If memory serves me right, the losses to the gold holders were pretty significant (dollar was "devalued" from 20.6 to 35 dollars per troy ounce). I am sure that felt just great...
Watch the explosion of shorts on the EUR/USD when the markets open. tomorrow. The EU is collapsing internally, the Cyprus disaster is just one more nail in the coffin. We have our very own incompetent politicians and they are running the show. Just to cap everything Cameron ( UK ) and Hollande ( France ) are stepping into the Syrian bloodbath with more " aid " !! Should one weep or what ??
Just some thoughts: People will not trust banks anymore. Trust is the basis of the banking system. There will be runs on the bank all over Southern Europe. In most countries savings are protected by the country itself. This will cause a problem because this protection will go far beyond the financial possibilities of most countries in case of a run on the banks. Banks can NEVER give all the money back to their owners. That is the problem in our banking system. Money is leveraged and has to be de-leveraged again, which is impossible because leverage is the basis of the system. People will go to the European Court and sew the governments for discrimination. If you have 1 million in the bank you lose 9.9% of your money. If you have the same amount of money as savings in real estate, bonds, stocks or precious metals you pay nothing! And why should clients of the bank pay for mistakes others made? What just happened in Cyprus can be very dangerous for the banking system all over the world. Especially because most politicians have no clue about macro economy or financial markets. This can infect all currencies.
People are over-interpreting this. The EU merely asked that the money be raised by Cyprus. They had originally expected that Cypress would do it via a fiscal tax on only wealthy depositors, as part of its anti-money-laundering goal. Cyprus did it this way on its own initiative, it seems, since it will leave the Russian Oligarchs much better off than a 40% hit that had been expected if it were levied on only the Russian Oligarchs. Effectively, Cyprus chose to have its entire population bail out the oligarchs. I imagine that they think they can blame it on the EU. See http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/...priot-government-has-betrayed-its-people.html It will have no effect on the Euro (except maybe positive). By the way, a large number of small Forex dealers are located in Cyprus. Some members here have accounts with these dealers. It will be interesting to see if they get hit the 10%.
Cyprus parliament delays vote on deposit levy to Monday http://finance.yahoo.com/news/cyprus-parliament-postpones-session-discuss-084423132.html?l=1
While this tax may hit a few Russian oligarchs, it will harm thousands of innocent people who did nothing wrong. That's bad. Very bad.
This so called 'one of tax' or opportunist theft as it should be correctly called, just demonstrates how corrupt and bizarre the world of Euro politics has become. Add in the FTT which is effectively a tax on the Euro and it's not hard to see a disaster coming. The FTT will further destabilize a banking system that is already on the verge of being insolvent.
I would like to think that this is true, but based on observation in the past decade or so, I'm not that confident. All they need is spin and TV talking heads. We all line up like sheep for an imagined threat, government bankrupts the economic system, we all know they will never pay the debt off, there are drones flying that can kill people (only the bad ones though) in the skies, the government is deadlocked over political wrangling, they are gearing up to take guns away, laws are not followed, rights are taken away, corruption is rampant, banks are bailed out, people lose their wealth ...... And the outrage is where exactly?
All true. Many appear brain-dead to the shit-storm headed this way. However, the first step is confiscation of assets, then removal of nanny state entitlements. US gov't apparatus is incapable of controlling the entire US, heck they can't even subdue an ancient country like Iraq.