{"id":36969,"date":"2013-03-20T11:11:30","date_gmt":"2013-03-20T15:11:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/countingpips.com\/forex-news\/?p=36969"},"modified":"2013-03-20T11:11:30","modified_gmt":"2013-03-20T15:11:30","slug":"the-next-stage-in-the-financial-crisis-starts-here","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.investmacro.com\/forex-news\/2013\/03\/20\/the-next-stage-in-the-financial-crisis-starts-here\/","title":{"rendered":"The Next Stage in the Financial Crisis Starts Here"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>By Justice Litle<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>As part of a \u20ac10 million <a href=\"http:\/\/insideinvestingdaily.com\/articles\/inside-investing-022013.html\" target=\"_blank\">rescue deal<\/a>, the European Union, the European Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund have decided to burn depositors in Cypriot banks.<\/p>\n<p>Depositors with less than \u20ac100,000 face a 6.75% levy on their accounts. Depositors with accounts over that threshold face a 9.9% loss.<\/p>\n<p>These institutions are run by clowns with matches. And their antics are taking place near tankers filled with kerosene.<\/p>\n<p>The authorities argue that Cyprus is a &#8220;special case.&#8221; That&#8217;s because, in addition to being home to a spectacularly risky banking<br \/>\nsystem, Cyprus is a quasi-legal tax haven and black-money stash for Russian oligarchs.<\/p>\n<p>So the authorities wanted to send a message to foreigners using Cyprus as an offshore haven for their hot cash.<\/p>\n<p>And because someone had to pay for the Cypriot bailout (a demand of Germany, Finland and others)&#8230; and because the Cypriot government didn&#8217;t want to anger the <a href=\"http:\/\/insideinvestingdaily.com\/articles\/inside-investing-022613.html\" target=\"_blank\">big-money<\/a> tax dodgers using it as an offshore bolt-hole&#8230; the powers that be decided to make small depositors take the hit instead of large ones.<\/p>\n<p>The decision to confiscate funds from small Cypriot depositors&#8230; if it goes through&#8230; will have disastrous long-term effects for the following reasons:<\/p>\n<ol>\n<li>Despite the draconian measures, the Cypriot economy is still a strong candidate for collapse.<\/li>\n<li>The bailout shatters the unspoken rule protecting small bank depositors.<\/li>\n<li>It strips the EU, the ECB and the IMF leaders of any remaining credibility in the eyes of small savers throughout Europe.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p>Details are hazy as to who green-lit the decision to punish small depositors. But it&#8217;s clear that Europe&#8217;s austerity enforcers demanded some kind of financial reckoning. And so they agreed to the Cypriot government&#8217;s panic proposal to protect the big fish by going after the little fish instead.<\/p>\n<p><b>This is a colossal failure of common sense&#8230; and a truly dangerous precedent for other bank depositors in the euro system.<\/b><\/p>\n<p>The Cypriot government&#8217;s last-ditch effort to save itself as a financial haven (somewhere between legal and illegal) was a waste of effort. The big money oligarchs who have been using Cypriot banks to stash their cash will now yank out remaining funds in fear of further confiscations.<\/p>\n<p>This means that the Cyprus economy &#8212; basically a financial pyramid scheme &#8212; still faces collapse.<\/p>\n<p>Meanwhile, small depositors in Europe&#8217;s other troubled periphery nations will wonder whether they will face the next &#8220;special case&#8221; confiscation next.<\/p>\n<p>Put simply, millions of eurozone depositors could start pulling their cash out of the banks and stashing it under the mattress.<\/p>\n<p>Here&#8217;s how the system is SUPPOSED to work&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>Big fish investors have potential to see huge returns from their bond holdings. But they can also lose money if things go wrong.<\/p>\n<p>Little fish depositors don&#8217;t have a shot at big returns. They <a href=\"http:\/\/insideinvestingdaily.com\/articles\/inside-investing-030513.html\" target=\"_blank\">earn their fixed rate of return<\/a> (usually almost nothing) on their deposits. But in exchange for loaning money to the banks by way of their deposits, they are assured their<br \/>\ndeposits will not be put at risk.<\/p>\n<p><b>Except now the technocrats in Europe and the IMF have decided to break the unspoken rules and violate the sanctity of small depositor protection.<\/b><\/p>\n<p>This is bad news for bank depositors. But it&#8217;s good news for gold. The yellow metal has been trading poorly of late. Since the start of the year, the gold price has fallen about 6% on a growing consensus the financial crisis was under control.<\/p>\n<p>This is now being revealed as pure illusion&#8230; and an only temporary pause in the global financial crisis that began in 2008. The next stage of that crisis starts here. Now is a great time to buy gold, before this reality sinks home.<\/p>\n<p>Carpe Divitiae,<\/p>\n<p>Justice<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<div class=\"box box1\">\n<div class=\"moduletable\">\n<h3><span class=\"backh\"><span class=\"backh2\"><span class=\"backh3\">Disclaimer<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/h3>\n<div class=\"custom\">\n<p><em>Article brought to you by Inside Investing Daily. Republish<br \/>\nwithout charge. Required: Author attribution, links back to original<br \/>\ncontent or <a title=\"Go To Inside Investing Daily's Homepage\" href=\"http:\/\/www.insideinvestingdaily.com\/\" target=\"_blank\">www.insideinvestingdaily.com<\/a>. Any investment contains risk. Please see our <a title=\"Read Inside Investing Daily LLC Disclaimers &amp; Disclosure\" href=\"http:\/\/www.insideinvestingdaily.com\/disclaimer.html\" target=\"_blank\">disclaimer<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Justice Litle As part of a \u20ac10 million rescue deal, the European Union, the European Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund have decided to burn depositors in Cypriot banks. Depositors with less than \u20ac100,000 face a 6.75% levy on their accounts. Depositors with accounts over that threshold face a 9.9% loss. These institutions &hellip; <\/p>\n<p class=\"link-more\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.investmacro.com\/forex-news\/2013\/03\/20\/the-next-stage-in-the-financial-crisis-starts-here\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;The Next Stage in the Financial Crisis Starts Here&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-36969","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.investmacro.com\/forex-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36969","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.investmacro.com\/forex-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.investmacro.com\/forex-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.investmacro.com\/forex-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.investmacro.com\/forex-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=36969"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.investmacro.com\/forex-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36969\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.investmacro.com\/forex-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36969"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.investmacro.com\/forex-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=36969"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.investmacro.com\/forex-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=36969"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}