Why good financial management is not a competitive factor amongst banks? As in: bank with us because we are financially sound (instead of: because we pay higher interest, or whatever). It's not happening yet.
There's no reason it couldn't be. Within the US there are public figures available stating which banks have been the best and which have been the worst in the last few years. There is nothing to stop customers banking on this basis. They still don't, perhaps largely because the government insures up to $1xx,xxx in deposits (I forget the number) so a lot of people are covered no matter what happens to their bank.
Cyprus parliament delays vote on deposit levy to Monday
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Re: Cyprus parliament delays vote on deposit levy to Monday
#42Earlier quoted context omitted.
What's the other option? In the USA, taking 7+% of everyone's savings on short notice would initiate a civil war. Can't imagine how another alternative would be worse.
What would the two sides be? One side is presumably every citizen, but that leaves no citizens on the other side. Sounds more like a revolution.
Re: Cyprus parliament delays vote on deposit levy to Monday
#43Maybe this is a terrifically ignorant comment, but it seems like the government mismanages their finances, as a result, they want the everyman to throw away 10% of their bank deposits? WTF?
Here's an oversimplification: basically by running always on deficit the various eurozone countries have reached closed to an unsustainable point: at one point where the country has too much public debt the country is trapped in the "debt trap". At that point there simply is no way that you can get out because the interest of the debt alone is impossible to be paid without contracting more and more debt.
That is what happened to Greece, for example, where a state default took place.
Now people know that states are going to default so nobody wants to buy government bonds anymore: so the states are basically forcing the banks to buy govt bonds (with a last resort using the BCE as a "bad bank").
So when a country defaults, lots of banks are suddenly virtually bankrupt: they either need a bail-out or go bankrupt. Should they go bankrupt that would deal a huge blow to the economy. Nobody wants Deutsche Bank or BNP Paribas going down: that would probably mean civil war and the end of the western world as we know it.
So states are basically forced to bail out these banks. But, guess what, states are already way too indebted. So they're contracting even more debt, making it even more likely that they'll default.
Cyprus' banks happened to hold lots of govt bonds from Greece. Hence they got fuxx0red when Greece defaulted on part of its state debt.
Now of course if Cyprus defaults, more banks are going to be bankrupt and need a bailout or trigger massive civil unrest... etc.
Because after Cyprus it's going to be Spain, Italy, Portugal... In 2014 it's very likely that France won't be able to finance itself on the market at reasonable rates.
Nigel Farage explained this quite well in a talk in front of the european parliament: this cycle / state default / bank bailout / more state default is endless.
So the eurocrisis is first and foremost a crisis due to the various governments being ruled by clueless monkeys who can't count ("It's all lawyers, lawyers, lawyers" as Neil deGrasse Tyson wrote) and who've been hiding state debt behind growth.
Add to that a gang of banksters sharks always willing to try to create more money out of thin air with crazy leveraging and you get the crazy situation we're in.
It's now gonna end well because if you try to "analyze the curves" you realize we're going into a wall.
There is no way out.
Now of course the various politicians, most notably the socialist ones, are trying to tell us it's all the fault of liberalism and banksters but the cold hard truth is that when you run a country always on deficit at one point it becomes unsustainable.
Sweden got this in 1993 and in 20 years they went from a public sector representing 67% of the GDP to 49% today, meanwhile lowering they public debt from 70% of the GDP to 30%.
And that's a socialist country. And that's something socialists in the eurozone simply do not understand: the public sector is way too important, the private sector is way too taxed and we're going into a wall.
The solution is less state.
Re: Cyprus parliament delays vote on deposit levy to Monday
#44I'm asking out of complete naïveté in matters of global finance, but what's to stop Cyprus from pulling an Iceland?
Re: Cyprus parliament delays vote on deposit levy to Monday
#45lets not forget that Cyprus has recently discovered natural gas and possibly oil in its exclusive economic zone expected to be exploited in the next few years. call it conspiracy theories but a weakened Cyprus is easier to manage..
Re: Cyprus parliament delays vote on deposit levy to Monday
#46Maybe this is a terrifically ignorant comment, but it seems like the government mismanages their finances, as a result, they want the everyman to throw away 10% of their bank deposits? WTF?
Either way it is probably too late, there will be a bank run. If I had any money in there you'd bet I would in line at the bank first thing in the morning to get it out.
Re: Cyprus parliament delays vote on deposit levy to Monday
#47I'm asking out of complete naïveté in matters of global finance, but what's to stop Cyprus from pulling an Iceland?
Re: Cyprus parliament delays vote on deposit levy to Monday
#48Maybe this is a terrifically ignorant comment, but it seems like the government mismanages their finances, as a result, they want the everyman to throw away 10% of their bank deposits? WTF?
The banks, highly leveraged and competing for offshore deposits with interest rates double the EU average, mismanaged their finances. Consistent with being an offshore financial centre, the banks' assets are about 5x GDP. When the banks started to fail, the bailout team had three options. It could refuse aid and let the Cypriot economy crater - Iceland, in a similar position in 2007, crashed 60% and is still 1/3 belo…
So far Iceland appears to be doing better than Ireland:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-20936685
"By mid-2012 Iceland was regarded as one of Europe's recovery success stories. It has had two years of economic growth. Unemployment was down to 6.3% and Iceland was attracting immigrants to fill jobs. Currency devaluation effectively reduced wages by 50% making exports more competitive and imports more expensive. Ten year government bonds were issued below 6%, lower than some of the PIIGS nations in the EU (Portugal, Italy, Ireland, Greece, and Spain). Tryggvi Thor Herbertsson, a member of parliament, noted that adjustments via currency devaluations are less painful than government labor policies and negotiations. Nevertheless, while EU fervor has cooled the government continued to pursue membership"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2008%E2%80%932011_Icelandic_fin...
Re: Cyprus parliament delays vote on deposit levy to Monday
#49Earlier quoted context omitted.
What about the bond holders though? If the banks go under they lose their money as well, it seems to reason they should be taking a hit as well, not just the depositors.
There are no more than a few hundred million in bonds. The banks were funded by deposits not bonds. The junior bonds probably will be wiped out but the amounts are tiny and there are no details released yet.
Re: Cyprus parliament delays vote on deposit levy to Monday
#50So the Greek bonds get a haircut and in the process the Cyprus banks are thrown under the bus. At the same time Germany, the Netherlands and Finland enjoy the capital influx of insurances and some fonds, who are regulated such that they can only invest in the Eurozone. These capital influx creates a nice boom, low unemployment and ensures the reelection of the idiots who did throw Greece under the bus in the first pl…
Who do you think threw Greece under the bus?