10:51 – There seems to be a great deal of surprise that Cyprus has stopped asset transfers in preparation for stealing up to 9.9% of bank depositors’ account balances. I’m not sure why anyone is surprised. That’s what governments do. They call it a “tax”, and they can do it anytime they want and in any amount they want. That kind of thing happens in the US and other first-world countries as well. It just happened with ObamaCare. And it’s even more likely to occur in places with undemocratic, dictatorial, autocratic, unelected governments, like the EU. Cypriot bank account holders should be thankful that their government, at the insistence of the Troika, stole only 9.9% or less of their account balances. They could have stolen it all.
So, Cyprus becomes the fifth eurozone nation to be bailed out, following Greece, Ireland, Portugal, and Spain. Italy can’t be far behind, and France not far behind Italy. When those two go, it’s game over for the euro. Meanwhile, the Protestant northern-tier nations look on, dreading the day when those bills come due, while the Catholic southern-tier nations continue to run up huge bills they have no hope of ever paying. Merkel is mortgaging Germany’s future solely to improve her chances of being re-elected this autumn, which looks increasingly unlikely to happen. And the downward slide of Greece has already passed the “developing nation” third-world level, and is quickly headed for whatever’s worse than third-world. And, as much as I’m glad not to be European and particularly not on the euro, I keep thinking that it can happen here. In fact, if we don’t soon start taking a meat-axe to spending, it will happen here.