Irish EU presidency, which “must regard this as a somewhat poisoned chalice”, said Mr Kermode, who is one of Ireland’s highest-ranked officials in the commission.
http://www.irishtimes.com/business/eu-common-tax-base-still-on-agenda-says-senior-commission-official-1.1330438
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