Remember when we were told to, “save for a rainy day?” As parents we teach our children the importance of saving their money. In today’s world, the day we are saving for is the day our Government decides it is raining, for them, and they take our money. In the U.S. this theft of our savings has been done by suppressing interest rates and pushing up inflation. Inflation, the “hidden tax,” that allows Governments to raid your savings (and your income before you even get a chance to save it). Now the European Union has decided to drop the pretense, and they are simply stealing people’s savings right out of their account. I guess inflation was taking too long.
In the U.S., savers were punished by the Government during the Government-created housing boom when home prices skyrocketed making the downpayments most people had scrimped and saved for insufficient, forcing them to take on more debt than they would have otherwise, or keeping them in apartments as homes they could have purchased now became unattainable as their prices went out of sight.
Savers have been eviscerated the last ten years by government mandated (via The Fed) low interest rates. In a world where 0.85% is now considered a “high yield” account and with real inflation at 8%, every saver is losing 7%+ in purchasing power every year. With payroll cost of living adjustments between 1% and 3%, real incomes are also declining as they are overwhelmed by high inflation. The elderly and retirees that planned their retirement by living off of a reasonable rate of return on their life’s savings are barely surviving, or going back to work instead. Meanwhile, everyone else is looking for some level of return that at least keeps up with inflation and so must expose their savings to increasingly risky investments as they are the only ones with any return rate, and thus risk losing their retirement savings in the process.
Savers are penalized because they did the right thing. They did not buy an overpriced house and take on a ridiculous mortgage that they couldn’t afford. For their foresight and resposible behaviour, they are having their taxes hiked, their savings and incomes destroyed, and all because the Government wants their money to bailout corrupt banks that got in trouble after making billions on these home loans, and to bailout irresponsible home owners who live in their houses mortgage-free for years as evictions drag on.
Now the European Union has taken it to the next level. The European Union and the President of Cyprus agreed to take, to steal, between 6% and 10% of all citizens savings accounts in the nation of Cyprus in exchange for a bailout. Naturally this caused a financial panic as citizens rushed ATM’s to withdraw their savings, and many are concerned the ATM’s will run out of money before they can get all of their savings out. In the end, the politicians will be successful in stealing billions of dollars from the working men and women and their families in Cyprus. Once again, savers…savers…are the ones punished in order to bailout corrupt banks and their corrupt politicians. The European Union is a putrid cesspool of fraudulent and corrupt political criminals that are even willing to steal your money right of of your own savings account.
This is what Big Government can do. This is what Big Government DOES. And yet here in the U.S., voters continue to vote for more Big Government, Bigger Big Government. But it is ALL of our savings accounts and our incomes that is being stolen from, here and in Europe.
In the coastal town of Larnaca, Cypriots described how they had queued from the early hours in the hope of withdrawing deposits from banks. “A lot of us just can’t believe it,” said Alexandra Christofi, a divorcee in her 40s who said she had rushed to her bank before doors even opened at 6am. “I had put my money there for a rainy day. It’s absolutely all I have and I cannot understand how Cyprus is being singled out. Other EU countries got bailouts and we’re only in this position because we supported Greece,” she said, referring to the massive losses the Cypriot banking system suffered as a result of Greece’s restructuring its debt last year. “Where is the fairness in that? Where is the solidarity and support that is meant to be the reason why we are all unified in this common currency in the first place?”
Where is the ethical or moral basis in authorizing the theft of billions from citizens of any country? How does just making it legal make it right? This is the evil putridness of politicians and Government. Once we relinquish control to them, this is what they can do to us. There is no remorse. There is no apology. There is simply, “Give us your God Damn money!”
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/mar/16/cyprus-savings-levy-imposed-eurozone
Categories: Big Brother, Corporate Fascism, Cronycapitalism, Foreign News, Government Tyranny, Headlines, Inflation, Socialism, Taxes, Uncategorized
Angrywoodchuck's Blog 
Leave a Reply