Would you use a bank with these rules?

[dixiegrrrrl]

In order to keep its bankrupt banks from collapsing, Cyprus is voting on these new rules, called "capital controls".
Pay special attention to the last item on the list.
Source:
http://theprodigalgreek.wordpress.com/


* Restrictions in daily withdrawals
* Ban on premature termination of time savings deposits
* Compulsory renewal of all time savings deposits upon maturity
* Conversion of current accounts to time deposits
* Ban or restrictions on non cash transactions
* Restrictions on use of debit, credit or prepaid debit cards
* Ban or restriction on cashing in checks
* Restrictions on domestic interbank transfers or transfers within the same bank
* Restrictions on the interactions/transactions of the public with credit institutions
* Restrictions on movements of capital, payments, transfers
* Any other measure which the Finance Minister or the Governor of Cyprus Central Bank see necessary
for reasons of public order and safety

Notice how the checking accounts will be turned into timed accounts, like Certificates of Deposit,
EXCEPT, like the Hotel California, "you can never leave" the accounts which will have automatic rollover at the end of the time period.

the banks are saying..we are keeping all your money and will ration it out to you as we see fit.

think it can't happen elsewhere?......... New Zealand is already discussing the idea, as is Spain.

I hope a lot of people become aware of this.

[Turbineguy]

1. The big customers

have probably already sucked their money out of the system.

[dixiegrrrrl]

3. Banks have been locked down since last weekend.

the original plan was to tax ALL accounts, so they froze all accounts except for 40.00 at a time withdrawals.

That's why the capital controls are being put in place, so the big accounts cannot leave.

[Turbineguy]

37. I have to wonder how many "friends"

were given a warning in a timely manner to move their funds elsewhere.

[dixiegrrrrl]

38. The average number, no doubt.

Maybe some enterprising person will be able to find the money trail down the road..
a hacker, perhaps.

[liberal_at_heart]

2. wow. That is scary.

[fasttense]

4. Sounds like a plan to make banksters lords and masters of their customers.

With the help of the government, the bansksters who created the crisis will decide if and when you can get and use your own money. If they are the ones, with the help of the government, who determine if you can take your own earned wages out to feed your family, who do you think you will bow down to in the future? It's a way of by passing the federal government all together. It puts the banksters in charge of a citizen's daily life.

I expect a RepubliCON to introduce a very similar bill in the US soon.

[Generic Brad]

22. I disagree

It is a plan to ensure that there is no future business coming their way. While I understand that it robs their account holders, it is also ensures no one will trust them in the future. Banking is all about trust and once that is violated, the system collapses.

[graham4anything]

5. Looks like Paypal.

because paypal, well, isn't a bank, has no rules except their own, and isn't guaranteed whatsoever by any federal agency, so of course its sarcasm to equate paypal and a bank.

Where 100% of anyone on ebay and other internet places MUST use paypal.

[green for victory]

7. "100% of anyone on ebay...MUST use paypal"-- false n/t

[graham4anything]

10. You can't sell on ebay without paypal and you can't mention checks or money orders

You cannot use Amazon's payment, you cannot mention checks/moneyorders/ or cash in any American listing (based in America)

There are a few exceptions, but most don't have it-
You can use your own credit cards, by law they have to, however, they can also make any/all items disappear from search.

the post office has lost it is estimated over $1 million dollars a day in buyers not being able to without special individual permission by the seller (i.e. NO mention on auction) in lost fees they used to get nationwide.
That alone would offset the losses the PO has.

[dipsydoodle]

8. With restrictions on both their bank accounts and credit cards

they'd have no means of paying Paypal so that wouldn't work anyway..

[newfie11]

6. Time for money in the mattress

This is horrible and the fact Spain and New Zealand are considering it is very scary.

[dixiegrrrrl]

9. I expect some version to hit here.

Maybe one step at a time, depending on how bad the current economy gets.

[newfie11]

16. At this point nothing would surprise me anymore nt

[HiPointDem]

11. got a link to the spain and nz discussion info?

[dixiegrrrrl]

14. Start here

http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/PA1303/S00306/national-planning-cyprus-style-solution-for-new-zealand.htm

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323415304578371422025015256.html

[HiPointDem]

15. thanks.

[Jerry442]

12. The people who make tinfoil hats for their tinfoil hats...

...will tell you that the Illuminati triggered World Wars One and Two by manipulating the international banking system.

Stuff like this going on is beginning to make them look sane. If you tried to think up a way to drive people into putting Fascists into power, could you come up with anything more outrageous than this?

[dipsydoodle]

13. The banks are not saying anything

- its their government : not the banks.

Cyprus is bailing itself out by taxing funds on deposit from bank accounts. Looks to be 20% on all accounts over €100,000 in the Bank of Cyprus and 4% on all accounts over €100,000 in ALL other Cyprus banks. That doesn't only affect routine individual accounts - it also affects any accounts with client funds held in suspense and also some of the pension funds. One such pension fund has got €700 million in the Laiki Popular Banks so they are about to lose €2.8 million.

[ReRe]

17. Would I use a bank with rules like those?

NO. I'd use my mattress, or bury it, or put it in cookie jars. Best place might be the dirty laundry. Or in the bottom of a bag of kitty litter. Design a fake flowerpot. Put inside a lamp.
But I wouldn't put it in a bank like that.

[Yo_Mama]

18. Instant Depression

You theoretically have money in a bank, but you can't get it out. So everyone will stop new deposits in banks, and slowly take out whatever they are allowed to withdraw.

It's sooooo 1930s.

And as for economic activity, what happens when no one can withdraw enough money to buy a car or fix a car or fix a house or continue building a house or invest in a business?

They will have to revise these rules very soon.

[dixiegrrrrl]

36. Instant black market, too.

Barter...black market...bit coins....whatever works.

[Ruby the Liberal]

19. By trying to prevent a local run

they are going to create a global one.

[Zorra]

20. IMO, it would be awesome if everyone stopped paying on credit cards, loans, etc.,

all at the same time, and crushed the life out those nests of evil blood sucking vampires.

Combine it with a worldwide general strike and boycott of all heinous corporations and we could have a chance to start over, and create a system based on helping people and maintaining the environment rather than one that enslaves people and destroys the environment.

That said, for now it is what it is, and I use a Credit Union ~ fast, friendly, person centered service.

[customerserviceguy]

27. And a government that wanted to lop ten percent off of bank deposits

would magically leave credit union deposits alone?

This is what happens when people lift a middle finger at the German bankers, they get a fist slammed down on them in return. It may be possible that the European banking institutions might just use Cypress as an example of what happens when you leave the Eurozone.

[dixiegrrrrl]

29. I agree with you...this is to stop Cyprus from leaving Euro.

5 of 17 Euro countries have needed a bailout, the contagion is spreading, and the Euro has only as much value as people think it does.
Germany and France are the big players with the most Euros, so to speak, and Merkel is going nuts trying to keep Cyprus from tilting the game.

"The levy on bank deposits represents an unprecedented step in Europe's handling of a debt crisis that has spread from Greece, to Ireland, Portugal, Spain and Italy.

Cypriot leaders had initially tried to spread the pain between big holdings and smaller depositors, fearing the damage it would inflict on the country as an offshore financial haven for wealthy foreigners, many of them Russians and Britons.

The tottering banks hold 68 billion euros in deposits, including 38 billion in accounts of more than 100,000 euros – enormous sums for an island of 1.1 million people which could never sustain such a big financial system on its own."

Last 3 paragraphs from this article:
‘Nobody wants Cyprus to leave the euro’
http://www.ekathimerini.com/4dcgi/_w_articles_wsite2_1_24/03/2013_489613

[Ruby the Liberal]

21. CNBC is reporting that Laiki dropped ATM limits to 100 Euros.

https://twitter.com/MCaruso_Cabrera/status/315802966873481217

[Donald Ian Rankin]

23. Problem is, my understanding is that the alternative may be "you lose all your money".

The reason such draconian measures are being forced onto Cyprus appears to be that the alternative may be mass bankruptcy, at which point not being bound by draconian terms of service will not be much consolation for investors whose savings are simply gone.

[dixiegrrrrl]

30. Only 2 choices, really, neither of them good, in the short run.

But Iceland is a model on how to do it right for the long run.


sorta like a financial toothache.....ignore it, it gets worse until infection sets in
or get it treated early, even if it means pulling the tooth.

[ms.smiler]

24. Do we not have incompetent unregulated banksters here in the U.S.?

Aren’t our largest banks insolvent?

As I understand, in the U.S. derivatives take a senior position to depositors. And as I recall, Bank of America alone has already moved over 50 trillion of high risk derivatives into an FDIC insured institution and of course the FDIC has no such deposit insurance on hand to address such a crisis.

The FDIC was overwhelmed during the Savings & Loan crisis and a Congressional appropriation was necessary so the FDIC could meet its obligations.

I had just purchased my home and used a Savings & Loan for financing as I thought them preferable to banks. One day, I simply sat down to watch the evening news and learned they were closed that day by the Federal government because of fraudulent activity. It’s a sick feeling to realize you are in a mortgage contract with crooks and I had no idea there would be a second occasion when I refinanced in 2006.

This is how it happens. No one is obligated to inform you or I that a hammer is falling. We’re just the parties on the hook who will transfer our wealth to other parties so they may avoid discomfort.

As a business person, I do my best to monitor events and the economy but I have no clue, no idea when derivative losses might hit the FDIC and my wallet. All I can do is limit my exposure in the banking system.

We’ll all arise in the morning, sit down to coffee and check Latest Breaking News day after day and the banks will be open, until the day we all sit down and learn that the banks are closed.


Too late.

[dkf]

25. Doesn't help that JPM is putting out lists of EU countries and their uninsured deposits.

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-03-23/unsecured-depositors-world-unite-and-get-hell-out-these-countries

[dixiegrrrrl]

28. wow..thank you for this info...

I was away from the puter for a bit, missed this.

altho, as has been noted previously, even insured depositors don't qualify for a "tax" or other govrnment directed haircut on their money.

[dkf]

31. The rules are being re-written on the fly.

Last edited Sun Mar 24, 2013, 05:05 PM - Edit history (1)

[dixiegrrrrl]

34. As another good article points out

excerpted from halfway down the article:

Cypriots will be given equity in their banks in return for the tax but what value will this have when they no longer have faith in the banking system?
Cypriots will be told that the deposit tax will stave off further measures but they only have to look to Greece or Portugal to see that promises of no more taxes or cuts have little value....

And, all the time, citizens in other troubled eurozone countries will watch and grow warier.
They will interpret the policies advocated by the stronger members as punitive for the weaker.
They will consider the hypocrisy of leaders who cry foul about money laundering in Cyprus but turn a blind eye if it is happening in Lichtenstein, Switzerland, Luxembourg, the City of London or anywhere else in Europe.
They will realize that their government’s promises carry no value when measured against the ideas, motives or obsessions of the single currency’s big players.

http://ekathimerini.com/4dcgi/_w_articles_wsite3_1_16/03/2013_488221

[dkf]

35. Wow that is powerful and so very sad.

The European experiment is failing but it's ordinary people who suffer and worry. And the decision makers aren't the ones who will feel things the hardest.

[JDPriestly]

40. See my post at #39 for the full story (which you may already know).

Also: Woke up this morning and understood how this is working.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10022564029

Disparity in wealth that is extreme is like morbid obesity.

It kills the host. Extreme wealth disparity kills its economic host just as surely as unhealthy fat kills the morbidly obese.

It can take time, but sooner or later some vital organ -- the heart, the kidney, something gives way.

The knees usually cave first, or maybe the hips, but when the obesity, the imbalance between the amount of fat on the body and the frame of the body reaches that crucial point, it results in death.

It's just the law of nature. That's the way it works. What to do about without going to the other extreme, I do not know.

[L0oniX]

26. No. n/t

[Cleita]

32. That would be devastating for seniors on Social Security.

We are required to use direct deposit now or pay a fine. Imagine if they took a chunk out of people's Social Security and then Congress votes in chained cpi and God knows the COLA isn't anywhere it should be? It would be awful.

[Egalitarian Thug]

33. Tick, tick, tick...

Thank God it passed!

[JDPriestly]

39. It's really business as usual. Here is the back story on Cyprus.

On the one hand, it's not as nasty as it sounds. On the other, banks are doing this in various ways all around the world. It's a cover-up for the the big infection -- exaggerated wealth inequality.

From the Guardian Friday, March 22, 2013.

Cyprus has built its economic success on offshore banking and tourism. Its banks paid mouthwatering interest rates to attract money from abroad. No wonder the banking sector became bloated and is now eight times bigger than the economy. In this respect, the island is similar to Iceland – which went bust spectacularly in 2008. Cypriot banks are insolvent and Cyprus can't afford to prop them up. Hence an international bailout is needed.

The Germans and the IMF refused to put up the full €17bn Cyprus asked for. The Greek bailout showed that lending a country too much can make it buckle under the weight of debt. Cyprus was asked to come up with a third of the money itself. This is where the Russians come in.

Officially, 30%-40% of the money in Cypriot banks comes from non-residents, mostly Russians. That would imply that 250,000 Cypriot households have saved up the remaining €40bn. Unlikely. Russians use Cyprus not only to park their cash but also to register their businesses – often in a way that disguises the real owners. They then channel money back home: tiny Cyprus is the biggest foreign investor in the continent-sized Russian economy.

The Russia connection matters for two reasons. First, in its attempt to cobble together a contribution to the bailout, Cyprus decided to put a levy on local bank deposits. Most media accounts of the talks report that it was the president, Nicos Anastasiades, who insisted on imposing a levy not just on big deposits but also on those under €100,000 – although these are supposed to be protected by a deposit guarantee, like everywhere else in the EU. The other eurozone countries and the IMF should never have allowed this to happen. Breaking the deposit guarantee undermines confidence not only in Cypriot banking but also in other eurozone countries. Anastasiades faced the unpalatable choice between angering small Cypriot savers or big Russian ones.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/mar/22/cyprus-tax-russian-deposit-holders

In the US, the banks are charging high interest rates from borrowers and paying just tenths of a percentage on deposits of savers. That's how they are redistributing the wealth of American savers to themselves.

Same game. Different players. Different strategy.

[geek tragedy]

41. This is what happens when banks are allowed to fail.

This is the alternative to bailouts. If banks can't meet their obligations, the people to whom banks owe money (including depositors) get soaked.

One misconception people have is that depositing money with a bank means they hold onto your money for you. Nope. It's a loan of money to the bank that they're required to repay at your demand.