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“My bank account's got robbed by European Commission. Over 700k is lost.”

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141–150 of 174 posts

Re: “My bank account's got robbed by European Commission. Over 700k is lost.”

#141

Background and summary (forgive me if some details need correcting): Cyprus is a tiny country with a GDP not much higher than Tim Hortons. Yet, it had something like 150 billion in private funds stored in two of its banks: the Bank of Cyprus and Lakie. Why? Because the majority of the funds (I am generalizing) belongs/belonged to Russians who took advantage of the people on the conversion out of communism (dirty mone…

> Because the majority of the funds (I am generalizing) belongs/belonged to Russians who took advantage of the people on the conversion out of communism (dirty money). You are not generalizing, you are just making this up. Only about 20% of the deposits in Cyprus belong to Russians. > Greek's insolvency impacted Cyprus greatly, because a large portion of the Cyprus population are of Greek descent. Nope. It impacted C…

> You are not generalizing, you are just making this up.

Calm down. Firstly, one number states that 30% of deposits are foreign owned [1]. Secondly, the accurate description of Shenglong's error would be "exaggerating."

> Nope. It impacted Cyprus because it participated in the Greece bailout and lost 4.5 bil to the haircut that followed.

You just attacked a straw man by quoting Shenglong out of context.

[1]http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/27/business/global/bailout-gr...

Re: “My bank account's got robbed by European Commission. Over 700k is lost.”

#142

This is just undermining the bank system. There is no reason big enough to do something like this and it appals me that some people are saying that he had it coming. A part of it is 'dirty' and that argument is being used to validate the confiscation of working people's money and company's money which the EU's economy is based upon. The fact that they announced this before taking a decision is just beyond stupid, any…

Thanks for speaking up against those in this thread who virtually blame this guy for the wrongdoing of others around him.

Re: “My bank account's got robbed by European Commission. Over 700k is lost.”

#143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Because the majority of the funds (I am generalizing) belongs/belonged to Russians who took advantage of the people on the conversion out of communism (dirty money). You are not generalizing, you are just making this up. Only about 20% of the deposits in Cyprus belong to Russians. > Greek's insolvency impacted Cyprus greatly, because a large portion of the Cyprus population are of Greek descent. Nope. It impacted C…

> You are not generalizing, you are just making this up. Calm down. Firstly, one number states that 30% of deposits are foreign owned [1]. Secondly, the accurate description of Shenglong's error would be "exaggerating." > Nope. It impacted Cyprus because it participated in the Greece bailout and lost 4.5 bil to the haircut that followed. You just attacked a straw man by quoting Shenglong out of context. [1] http://ww…

Foreign and Russian are a little different concepts.

Re: “My bank account's got robbed by European Commission. Over 700k is lost.”

#145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Blaming evil banks and profligate creditors while tightening the money supply wasn't a particularly fruitful thing to do the last time there was a global economic crisis, and a whole lot of modern macro was about not repeating that mistake. Then the world goes around and repeats the same offenses, and the public once again buys the easy, moralistic stories. Bleh. The fact of the matter is that the Eurozone is a bad i…

The Eurozone is structured to suck the money out of peripheral economies in times of crisis It seems like Greece is doing much of the sucking, much to the chagrin of their stern German neighbors. I don't see the Euro as structurally deficient, I really think this problem is a due to Greek culture in the early 2000s being incompatible with the EU. Remember that Cyprus is a very small country, being half the size of Pi…

You have to check your numbers ;-) In fact, all the bail out money goes to interest payments. Therefore, no sucking just moving money from one pocket (Germans) to the other (German banks). On Germans, we have to have another discussion on their role in corruption in Greece and elsewhere... Maybe they are ripping too the fruits of their corrupted business practices (Siemens and many many more in various cases globally.)

Re: “My bank account's got robbed by European Commission. Over 700k is lost.”

#146
post #107

Background and summary (forgive me if some details need correcting): Cyprus is a tiny country with a GDP not much higher than Tim Hortons. Yet, it had something like 150 billion in private funds stored in two of its banks: the Bank of Cyprus and Lakie. Why? Because the majority of the funds (I am generalizing) belongs/belonged to Russians who took advantage of the people on the conversion out of communism (dirty mone…

> Greek's insolvency impacted Cyprus greatly, because a large portion of the Cyprus population are of Greek descent. Just to add a little context to this. Cyprus is a divided country, as a result of a conflict in 1973 between Turkish Cypriots (and Turkey) and Greek Cypriots (and Greece). The Greek Cypriots favoured unification with Greece (Enosis) whereas the Turkish minority felt threatened by this (due to various t…

Cyprus is historically a part of Greece but on a map it is closer to Turkey, Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Israel and even Egypt.

It is just like the Falklands in that respect, an outpost of one nation that is going to be geographically contested and eventually (just like the Falklands) it will probably be annexed by one of the countries above (most likely Turkey).

The only reason these situations persist is because the nations involved are still able to wage war at a distance, if Greece should go bankrupt (or even if the Greek-Cypriot part of Cyprus would go under) there would likely be a re-alignment of interests such that the cost of maintaining the outpost by force no longer outweighed the benefits.

Cyprus is also one of the reasons why Turkey has not been added to the EU, and why their relations with Greece are as poor as they are.

If Greece and/or Cyprus would end up being unable to maintain the status of the Greek portion of Cyprus Turkey would have to weigh the advantages of going all in on Cyprus versus the disadvantages of cutting a lot of ties with the EU, which arguably has been stringing along Turkey with the promise of membership without the intention of actually following through on that promise for a very long time now.

Turkey is a very important country in the sense that it is the European gateway to the middle east, it has been instrumental as an ally in many military operations over the last two decades and there are large numbers of Turkish emigrants living all over Europe, which means any decision going against Turkish interests has the possibility of mobilizing a substantial number of people in other member states. But there are a large number of member states that do not actually wish Turkey to join the EU on equal terms, at the same time they don't want to see Turkey join the middle-East.

Re: “My bank account's got robbed by European Commission. Over 700k is lost.”

#147

Apparently he didn't read up on deposit insurance. In most EU countries, anything over Euro 100,000 is not safe. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deposit_insurance#By_EU_country

Other than convenience why wouldn't you open several bank accounts?

Re: “My bank account's got robbed by European Commission. Over 700k is lost.”

#148
post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Every time you deposit say $1 with a bank, they lend out $.90 of it at interest for mortgages, payrolls, etc." Actually, when you deposit $1, they loan out about $9 (maybe a bit less nowadays, but still a multiple of the $1 being put in). That's what the 'fractional' in 'fractional reserve banking' comes from.

That doesn't make any sense. You've mixed up macroeconomics and microeconomics. A single bank cannot lend more than it has in deposits. However, in an economy with many lenders and borrowers, a deposit (or really any kind of expenditure) can be reinvested fractionally many times, enlarging the money supply by more than its nominal value. Also, the multiplier "rule" of taking the reciprocal of the reserve rate is more…

You're right, I did mix them up.

Re: “My bank account's got robbed by European Commission. Over 700k is lost.”

#149

So, you deposit your money in a bank with very high interest rates - very high because they invest in risky Greek bonds. If everything goes well, you keep the interests. If the risky investment of the bank goes bust, we (EU citizens) should pay you the risk, even beyond the insured 100k. Is that correct?

>ZERO INTEREST!

>I've already explained that it's CURRENT ACCOUNT (transactional account).

>Not bank paid to me, but I was paying annual fee to the bank in order to maintain this account and debit card.

>Current accounts are usually not affected even if bank goes bankrupt. Upon liquidation, current account holders are paid first, as money on this type of account cannot be gambled by bank. It's most liquid assets, like cash.

Re: “My bank account's got robbed by European Commission. Over 700k is lost.”

#150
post #81

It amazes me how many people mention tax evasion, and other excuses for apportioning of liability. The liability should lie with the people who bought the Cypriot/Greek debt in the first place. They are the ones that in essence lent the money to these two tiny countries when it was obvious it was out of control and would blow up. But where is the incentive not too when the liability is offloaded to people who had no…

the cypriot banks bought the greece dept, that is the problem.
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