If you lived in some tiny Eurozone country with a bloated finance sector (say, Malta, or Luxembourg) and you saw what was happening in Cyprus–limits on withdrawals, “cash only” signs, deposit confiscation, limits on movements of your money out of the country, and many others that have yet to be discovered–wouldn’t you take your Euros out of your local bank, put a nice chunk of them in a safe in your basement, and put the rest in a German bank? I know I would, and I’d do it quickly.
c u n d gulag
Yeah, the answer to the question, “Stupid, or evil?”, is always, “BOTH!!!”
raven
Chrome wheeled, fuel injected and steppin out over the line
FlyingToaster
That or get some of my money out of the Eurozone altogether. Swiss Francs and British Pounds are certainly nearby :)
Corner Stone
mistermix, did you see the fooforaw by T-Mobile yesterday? They’re adding the iPhone to their LTE lineup and becoming a no contract “uncarrier”.
Figured that would be up your alley.
Corner Stone
Looks like the euro is desperately trying to become the Archduke Ferdinand of this century.
Baud
@raven:
Nice.
Corner Stone
Maybe they should invest their money in tangible items. Like guns or ammo.
Schlemizel
@FlyingToaster:
Yup, I have thought for a while now that I would not want euros. Dollars might not be a bad bet
rikyrah
I’d have no money in Euros.
Omnes Omnibus
@Schlemizel: Just to be safe, a nice mix of dollars, pounds, and Swiss francs. Always diversify.
R-Jud
@Omnes Omnibus: I’m good on the dollars and pounds. I feel bad for friends who do business with the Continent, though.
Suffern ACE
I’m not certain. From what I can tell, this problem actually unwound the way it was supposed to. Banks recognized as private companies and not appendages of the state that needs to take out loans to keep it in business. Depositors were made whole up to the limit of the deposit insurance program. Depositors and bondholders of the institutions in question took the hit, not the depositors of unrelated institutions, which was the first plan. If I were a large depositor, I’d probably use a private bank and insure my account some other way. I’m thinking that if I lived in Luxembourg, I’d put my money in a number of banks and drink beer more often.
cbear
Great plan. That way they can just steal it directly from you without having to go through the hassle of subverting the government of your country.
Prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments, Cardinal mistermix
@Corner Stone: Yes, and I’m going to write about it. Be sure to buy the right iPhone if you go T-Mobile, because they’re bringing out a new one with the radios that can use LTE in the frequencies that T-Mob uses.
RaflW
@Corner Stone:
“Nonetheless Jean Asselborn, the Luxembourg foreign minister, warned Berlin on the eve of the Cyprus bailout that it needed to watch its words, that no one was complaining that the German car or arms industries were too big.”
Zing!
This United States of Europe is a funny place. I don’t think the various peoples actually like each other all that much. Sure, folks in the South say funny things about California, but then their savior, St Ronnie, was from there, so it’s tempered.
And we ‘Merkuns only really hated each other once and damn near tore the place to shreds, but survived the fight. At least back then, it was mostly single shot rifles with a rate of 2-3 rounds per minute.
Monkeyfister
Fun times! News from Cyprus this morning is that those clever, wily Russkies have devised a scheme that defies the Capital Controls. When the banks re-open, most of that Oligarch money is going to be gone. The Cypriots are going to be left holding the bag, after all. Surely, hilarity will ensue.
Prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments, Cardinal mistermix
Those of you saying you’d get your money out of the Eurozone, we’re talking about residents there who transact their business in Euros. Why take on a currency risk when you can just move your Euros to a safe German bank? And, come on, German banks are safe, they’re not going to confiscate money from their depositors, just from depositors in other countries.
Chris
@RaflW:
Fixed that for you, my friend!
GregB
This whole Cyprus bank looting seems to be one really stupid gambit in a world that purports to believe in capitalism. It seems like a recipe to destroy the confidence in banks and once that is done….
Schlemizel
@Omnes Omnibus:
Back in 07 I tried to get some of my 401k into foreign bond funds but discovered almost all of them were bought and sold in dollars. I did finally find one but the performance was not that great & the dollar did not take the bath I expected it to.
back in the 70’s we were planning on a trip to Germany. Every payday for a year I sent money to my cousin over there which he put into an account for me. Then life interfered (we became pregnant even though the woman silly enough to marry me had an IUD). I had to ask for the money back. Because of the big run up in the DM I got back almost 125% of the money I put in over 18 months.
Second best investment I ever made B-{D
Corner Stone
We talk about Cyprus being a very small piece of the puzzle but I’ve always disregarded that aspect. The main problem Cyprus has isn’t KGB money stuffing their banking system, it’s that they were forced to invest in Greece and the Grecian Formula forked them.
And everyone said, “Ah, Greece is nothing! It’s Italy and Spain we have to worry about!”
But now we see that the smallest chink in the armor of the EU has led in a series of events to riling up the Russians. And we all know what a laid back and carefree bunch ex-KGB guys are about small things like their cash.
Chris
@GregB:
If they’re anything like our banksters, they’ve probably convinced themselves that the little people don’t matter, they only endure, so who cares if they lose confidence in the system, really?
Ultraviolet Thunder
Krugman has been very good on the Cyprus crisis and even he doesn’t know what the hell’s gonna happen. Everyone’s pretty sure it will hurt, though.
Roger Moore
@rikyrah:
Not practical. You’ll still need some money in the local currency to pay for local goods and services.
Feudalism Now!
The switch has been made. The grift completed, on to the next grift. If people lose faith I the banks, where will their money go? That will be the next grift. I smell a new debt commodity being created backed by German industry, so you know it will be stable. ;p
max
wouldn’t you take your Euros out of your local bank, put a nice chunk of them in a safe in your basement, and put the rest in a German bank?
Actually, if you were going to stay in Cyprus you’d withdraw the money (hopefully before this happened) and buy US Dollar, and yes, Swiss Marks and maybe even Rubles. It’s also the situation (surviving the transition from the Euro to the Lira) where buying gold & silver beforehand makes sense. Pulling out your Euros and trying to hang on to them doesn’t make much sense unless you’re going to leave Cyprus.
(Buying gold in the US actually doesn’t make much sense unless you think the US (or parts of the US) is going off the dollar. Or you weally truly believe in hyperinflation in the next year or two – but if there isn’t hyperinflation, you’re kind of screwed.
Hyperinflating is *hard* (essentially impossible), unless the central bank is hellbent on creating.)
max
[‘Situations like this though, are where the gold standard actually *really* doesn’t make any sense. Everyone tries to hoard gold, which cramps the usability of the dollar, which creates the opposite of the hyperinflation scenario where hoarding gold actually makes sense.’]
James K. Polk, Esq.
Your money’s not here, it’s in Vladimir’s checking account. And in Natasha’s mink coat and in Lloyd’s Bentley.
Seriously though, only the banksters are morally allowed to be libertarian monsters with their funds. Us 99%ers are supposed to honor the contracts of the mortgages that we signed up for. Just you wait till all personal debts are non-dischargable.
Banksters will fit you for your yoke yet.
Helmut Monotreme
I am normally a fan of Paul Krugman, but according to this article, and others on this bloggers site, Paul Krugman and the rest of the world have at best a ‘simplified’ and at worst wrong view of the Cyprus economy and what got it into trouble in the first place.
http://www.philip-atticus.com/2013/03/why-paul-krugman-is-wrong-about-cyprus.html
MattF
I’d definitely take my money out of any eurozone bank, or try to– the 64-euro question is where to put it. I have a somewhat sinking feeling that good ol’ US real estate is a likely target. And there’s always under the mattress, making friends with the dust bunnies.
Higgs Boson's Mate
Do you know why they call him Franky Four Fingers?
Because he makes stupid bets with dangerous people.
When he doesn’t pay up, they give him the chop.
– Snatch
The time to get out of Cypriot banks was when you found out that the people running them were stupid enough to take money from dangerous people and loan it to Greece.
Corner Stone
@GregB:
I think this has already been accomplished. BAC down 70% over the last 5 years, C down almost 80%. JPM is the only one of the 3 largest that is in the green and it’s only up 4% over 5 years.
IMO, some large chunk of people do not follow the markets, or generally news at all, and just continue to use their checking account because it’s what they have. People who are paying attention have long since lost confidence in these establishments.
Barry
@Suffern ACE: “I’m not certain. From what I can tell, this problem actually unwound the way it was supposed to. Banks recognized as private companies and not appendages of the state that needs to take out loans to keep it in business. Depositors were made whole up to the limit of the deposit insurance program. Depositors and bondholders of the institutions in question took the hit, not the depositors of unrelated institutions, which was the first plan. If I were a large depositor, I’d probably use a private bank and insure my account some other way. I’m thinking that if I lived in Luxembourg, I’d put my money in a number of banks and drink beer more often. ”
As far as can be told from public knowledge:
1) The IMF/ECB’s first reaction was to take from even the insured accounts. The attitude of the IMF/ECB is that deposit insurance is not sacred.
2) The banks were closed for at least a week; this would really s*ck if you had to do business.
3) Cyrus now will have capital controls, which means that your Cypriot Euros (CEuros) have been devalued relative to real Euros (REuros).
Barry
@GregB: “This whole Cyprus bank looting seems to be one really stupid gambit in a world that purports to believe in capitalism. It seems like a recipe to destroy the confidence in banks and once that is done…. ”
That’s the biggest worry; that the guys running the Euro are happy to drive it right off of the cliff.
Higgs Boson's Mate
@Corner Stone:
Oh ye of little faith. Just because those establishments are run by people who are paid a fortune to not know what’s going on in those establishments should in no way lower anyone’s confidence.
Barry
@Corner Stone: “The main problem Cyprus has isn’t KGB money stuffing their banking system, it’s that they were forced to invest in Greece and the Grecian Formula forked them.”
Another reason to worry; the ECB/German gov’t didn’t contain the problem with Greece, but spread it to other countries.
If Cypriot banks were forced to buy Greek gov’t bonds, I imagine that others were, as well.
Barry
@MattF: “I’d definitely take my money out of any eurozone bank, or try to– the 64-euro question is where to put it. I have a somewhat sinking feeling that good ol’ US real estate is a likely target. And there’s always under the mattress, making friends with the dust bunnies. ”
Probably German banks; if they go under, then the Euro is history anyway (and you’ll probably be converted into DM if that happens).
Now, I find it interesting that the ECB (otherwise known as Germany) is taking actions which would lead people to move their money to Germany………
jibeaux
What, no love for high-proof grain alcohol? It’s portable and keeps forever, it’s the currency of the future, folks.
Corner Stone
@Barry: If the German banks go under then I want to be a salesman in the “Hole Digging Industry” because everyone will be hunting a hole to hide in at that point.
My units of payment accepted will be “Ass, Gas or Grass. Nobody rides for free.”
Alex S.
@FlyingToaster:
Ironically, the Euro is one of the few major currencies that is not being devalued right now, because of the hard money-stance of the Bundesbank. So holding Euros is still a better investment than Dollars, Pounds or Yen.
mdblanche
Hey everybody, let’s bring our shares over to
Mr. PotterMrs. Merkel.Hshe’s offering 50 cents on thedollareuro.catclub
@Omnes Omnibus:
I’ve got ninety thousand pounds in my pajamas,
I’ve got forty thousand french francs in my fridge,
I’ve got lots of lovely lira now the deutchmark’s getting dearer,
and my dollar bills would buy the brooklyn bridge.
On a serious note, the money in Cyprus and Iceland and Irealnd was ‘hot money’ searching for yield in a low yield world. I am not sure those safe other choices have that essential item.
catclub
@Barry: “If Cypriot banks were forced to buy Greek gov’t bonds,”
I think they were only ‘forced to’ because the yield ( without default/haircut) was about 20%/yr. Hot money searching for yield in a low yield world.
Roger Moore
@Alex S.:
And it will continue to be rock solid until either the Germans decide that hard currency is strangling their economy or the rest of the Eurozone rebels against maintaining high unemployment to protect the profits of German bankers. Somebody at ECB needs to recognize that the purpose of money and the economy is to provide for the needs of its citizens, not the other way around.
Mandalay
Only slightly OT, this looks very promising:
I have no idea what hold the US government has over Lichtenstein to make them cough up the dirt by Friday.
Perhaps we can look forward to US marines liberating Liechtenstein on Saturday if the criminal bureaucrats refuse to comply with our legitimate demands and snitch before the end of the week?
Xenos
@Suffern ACE:
Good beer and wine are so cheap here in Luxembourg that it is pretty hard to waste much money on them.
Luxembourg is a bit like Europe’s Dubai. Half the people are from somewhere else and are ready to move back as soon at it becomes necessary. That could happen at any time, but seems unlikely at this point. The country itself is investing their gains in infrastructure and education, and they have a pretty good track record at effectively planning ahead.
As an example, they shut down or recapitalized their problem banks as soon as possible, bringing in Arab oil money to lighten the load. It was like having the FDIC on the job- no drama, no fuss, one day I was banking at Dexia, the next I was banking at Banque International du Luxembourg (not to be confused with Banque International à Luxembourg). This sort of thing does not get done, it seems, in the Hellenephonic countries. I could not even get my father in law to take his money at Empouraki Trapeza to a proper Credit Agricole account. He is going to ride that sucker down, I am afraid.
mdblanche
@catclub: Wasn’t that 20% yield a clear sign of impending default/euphemism for default?
catclub
@Xenos: ” Empouraki Trapeza”
Is a translation of that ‘Trapeze Emporium’?
Their motto? ‘Juggling your money with chainsaws!’
catclub
@mdblanche: Yes,
Except for AIG’s creditors, who were paid 100% of face value for their bonds. _Their_ creditors were banks like JPMorgan.
Roger Moore
@Mandalay:
I’ve said it before: if we’re going to follow the neoconservatives’ advice and throw some tiny country against the wall once a decade to prove we mean business, we should pick an international tax haven next time around. They’re doing a lot more real damage to our country than Iraq ever did, and I sincerely doubt that the occupation of the Cayman Islands or Luxembourg will be as tough as Iraq’s proved to be.
Mandalay
@Corner Stone:
Bad Greek investments may be the primary cause for the problems of the Cypriot banks, but how were they “forced” to invest in Greece?
Omnes Omnibus
@mdblanche: Lots of people think they have enough savvy to get out just before the crash. If you can ride a bubble and jump at the right time, you win big. The majority of people who do this are wrong.
Higgs Boson's Mate
@Mandalay:
“Every ten years or so, the United States needs to pick up some small crappy little country and throw it against the wall, just to show the world we mean business.”
Well, it has been ten years since the invasion of Iraq. I’m confident that The World’s Most Military™ can provide us with that long sought decisive victory in Liechtenstein.
EDIT: Roger Moore beat me to it. Curses, foiled again!
schrodinger's cat
@Omnes Omnibus: Old saying on Wall Street. Bulls makes money and bears make money, but pigs get slaughtered.
Suffern ACE
@Roger Moore: I say smash that duchy on the left hand side.
Corner Stone
@Mandalay: Fat Tony who has the no-show job at the ECB made sure all the EU family had their skin in the game.
My understanding is the ECB pressured several entities to loan money Greece.
Corner Stone
@schrodinger’s cat: I think they need to update that saying.
Xenos
@Roger Moore:
We already have a NATO base, so the invasion is like half done, already. Make sure not to blow up Patton’s grave, just for old-time’s sake.
mdblanche
@Roger Moore: Attacking the Cayman Islands could get hairy due to their nuclear armed big brother.
schrodinger's cat
@Corner Stone: To what? Any suggestions
Pigs get fat and happy?
Mandalay
@Roger Moore:
The issue comes down to whether international tax havens are used for tax evasion or tax avoidance.
The IRS is currently going after Amazon for this nifty trick:
The illegal stuff being done is not the only problem. Governments also need to address the legal (?) scams like the one that Amazon is trying to pull.
Suffern ACE
@schrodinger’s cat: pigs end up in the rivers in China?
BruceK
@catclub: Actually, “Emporiki Trapeza” translates literally as “Commercial Bank” – “Trapeza” = bank, “Emporiki” = commercial.
“Trapeeze” probably comes from the same classical root, but I don’t know how the etymology works out.
Joel (Macho Man Randy Savage)
I’d buy US treasuries.
Corner Stone
@schrodinger’s cat: “Pigs get whatever they want.” ?
I don’t know but it seems like the piggies have been getting all the best cuts of the meal and leaving the scraps for the rest to fight over.
And also, where do whales fit in this old saying?
NCSteve
Yes, I too thought it was just the most amazing coincidence that the only possible way for
the German bankers and German governmentECB to save the Euro from the depredations of Cypriot southern European imprudence and financial licentiousness was to take actions that will inevitably precipitate a massive bank run that will inevitably send deposits flying out of Cypress and other such places and into German banks.I mean, seriously, what the hell do these fuckers think is going to happen ten seconds after the banks in Cypress finally open (if they ever do)? Every fucking one of them is going to collapse like the buildings in a regulation-free Galtian paradise during an earthquake. And the idiots who run the ECB seem not to have even conceived of the possibility that that might just make things worse than they were before the stepped in to give those naughty Cypriots a good sound spanking to teach them the error of their loose Mediterranean ways.
schrodinger's cat
@Corner Stone: I guess the saying made sense before finance got “innovative”.
Jay C
@Roger Moore:
LOL
Let me know when this happens: so I can get my umbrella out to keep the falling pigsh*t from all those airborne swine off my head….
Corner Stone
@Mandalay:
And like all good tax avoiders, Amazon is quite happily using our taxpayer funded infrastructure to maintain low costs for itself.
schrodinger's cat
Short the Euro, the common currency is going to collapse. Its a matter of when not if.
Corner Stone
@NCSteve:
In an observer status, I’m actually eager to see what does happen when these banks finally open again.
I’m going to say some money will be withdrawn but nothing devastating will happen to the banking system overall.
Barry
@Higgs Boson’s Mate: “Well, it has been ten years since the invasion of Iraq. I’m confident that The World’s Most Military™ can provide us with that long sought decisive victory in Liechtenstein.”
No, let’s invade Germany. I want another Good War.
And since we’ll draft the sons (and daughters, this time!) of the elites into the invasion force, I’m certain that the elites will become a little more sober about war – at least those who survive the beachhead :)
mdblanche
@NCSteve: I’ve been told that it would explain a lot if the East German-born Merkel were a deep cover Stasi agent whose 25 year mission to bring down Western capitalism is coming close to fruition. I don’t know what everyone else’s excuse is, but since I’ve also been told that Europeans are all a bunch of socialists, they’re probably all in on it too.
Roger Moore
@BruceK:
I looked at least part of it up. Our word “trapeze” comes from trapezium meaning a four sided figure, presumably because the bar and ropes formed a trapezoid. The same word is also used to refer to a table in Greek. I don’t know about the Greek etymology for certain, but our word for bank comes ultimately from the word for a table, so I wouldn’t be surprised if the same were true in Greek.
Higgs Boson's Mate
@Barry:
Great idea! Then we’d have a brand new Greatest Generation whose successors can bitch about them instead of bitching about the Boomers.
Villago Delenda Est
Banking needs to be made boring again. Bankers should spend a healthy party of their day watching pr0n to stay awake.
catclub
@schrodinger’s cat: ” Its a matter of when not if. ”
The counterargument to this, of course, is “The markets can stay insane longer than you can stay solvent.”
Whether it pays NOW to short the Euro, I have no idea.
Suffern ACE
@schrodinger’s cat:
O.K. I’m not the most sophisticated investor, but how does one short the Euro if one does not know when that would happen? Doesn’t guessing when that would happen accurately play a role in the short?
BArry
@Villago Delenda Est: “Banking needs to be made boring again. Bankers should spend a healthy party of their day watching pr0n to stay awake. ”
There was an old joke about Savings and Loans following the 3-5-3 rule:
Take in deposits at 3%.
Make home loans at 5%.
Be on the golf course at 3 PM.
Those days don’t look so bad.
? Martin
@BruceK:
Trapeza in greek means a table, and it often referred to a table where money changed hands, where business was conducted. That’s how it got attached to banking – until the Dutch, banks were usually no more than that table. Latin borrowed the word from greek.
A trapezium is a 4 sided geometrical shape with non-right angles. A regular trapezium has two unequal and two equal sides and is symmetrical about one axis. A trapeze is shaped like a regular trapezium with the long support bar, two equal length cables, and a short swing bar. French borrowed the word from latin, we borrowed it from the french.
BArry
@Suffern ACE: ”
O.K. I’m not the most sophisticated investor, but how does one short the Euro if one does not know when that would happen? Doesn’t guessing when that would happen accurately play a role in the short? ”
There’s two sayings which apply:
‘The market can stay irrational longer than you can stay solvent’ and ‘being too early is just as bad as being too late’.
Alex S.
@Barry:
Well, it is eerie how Germany once again managed to get most of Europe under its control. And ironically, the Euro was the price France wanted Germany to pay for re-unification, they wanted to kill the Deutschmark. Now, Germany controls the Euro, gets half of Europe to join and steers Europe’s fiscal policy. And Germany’s banks aren’t even that powerful…
Roger Moore
@Alex S.:
The really ridiculous thing is that Germany learned the wrong lesson from the inter-war years. They’re far more worried about the tiniest bit of inflation than they are about persistently high unemployment. It’s as if they’re still afraid of the hyperinflation from the early 1920s but ignoring that it was the Depression that brought down the Weimar Republic a decade later.
schrodinger's cat
@Suffern ACE: Yes, you make good points.
It was not investment advice for retirement. But if one has cash to spare like Mitt Romney for example. I would definitely do it.
And anyone who is playing the international currency markets is not your average Joe or Jane saving for retirement.
Villago Delenda Est
@Roger Moore:
Yup, this is true.
You’ll also note what the successor government to the Weimar Republic did to get the economy moving. Massive public works and military spending.
Ben Franklin
@mdblanche:
The oligarchs, remembering what happened to the Czar, made sure they had a Dodd-Frank loophole so they didn’t lose like the little people.
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-03-27/furious-cyprus-begins-investigating-who-breached-capital-controls
catclub
@Roger Moore: I have made the same comment. I figure the reason is: Rich people with financial assets were wiped out by hyperinflation. Poor
people with jobs were not. Rich people make policy.
Also, wasn’t there something about the aristocracy and the revolution: They learn nothing, they forget nothing.
mdblanche
Cyprus has announced its new capital controls. They claim they will only last for a week. That claim would be more credible if the controls did not make reference to monthly and quarterly limits.
Roger Moore
@Villago Delenda Est:
An uncharitable person might even suggest that the people in charge of setting German (and hence European) monetary policy have less sympathy with the Weimar government than they do with its successor.
Corner Stone
@Ben Franklin: I love that article from Spiegel:
“Lawmakers are suspicious and are investigating both the government and the Cypriot central bank.”
and
“Lawmakers have demanded that the central bank assemble a list of those customers who withdrew large amounts of money prior to the closure of the country’s financial institutions.”
Ooooo, they’re suspicious are they? And they’re making a list, hmmm?
Yeah, let’s see what happens when they start reading that list and get to about the fifth name. I’m pretty sure they’ll burn that list if they know what’s fucking good for them.
Alex S.
@Roger Moore:
Yes, though sometimes I wonder what’s behind that. One often reads that there is a traumatic fear of inflation in Germany, but I don’t think that this is how it works. I think it’s more of a systemic consequence. The Bundesbank had no mandate to create full employment, so the ECB doesn’t have it either. Why didn’t the Bundesbank have it? Because the leading economic school in Germany immediately after World War II was not Keynesianism, but Ordoliberalism. But I don’t know if Ordoliberalism was a product of hyperinflation or a product of German philosophy.
Anyway, maybe in the end it’s indeed ‘only’ rich people controlling policy to prevent inflation. That’s the easiest solution that nobody ‘serious’ dares to mention.
Ben Franklin
@Corner Stone:
. I’m pretty sure they’ll burn that list if they know what’s fucking good for them.
I would rather face Tony Soprano’s ire when I didn’t have the VIG.
Barry
@Roger Moore: I keep wondering if it’s deliberate – the lesson from the inter-war years was that depression and deflation brings Fascism. Do bankers like fascists?
redoubt
@Barry:
Do bankers like fascists?
Hjalmar Horace Greeley Schacht may be able to answer that question.
I am not a kook
@schrodinger’s cat: You first. Let us know when you have a significant chunk of your money invested in this scheme.
schrodinger's cat
@I am not a kook: I no has munnies. I has opinions.
Chris
@Barry:
Bankers specifically? Not a clue. But businessmen in general love fascists, since they’re the people you can count on to go and beat up anything that smells remotely left wing or democratic. So I would guess “yes.”
Summer
From a Cypriot friend, on social media:
Summer
Well, that didn’t turn out so well. Commentary from Cyprus, without the link: http://cyprusnews.eu/marios-epaminondas/1053552
fuckwit
I find it interesting that the international cryptocurrency Bitcoin seems to be taking off like crazy now.
If I were living in the Eurozone right now, especially those banking-heavy countries, and was worried about the troika and German bankers coming in and shutting down my bank and freezing my assets, essentially impoverishing me, I’d be pulling money out ASAP and putting it into something like Bitcoin.
fuckwit
I do have to say this though. I do not like the way the Germans are dealing with the rest of the EU. But I’m not sure I can blame them either.
Germany has built a very solid welfare state, pays its workers very well, has carefully managed their balance of trade to be as near zero as possible, requires by law that labor have seats on the board of directors of its corporations, have strict environmental regulations, are deeply commited to renewable energy and zero-waste, and generally behaves in a way that, if it were done here, would be very very far to the left of anything the Democrats have even dared to propose (well, except for maybe Bernie Sanders). Nanny state? Try Germany, they’ve done it better than anyone. And gotten rich by doing so!
And yet. They seem to have no mercy or patience for countries that were not as well-managed. In fact, lot of the countries that are in trouble pursued policies that are well to the RIGHT of Germany’s, were much more free-market than Germany.
So what I’m seeing here, is a liberal success story (Germany), getting tough with the libertarian paradises like Italy and Cyprus where the bankers were allowed to run wild, loot their own economies, engage in speculation bubbles, let their balance of trades get way out of whack, etc.
In other words, I think FAUX and our right-wing media have got the narrative exactly BACKWARDS. The carefully (socialistically!) centrally-managed economies did very well, and the “free-market” paradises turned out to be a bunch of bullshit. Now the centrally-managed economies have had enough of the bullshit.
The villain might not be Germany. The villain might be the wanking-fuckin-bankers of Ireland, Spain, Greece, Italy, and Cyprus who stole from their own people and got rich at the expense of tanking their own economy (sound familiar? It can, and did, happen here). And here we are defending those bankers, inadvertently…. probably because the punishment that Germany intends for them will merely be felt by the common people… not by the culprits.
The thing that sucks though, and what I can’t square with either narrative, is why, other than punishment, they are insisting on austerity. Austerity is like the OPPOSITE of what caused those sucessful countries to become successful! So why are they demanding it?
Instead of insisting on Austerity, why not insist that these distressed countries balance their trade, pay their workers BETTER, have STRONGER environmental regulations, implement TIGHTER long-term planning, in short, do all the things that Germany did to become so successful? Why not try to lift these countries up out of poverty, rather than beat them down further into it? I don’t get it.
Corner Stone
@fuckwit: Bitcoin is a scam. It’s so thinly traded I could use my risk capital to influence the market. Imagine if someone who actually had money wanted to rig it for their profit? Oh wait, that’s already happened at least twice in the recent past when bitcoins stopped being traded.
schrodinger's cat
@Corner Stone: WTH is a bitcoin?
schrodinger's cat
@fuckwit: Because of IGMFY. Germany cares for its citizens, the other indebted countries in Europe can DIAF.
Chris
@fuckwit:
Germany today is kind of like America in the fifties and sixties. There’s a fairly strong social-democratic system and ethos that mostly prevents the “malefactors of great wealth” from hurting their fellow citizens, but they make up for it by exploiting the shit out of foreigners from smaller and weaker countries.
The German exploitation-by-bankster model is less crude and uncivilized than the American rule-by-coup model, but as we’re seeing, plenty harmful in its own way.
Not Sure
@FlyingToaster: U.S. dollars FTW!