Hitting new heights of clueless hubris, Germany says the current desperate plan by Cyprus to nationalize pensions is even more reckless than Germany’s original plan to impose a “tax” on bank accounts.
Before concrete details emerged, German leaders made it clear they would not back a deal that involved nationalizing the state-owned companies’ pensions, a measure that is rejected in Berlin as more socially dangerous than even the original plan to tax smaller savings.
The always popular Bad Bank plan is being floated too. Take all the garbage in Cypriot banks, put them in one place, and hope this somehow prevents their banking system from imploding, on the theory that a 50 pound pile of poo is better than 50 1 pound piles.
Then there’s the little problem of Russian organized crime money which is being laundered in Cyprus, something which the media dances around and menttions by inference,
Many of the wealthiest citizens of Russia, which is not in the euro currency union, have bank accounts in Cyprus — one reason that euro zone finance ministers have taken such a hard line.
I think this may be at the root of the Cyprus problem. The Eurozone has declared war on that money.