So the Cyprus crises is “solved,” for values of “solved” that means “everyone but bankers and Eurocrats get screwed.”
“The message that stakeholders of all stripes can be coerced into helping a cash-strapped nation may make investors more skittish they’ll be targeted if Slovenia, Italy, Spain or even Greece again is next in line to need help. The risk is that bank runs and bond market selloffs become more likely the moment a country applies for a new rescue.” A funny definition of the word “helping.” Like “helping” a mugger holding a gun to your head.
And just in case you think I’m exagerating: Cyprus is seizing money from people at the border.
“Why would anybody keep more than €100,000 in a Greek or a Spanish or an Italian bank?…In short, the Dijsselbloem plan was a plan to bankrupt southern European banks and make southern European euros worth less than northern European euros. In case you were wondering, this is the farce stage of the euro tragedy.”
UKIP Leader: Get your money out of Spain while you have the chance:
“If we are seeing the limits of German willingness to support eurozone bailouts when the numbers don’t matter, what will happen when the numbers do matter very much?”
Legal Insurrection has a few more lessons.
The European cradle-to-grave welfare state is unsustainable. It’s only a matter of how many trillions will be destroyed before the world is willing to face that fact.
About Lawrence Person
Lawrence Person is a political commentator and science fiction writer living in Austin, Texas. His political work has appeared in National Review, Reason, The Freeman, Liberty and The World & I. His SF has appeared in Asimov's, Analog, F&SF, Postscripts, Jim Baen's Universe, Fear, and several anthologies. He owns such a large library (mostly science fiction first editions) he had to buy a two-story house to put it in, and then adopted a golden retriever to drag him out of his house on a regular basis.
