Europe Panics As Millions Rush ATMs In Response To European Governments Seizing Citizens Assets

March 18, 2013

Nobody ever said socialism was going to be easy. No, wait a minute. Everyone, including our president, promised that it would be easy: just hand our worries and cares over to the government, and we’d get cradle to grave care for generations. While some Americans are still recognizing this for a blatant lie, in Europe they were foolish enough to believe in the socialist promise. Now, it’s all coming back to bite them in the butt.
The most recent problem started when the island of Cyprus went broke. Not the kind of broke that allows a country to struggle on for a while, but the broke that signals imminent collapse, of the type that happened in Germany before the Nazis came on the scene. Cyprus therefore negotiated a deal with the EU: the Eurozone would give Cyprus a $13 billion bailout, but in return it demanded between 6.75% and 9.9% of all bank deposits in Cyprus.
Theoretically, the deal is intended to capture Russian money hidden in Cyprus – reputedly Russia has up to $19 billion dollars hidden away there – but just the threat of a levy on the banks has sparked a panic run on the banks. People understand that the Eurozone isn’t giving a loan at all – it’s just sucking money out from ordinary people’s bank accounts and then handing it over to Cyprus’s spendthrift, incompetent government.
What’s actually happened on the ground is that, in addition to the Cypriots who will see their money seized, up to 60,000 British subjects who put their savings in high interest Cyprus banks will also see them wiped out. The British government hastened to assure people that it was not part of the bailout, but that wasn’t much consolation to those who will see the horror of their money magically vanishing.
The Daily Mail summarizes some of the details of this socialist government money grab:

Britons have about £1.7billion of deposits in Cyprus and could lose up to £170million. The Cypriot government has agreed to seize up to ten per cent of savings and use the money to bail out the island’s crisis-hit banking system.
The move sparked panic and violent protests yesterday as crowds desperately tried to withdraw their money at cash machines.
Restrictions have been imposed to stop people emptying their accounts or moving their money out of the country following the deal with other eurozone finance ministers, under which ordinary citizens’ deposits will be directly raided for the first time.

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And one of the 3,000 British service personnel based on the island said: ‘I stand to lose €4,000 [£3,500] We’ve tried to save quite hard while we are here – that’s been thrown back in our faces.’
Cypriot president Nicos Anastasiades, who agreed to the raid following ten-hour talks with European finance chiefs, said it was necessary because Cyprus was in a ‘state of emergency’ and failure to enact the Brussels plan would be ‘catastrophic’.
Under the deal, all bank deposits over €100,000 will be hit with a levy of 9.9 per cent. Those with smaller savings will pay 6.75 per cent.
The raid will raise €5.8billion, which will be added to a €10billion bailout from Brussels.

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Andy Georgiou, 32, who grew up in Liverpool, said: ‘We are struggling. We can’t access money and we need it to buy petrol and food. It’s appalling. All without any warning.’
Sean Chamberlain, a 39-year-old writer from Devon who now lives in Cyprus, said: ‘There are a lot of people who are very angry. Everyone was furious, feeling absolutely betrayed by yet another apparently incompetent government.
‘And now they’ve done it once, what’s to stop them deciding to do it again next week? If there’s a run on the bank, that’s a terrifying thing.’
Shirley Brooks, 61, originally from Manchester, stands to lose €18,600. She said: ‘I am extremely angry. This is our retirement money, and there was no warning that this was coming. I don’t think we should have to pay anything as we did not cause the problems in the economy.’

Britain’s formidable Iron Lady, Prime Minister Maggie Thatcher, predicted this a long time ago: “The trouble with Socialism is that eventually you run out of other people’s money.” If people hadn’t been greedy and lazy, they would have understood the truth of her statement. Instead, they bought into socialism’s false promise of endless money, without true effort, innovation, and productivity.
Now, the piper is demanding payment. The saddest part is that the government people who brought this into being will walk away as they always do, while the little old ladies and struggling families will be destroyed. Let’s hope enough people in America are paying attention to learn the lesson from the EU’s devastating collapse.

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