“So what are you going to do? When they come and they just take 50% of your 401(k), your life savings, what are you going to do?” Glen Beck asked.
Well, it’s pretty much what everyone expected to happen in Europe once the government made plans to use depositor’s own bank accounts over $100,000 to pay for the bailout in Cyprus. In the wake of the bailout being made on Monday, a top eurozone official has now said that the Cyprus model will be used as a template for future bailout in the European Union.
Jeroen Dijsselbloem, the Dutch chairman of the eurozone, said “If there is a risk in a bank, our first question should be ‘Okay, what are you in the bank going to do about that? What can you do to recapitalise yourself?” He then added, “If the bank can’t do it, then we’ll talk to the shareholders and the bondholders, we’ll ask them to contribute in recapitalising the bank, and if necessary the uninsured deposit holders.”
The policy is a shift from the past three years where large bank accounts with over $100,000 and senior bondholders had been protected. Dijsselbloem said that the Cyprus bailout showed that private investors could be forced to pay a “haircut” for bad investment and deals by the banks.
“What they’ve done in Cyprus is they have closed and frozen the bank accounts. They have taken the bank accounts, frozen them. Anybody who had $130,000 or 100,000 Euros in the bank, they have now frozen those assets. they believe, 30 to 40% of those assets to pay down the debt,” Glenn said.
“As we told you last week or ten days ago, this was the beginning. This was the Petri dish. And as soon as they got it through Cyprus, they would do it in other countries,” he explained.
“Well, they announced today…they were thinking about doing this now in Spain, in Greece, in France, and where was the other one, Italy.”
Glenn explained that when the European Union started, people concerned with national sovereignty were concerned because they were giving up their self-rule. But critics shouted them down.
“Remember the guy who started the Euro, the guy who dreamt this up. He said, ‘Look, we’re going to start the Euro and everybody will, you know, they will still retain some of their sovereignty until there’s a national emergency, until there is a banking crisis. And then we will cobble everybody together and we’ll collapse it and then restart as one nation.’ So I mean, this was the plan from the very beginning. That’s the plan as stated by them,” Glenn said.
“This is one of those things where conservatives and people who actually care about their nation’s sovereignty looked like maniacs when this thing was started and complained and complained and complained that they were giving up their sovereignty and then years later when it happens, no one remembers,” Stu added.
Glenn asked the audience to consider what they would do if these practices spread beyond Europe.
“So what are you going to do? When they come and they just take 50% of your 401(k), your life savings, what are you going to do?” Glen asked.
When a President of the United States has this kind of power at his disposal, he cannot be stopped.
——————————————————————————————
Mar. 25, 2013 7:43am Jonathon M. Seidl
Our banks are only as safe as the FDIC. Which insures over 13 trillion in deposit
Some insurance. They have enough money to guarantee you less than 76¢ents on every $100. You have on deposit. We are worse off than Cyprus
If you think we are safe from this you are wrong. The MF Global collapse established a precedent. Essentially what happened is that the MF Global fund mixed the company’s money with their clients’ money. When they went bust the banks said we want our money back and the clients said they want their money back. The accounts were supposed to be fiduciary accounts with insurance backing up the clients’ money. The court ruled that the banks came first and since there wasn’t enough money to go around the MF Global clients lost it all. That’s bad enough but what happened established the precedent that fiduciary accounts are no longer fiduciary. The financial institution has NO obligation to protect their clients’ money and, in fact, cannot protect their clients’ money from the courts. So your money is just as much at risk as the Cypriots’ money if it is in any kind of custodian account – bank account, savings account, 401(k), IRA, etc. If it’s not in your physical possession it is at risk.
