Cyprus has become the fifth Eurozone nation to get a bailout but this one is different. At the insistence of the Germans one condition of the bailout is that private citizen’s pay and they will do so via a tax of up to 10% levied on all bank deposits in the Mediterranean island. This is pure socialism in action – the idea that the legitimate savings made by an individual as a result of fully taxed income can just be seized by the State. It is a horrific precedent.
For having established that the State can effectively seize whatever it wants whenever it wants you rather accept that you have no private property or savings. You can work your socks off, pay taxes to support those who do not work, save prudently so that you will not be a burden on the State or your family in the future and then one day the State just seizes your money. Heck why stop at 10% of bank deposits? Why not seize land, houses, etc.? The precedent is now there and this is an EU precedent.
David Cameron wishes to remain part of an organisation which thinks that State sponsored theft of private wealth is acceptable. I do not and nor, I suspect, do most British people. If the Conservative party and for that matter the Lib Dems and Labour support State sponsored theft that is fine they should be honest about it and we can all vote UKIP. But will the established parties stand up to the political elite in the Evil Empire and say “This is wrong and if you wish to behave in this way we want no part of it?” I doubt it. Call Me Dave, Clegg and the leader of the party that boasts prize shit and anti semite Lord Ahmed in its ranks, may huff and puff but the bottom line is that they all want to be part of a club that allows State sponsored theft.
I suspect that across the continent of Europe there are a lot of folks really questioning whether they want to stay part of this enterprise any more, especially in places such as Spain, Greece, Italy, Portugal and to a lesser extent France and Eire. Do you folks out there in Spain really feel safe leaving your assets where the State can just steal them?
I wonder if next week we might see a bit of a run on the banks in a number of places… unintended consequences and all that. Of course that could then trigger a bailout in Spain or elsewhere. It all becomes self-fulfilling.
It is at this point in a cycle of lunacy that one starts thinking that taking all of your cash out of the banks and buying physical gold to bury in a safe place which just you and one trusted friend know about. Is that any less risky than leaving a money in a bank where you had thought that the Government guaranteed the safety of a deposit but is now, it seems, able just to steal your cash at will.
As for the Euro? The austerity measures imposed on the PIIGs are causing unemployment and misery on a 1930s scale. Social unrest is growing. Now that in at least one PIIGS nation ( more to follow) the basic contract of trust with banks and the Government has been destroyed one must ask if the price being paid for the maintenance of what was always a political not an economic project is a fair one. Perhaps some of those who warned that Britain would be ruined by not joining the Euro (Chris Huhne, Paddy Pantsdown, Tony Blair, Lord Mandelson, Geoffrey Howe and the other “guilty men”) would care to explain why the people of Cyprus have benefited from being in the Euro? Incidentally thousands of British owners of properties in Cyprus and servicemen based in Cyprus will also be hit by this State sponsored theft.
The Euro has to be broken up with the eviction of all of the Southern European nations if it is to survive and if civil unrest, anarchy and abject misery is not to ensue across the Med.
At some stage the little people across Europe will just say that enough is enough and refuse to be trampled upon by a political elite pursuing ideology over common sense.