http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-03-20/spain-bitcoin-run-has-started

In Spain, The Bitcoin Run Has Started

Submitted by Tyler Durden on 03/20/2013 20:25 -0400

Something extreme is happening in Europe. Since Sunday, Bloomberg Businessweek reports a trio of Bitcoin apps have soared up Spain's download charts, coinciding with news that cash-strapped Cyprus was planning to raid domestic savings accounts to pay off a $13 billion bailout tab. “This is an entirely predictable and rational outcome for what’s happening in Cyprus,” says ConvergEx's Nick Colas. "If you want to get a good sense of the stress European savers are feeling, just watch Bitcoin prices."

The value of the virtual currency has soared almost 30 percent in the last two days. "One hundred percent of that is due to Cyprus," says Colas. "It means the Europeans are getting involved." As German economist Peter Bofinger warned in an interview with Spiegel Online: "European citizens must now fear for their money."

The same apps download data, however, showed that Italians aren’t ready to abandon commercial banking, remarkable as many Italians still recall that black day in 1992 when they woke up to a levy on their savings accounts to prop up the nation’s teetering finances.

The EUR price for a Bitcoin has jumped from around EUR37 to over EUR50 in the last two days as reality hits... and look at the volume...

Nassim Taleb (On Reddit) - via Mike Krieger (@LibertyBlitz):

"Bitcoin is the beginning of something great: a currency without government, something necessary and imperative."

Chart: Bitcoincharts

http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com/2013/03/spanish-firm-markets-mattress-with.html

Wednesday, March 20, 2013 6:35 PM

Spanish Firm Markets Mattress With Built-In Safe

Putting new meaning to an old phrase (keep your money under the mattress), a Spanish firm touts 'Mattress Savings' the first mattress with built-in safe.

"Savings, are better under the mattress". How often have we heard this phrase! The difficult economic situation in recent months and various scandals involving financial institutions have led many to dream about fluffy Spanish euros. Francisco Santos also dreamed, and woke up to make it happen: he created the first mattress with built-in safe.

Santos had a dream. He consulted with his pillow, news about the distrust and uneasiness of savers, and in doing he rediscovered the old habit of keeping money under the mattress. And thus was born the idea of creating a safe mattress with built in such a way that "it is not necessary to keep the money under the mattress" but in a safe within the mattress, says Santos.

"History repeats itself. Ancient people thought the safest place to keep your money under the mattress was. Now we propose the same thing, and we've seen people's uneasiness about the current situation."

The campaign to promote this product is a parody on the advertising of a financial institution touting 'My Mattress Savings'.

Distrust of banks and governments is widespread and growing (and rightfully so).

and....

http://www.silverdoctors.com/the-rape-of-cyprus-the-euro-zone-harley-schlanger/

THE RAPE OF CYPRUS & THE EURO ZONE: HARLEY SCHLANGER

MARCH 20, 2013 BY THE DOC 4 COMMENTS

Our friend Sean from SGTReport has released an interview with Harley Schlanger discussing how the Cyprus depositor haircut was merely a test run for the real wealth confiscation events planned for Italy, Spain, and France.

This is a 25-minute uninterrupted conversation with Harley Schlanger, historian and national Spokesperson for LaRouchePAC. Harley and I discuss the latest from Cyprus and the Euro Zone where the Banksters in Germany, in the City of London and at the IMF have reached new levels of criminality. Make no mistake about it, as bad as the attempted THEFT in Cyprus is, the real risk is in Italy and France which owe HUNDREDS of BILLIONS. Cyprus is merely a litmus test for what the Banksters would really like to do, which is to RAPE the entire Euro Zone in order to “save” the criminal banks and save their overtly criminal, overtly evil system.

http://www.silverdoctors.com/bernanke-states-cyprus-style-depositor-haircuts-possible-in-us-if-events-in-europe-become-contagious/#more-23596

BERNANKE STATES CYPRUS STYLE DEPOSITOR HAIRCUTS POSSIBLE IN US IF EVENTS IN EUROPE BECOME CONTAGIOUS!

MARCH 20, 2013 BY THE DOC 36 COMMENTS

*BREAKING*

At this afternoon’s FOMC Press Conference in response to a question posed as to whether the Fed would ever impose depositor haircuts as was attempted this week in Cyprus, Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke confirmed that Cyprus style depositor haircut wealth confiscation is possible here in the US if the Cyprus event or another event in Europe were to become contagious and the people lose confidence in the US dollar.

At 3:18 PM EST Bernanke was whether a seizure of deposits could happen to US depositors as in Cyprus, if the economy gets worse?

Beranke’s translated response: Only if the Cyprus event or another event in Europe were to become contagious and the people lose confidence in the US dollar.

While QE to infinity will be pursued as long as possible, the entire Cyprus fiasco is now officially on the table when it comes down to it if unlimited counterfeiting fails. (and gold revaluation which is the next tool in Bernanke’s toolbox)

and....

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-03-20/saxo-bank-ceo-cyprus-deposit-levy-first-sign-widespread-wealth-tax

Saxo Bank CEO: "Is Cyprus Deposit Levy The First Sign Of Widespread Wealth Tax?"

Submitted by Tyler Durden on 03/20/2013 17:12 -0400

Eurozone

France

Italy

None

Saxo Bank

Authored by Lars Seier Christensen, via his blog at TradingFloor.com,

Confusion reigns supreme in the Cyprus bailout. So it is fairly risky to stick out your neck commenting on an unknown outcome that could leave you exposed to ridicule in hours if things change. And this blog is not intended to be a daily or even weekly commentary as I am not providing short-term trading advice, meaning that it is tempting to just wait and see what the outcome will be.

However, as this is so far the most important macroeconomic event of 2013 and it is continuously developing in new and perplexing ways, I feel it is necessary to try to make some sense out of what we are observing and hearing.

What we know now is that the Cypriot parliament has rejected the bailout package after a poker game with the Troika, trying to deal many different hands varying from zero percent deposit tax for the smaller depositors to 15 percent on the larger ones. None of the combinations have proved sufficiently appetising to secure a deal so far.

We also know that France has categorically ruled out that a plan B will be made available. This sounds plausible as we are already at least at plan D or plan E. We also know that the Russians are now heavily involved behind the scenes, despite being understandably ticked off about the whole process. We know that this is now turning into a geopolitical chess game, where important European oil and gas reserves may actually find their way into Russian control, in spite of all the ambitions of the past decades to achieve the exact opposite with regard to the European energy supply. We know that Merkel cares more about positioning for the upcoming domestic election than the future fate of Cyprus.

Furthermore, we know that Cyprus banks are closed until at least Thursday [ZH: Now Monday], but also that they will not open until some kind of deal is in place - or the issue of a deposit levy will be irrelevant, as there will not be a penny left in Cyprus, certainly not of foreign money.

We know that the Cyprus finance minister may unsuccesfully have tried to submit his resignation and that the British are flying in cash Euros to their 3,000 military personel.

We know that a consortium of banks has offered a private solution to the crisis, but apparently not been seriously considered.

On a lighter note, we now also know that the first name of the Cyprus central bank governor is Panicos, indicating that the old saying, "Your name is your destiny" may indeed hold some truth... sorry, excuse the pun, but I could not help myself. Actually, I feel for the man who may well hold one of the least desirable jobs in the world right now.

That is a lot to take in after just 72 hours of action. Where will it all end? What have we learned from this?

A number of things. We have seen again that the Eurozone is unable to deal rationally with its problems. This has got to be the most incompetent handling of a Euro crisis event so far, but underlines the hopeless situation the 17 countries that share the common currency are in. The panic is so great that no step is too extreme to preserve the doomed project and to defend the political capital invested in this monumental failure. That we have already come to a stage where politicians blatantly attempt to confiscate innocent and weak citizens' savings is a new low that was somewhat unexpected already at this point. It bodes ill for what can happen when the crisis deepens in the future - which it will.

The idea of a one-off wealth tax, however, is not new. Several research reports have pointed in recent years to the fact that the desperate need for funding in the public sector could - and probably will - eventually lead to confiscation of wealth in a monumental scale. Boston Consulting Group suggested in a recent report that about 29 percent of ALL private wealth, not just deposits, will eventually be likely to be confiscated to cover the debts already incurred. (Read the article on Zerohedge.com). So we had better get used to seeing our money being appropriated by money-hungry politicians. This is just the beginning. The cat is out of the bag, no matter if this particular deal should fall apart.

What astonishes me is that such an important and extreme move is risked for such a modest prize. The slow realisation that confiscating our money will be the next move in the debt crisis has been made very acute by this blatant move. The most important game changer in years and the most frightening tool in the tool box has been pulled out in the open for a mere USD 5.8 billion. The impact could trigger massive asset capital flows and asset devaluations to the tune of hundreds of billions. The loss of trust will be detrimental to all weak economies. Why on earth did the Troika not save this shocker for a substantial occasion, say a bailout of Spain or Italy? Incompetence? Lack of market understanding? Or even more frighteningly - perhaps because of a wish to introduce this new tax tool to get the voter populations used to new ideas for milking the rich in the future?

This is intriguing and fascinating - it is just a great shame that the population of Cyprus needs to go through such heartache for problems they did largely not create themselves, and have no way to avoid.

Who will be next to find themselves in such a situation is the prudent question to ask?

Be safe out there.

http://hat4uk.wordpress.com/2013/03/19/cyprus-why-we-should-be-putting-mario-draghi-and-the-ec-in-the-dock/

( Has Mario Draghi been on Spring break ? No comments from Draghi during this whole Cyprus fiasco ! )

CYPRUS: Why we should be putting Mario Draghi and the EC in the dock

Treason in Frankfurt & Brussels

At the risky of becoming corny about the Cyprus situation in particular, and the Berlin-am-Brussels eurozone obscenity as a whole, I thought it might be helpful to point out some damning evidence of how we are witnessing dereliction of duty on a grand scale, and a wholesale rejection of the principles upon which the original EEC was founded.

From yesterday’s Financial Times:

‘The independent and unelected ECB has been a key player in all four sovereign bailouts in the eurozone, through its non-voting seat at the “eurogroup” meeting of eurozone finance ministers that hammers out such rescues; and through its role in the “troika” with the European Commission and International Monetary Fund in subsequently monitoring bailout reform commitments.’

The ECB’s answerable-to-nobody-elected-or-otherwise Mario Draghi has been completely absent from public life, and media utterances, for a disturbingly long time….during which illegal confiscation of bank deposit funds, skimpily clothed in the euphemism of tax/levy’, is about to be enacted against anyone on Cyprus who has more than €20,000 in a bank account there.

On March 6th 2013, an Italian University posted this at its site: ‘Due to unforeseen work obligations, the ceremony conferring an honorary degree to the President of the European Central Bank, Mario Draghi, has been postponed. The new date will be published as soon as possible.’

Draghi’s last appearance was at a press conference twelve days ago. Because of work obligations he has been obliged to disappear, but Cypriots are far from obliged to him for the haircut that is being reconfigured by the hour. I think he has an obligation to EU citizens to come out on the balcony and say something. But last Thursday – in a meeting billed as obligatory – Draghi gave EU leaders a crash course in macroeconomics, expressing his deep concerns about “low productivity and high labour costs hurting the eurozone’s prospects.”

The meeting started at 11 pm at night.
Draghi said to his audience that there were two ways to close this gap: either reduce labor costs or raise productivity’. I understand that not once during the presentation did he mention Commission actions, Berlin jiggery-pokery, f**kwitted austerity policies, or banking insanity as in any way “hurting the eurozone’s prospects”. It would be hard to pillory Draghi’s ‘analysis’ more succinctly than Ben Davis of Hinde Capital, who notes:

‘In fact taxpayers have consistently bailed-out the private sector in full. The Cypriot bank rescue is no exception, except this time there is a bail-in – and ironically again not of bondholders but of the depositors first. This is a direct contravention to the usual legal claims on the capital structure.’

I hereby accuse Mario Draghi of illegally subordinating Greek bondholders, neglecting his duties as the custodian of taxpayers’ money, approving illegal deposit confiscation, and hiding from the consequences.

At the same time, it’s hard to marry up Draghi’s midnight pitch with the principles upon which the EU was founded.

From The Treaty of Rome, 1957:

‘AFFIRMING as the essential objective of their efforts the constant improvement of the living and working conditions of their peoples, INTENDING to confirm the solidarity which binds Europe and the overseas countries and desiring to ensure the development of their prosperity, in accordance with the principles of the Charter of the United Nations, to promote throughout the Community a harmonious development of economic activities, a continuous and balanced expansion, an increase in stability, an accelerated raising of the standard of living, and closer relations between the States belonging to it.’

I’m bound to say, it seems to me there are a few omissions in this mission statement. Irish, Portuguese, Spanish, Italian and Greek citizens have all had their standards of living crushed to pay for mad ECB lending policies, mad banker betting, crooked MEP expenses, and the incompetent largesse of the Commission.

There also appears to be nothing in there about the whole thing being a Franco-German club, and screw the hindmost.

Nothing about backstairs deals to get Italy and Greece into the eurozone in return for favourable export deals for German arms.

And, of course, there is nothing in there about everyone joining a Fiskal und Politische Union run from Berlin, crap Japanese doggerel poetry being emitted by Belgian arses, and a Common Agricultural Policy that is indestructible.

Were we to bring 1957 up to date with the EU’s current aspirations, in fact, the principles would read like this:

‘HIDING as the essential objective of their efforts the inevitable reduction in the living and working conditions of their peoples, while INTENDING to confirm the solidarity which binds politicians and bankers and global multinationals to ensure the development of their profits and dividends, in accordance with the principles of the White House, Chancellery and ECB, and thus to producethroughout the Union a disharmonious destruction of economic activities, a continuous and balanced contraction, a dangerous acceleration of instability, a plummeting standard of living, and the ultimate souring of relations between the States belonging to it.’

I hereby accuse the élite politicians, fascist administrators, protectionist Unions, greedy bankers and media moguls in the European Union and elsewhere of twisting the original ideas of peace, liberty and equality that behind the Treaty of Rome into a gross monster of control freakery hated from Dublin to Drama.

There is something about every organisation built on (or perverted by) hubris and hypocrisy that requires it to have words in the State’s title that are the opposite of reality on the ground. The Chinese People’s Republic is not run by the people, the Soviet Union was held together by brute force and eventually disintegrated, the Deutsche Demokratische Republik wasn’t democratic at all, and even the Irish Free State spawned a fiercely anti-libertarian military wing over time.

The European Union, however, is unique in that its features bear no relation at all to the astonishing and wonderful variety of European cultures, political ideas and agro-industrial economies across its 27 members, and (not mutually exclusive of that fact) it is about as united as Sunni and Shia Muslims. It is thus a misnomer in every respect.

It should have tried instead to be what its citizens wanted it to be: a community in which all could share, grow and learn – from the best of (for example) French administration and cheese, German workforce relations and beer, Italian cooking and opera, Irish marketing and blarney, British advertising and banking, Portuguese hospitality and fishing, Spanish Rioja and football, Dutch reclamation and linguistic skills – and of course, Greek architecture and seafaring.

What we have instead is a rigid cacophony of anally inhuman rules – courtesy of Belgian chocolate soldiers and wannabe German generals – aided and abetted by crooked élites from London to Athens.

Such a shame. Che peccato. Quelle dommage. Wie Schade. τι κρίμα.

Cat got Draghi's tongue ? What about Ben Bernanke's tongue ? Note what the Fed said in 1941 and then compare the silence of the lambs from Ben and Mario....

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2998009/posts

In 1941, The Federal Reserve Wrote A Letter Explaining Why The Cyprus Bailout Was Such A Terrible Idea

Rob Wile
March 18, 2013

Wikimedia
The main reason why people are going crazy this morning over the "Troika's" (EU, IMF, ECB) bailout of Cyprus is the one-off 9.9 percent tax all Cypriots with over 100,000 euros will be charged, and 6.5 percent if you have less.
It seems shocking, but the concept isn't that novel.
As Sky News' economics editor Ed Conway points out this morning, in 1941, the Federal Reserve responded to an inquiry on why American deposits weren't taxed, since it would be so easy to administer and would produce so much revenue.
Perhaps, the Fed said, it could be done.
But such a tax would also violate "one of the fundamental principles of taxation in a democracy."
That is, some rich guy may actually have a relatively small amount in his deposit account that consists only of his salary and dividends, while a local businessman may have his entire payroll locked up in his branch's vault.
That kind of indiscriminate punishment is exactly what the Troika has executed today, Conway writes:
...one’s sympathy has to be with the country’s savers. Consider it: overnight a widow’s life savings, carefully saved up over decades, have been gouged, simply because EU bureaucrats decided to protect hedge funds and the German surplus, and to teach Russians a lesson.
Here's the full reproduction of the Fed's 1941 response. Big thanks to Ed Conway for passing it along.

Federal Reserve

meanwhile back at the chicken ranch....

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-03-19/spain-preparing-its-own-deposit-levy

Is Spain Preparing For Its Own Deposit "Levy"?

Submitted by Tyler Durden on 03/19/2013 20:24 -0400

Google

Mexico

While Spain's economy minister Luis De Guindos proclaimed in the Senate today that bank deposits under EUR100,000 are "sacred"and that "Spanish savers should stay calm," Spain, it would appear, has changed constitutional rules to enable a so-called 'moderate' levy on deposits - as under previous Spanish law this was prohibited. For now, they claim the 'levy' will be "not much higher than 0%" and is mainly aimed at regions in Spain that have "made no effort to collect taxes" based on new revenue expectations. As El Pais reports, the minister of finance and public administration, Cristobal Montoro, defends the need for such a 'levy' in their constitution on the basis of standardizing taxes across regions (and is preparing a proposal on the amounts to be paid) and although it would appear that while the European Commission could previously argue that such a 'tax' would violate the free movement of capital in Europe, it now leaves the door open to eventually effectively taxing the deposits. We can't help but remember the Tequila crisis and the constant reassurances from Zedillo up until even the night before Mexico devalued...

Via El Pais (Via Google Translate),

The Minister of Finance and Public Administration, Cristobal Montoro, has advanced on Tuesday that the government will impose a type "moderate" to bank deposits to compensate communities that saw their tax autonomy canceled after the Executive created a state tax 0% rate. This tax on bank deposits, which has nothing to do with Cyprus, does not affect savers but requires credit institutions to pay for that capture deposits.

"The autonomous communities receive timely and therefore financially compensation shall implement a moderate rate in the state tax on bank deposits," said the minister, adding that this kind "will not be much higher than 0%" .

The Minister of Finance has clarified that such "moderate" will have no tax collection effort, "but that these regions serve to offset the revenue loss to see." So, he assured that the amount will correspond to the amount "exact has been undermined by the cancellation of regional taxes".

It will not be the case of Asturias, where the tax on deposits was approved by the regional budget law, while "Spanish law prohibits the adoption of this mode" stressed Montoro. During the questioning of Senator Francisco Fuentes Socialist Group Gallardo, Montoro explained that communities of Extremadura, Andalusia and the Canary Islands, which were in force when the tax came into effect on state "receive timely compensation, which will resulting from the implementation a moderate to state tax rate. "

Montoro has stressed that the Central Government is preparing a proposal on the amounts to be paid to travel to the affected communities "in the relevant joint committee" with the affected communities. "That is the Government's intention and hope that through political dialogue can establish an agreement," said.

Has advanced further the Government's intention to reduce delays for this compensation count as income to the budget.

Meanwhile, Sen. Gallardo Fuentes Extremadura has quantified what will stop collecting the three affected regions in 2013, once in force the 0% of the Government, amounting to 230 million euros in 2013. Specifically, Extremadura lose 39 million euros, 96 million Canary Islands and Andalusia, 95.5 million. Besides, you corresponerían Asturias 30 million.

The Government announced in November 2012 the creation of a tax on bank deposits with type 0%, with implementation on 1 January 2013, to prevent the regions implement your own. A week earlier, the Constitutional Court had endorsed the tax on deposits of Extremadura, which launched in 2001 and turned in the day the government of José María Aznar.

Thus, this tax was in force before the imposition of the 0% and in the case of Andalusia, the Canary Islands in 2010 and established, who created it in June 2012. Only after it established Asturias. So this type Montoro 0% justified by the need to standardize the tax system and maintain the unity of the internal market, after the European Commission will send a letter to the Government on the grounds that these taxes in the regions could violate the free movement of capital. While leaving the door open to eventually effectively taxing the deposits.

http://rt.com/business/new-zealand-cyprus-style-banking-failure-solution-477/

New Zealand considers Cyprus-style banking failure solution

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Published time: March 19, 2013 09:59

A man withdraws money from an ATM at the global headquarters of the Australia and New Zealand (ANZ) Bank (AFP Photo/William West)

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Tuesday, March 19, 2013

New Zealand and Spain planning their own deposit levt snatches a la Cyprus just tried or allegedly was forced to try to pull off ? What other countries are making on deposit levies ?