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It is, again, a matter of a point of view.) In theory, no one benefits when, say, Russian criminals or politicians (which is actually just an alias) park stolen
by dschiptsov 14y ago
It is, again, a matter of a point of view.) In theory, no one benefits when, say, Russian criminals or politicians (which is actually just an alias) park stolen money there. Money should work (flow) which means - getting invested. If they just stolen, evacuated from the original country and parked in a bank which cannot even invest them properly - no one benefits, except bankers and criminals.
There is also nothing special in that EU elites want to break the scheme - why should they care about Russians laundering money? They would prefer their own schemes.)
So, nothing to see here. Parking money abroad is a risky enterprise, so, just take some loses and diversify better next time.)))
- steve19 14y agoWrong. The banks loan out money that is deposited to people seeking loans. These Russians are helping Cyprus. There is no such thing as parking money (with the exception of stuffing your mattress with usd) The people who save (Russians, Cyprus locals) should not be punished.
- dschiptsov 14y agoIt seems like you have never been in Cyprus.) There is nowhere to loan billions. The population is small, businesses are tiny. And of course there are no "people who save". It is mostly enterprises trying to hide money from taxes and corrupted officials, who cannot show unearned "wealth" at home. People would benefit when the money would be invested at home (well, in Russia it is a suicide), or perhaps, in an agriculture in a highly populated developing countries where lots of people just need a job to support their families.
- justincormack 14y agoThats not quite true. There was a massive property bubble. But a lot was lent in Greece, or used to buy Greek and Cypriot government debt.
- gruseom 14y agoNot everyone who's being hurt here was "parking money abroad". They're stealing 6.75% of ordinary people's savings. That's shockingly unfair and stupid. Does anyone know why they didn't restrict this to accounts over the insured 100K limit? It makes no sense to me why they would take the political hit of doing something this evil. If it's about taxing Russian criminals' billions as we're hearing, why would they need to raid average citizens' accounts?
- benjiweber 14y agoWe had ~5% inflation for a while (in the UK). Our savings lost a similar amount due to government policies, yet there wasn't such an outcry.
- OGinparadise 14y agoThey're stealing 6.75% of ordinary people's savings. That's shockingly unfair and shockingly stupid. Who is stealing? Certainly not EU. It sucks for the people involved but the country has no money. So instead of having an extra tax on real estate or income they added a tax on this and they can collect it in a minute. Others would have complained about an extra tax on their income, electricity, property etc as well. At least here outsiders pay too, otherwise the Cypriots would have paid a larger share.
- droopyEyelids 14y agoIsn't that a question of semantics? Sure, when the government does this, it is called a tax. However, this was a surprise tax levied on unaware people, leaving them with no chance to plan or prepare themselves, by people who they didn't vote for (from how I understand it). To me, it doesn't seem too far off the mark to call it theft.
- waitwhat 14y agoThis tax works because it was a surprise. What do you think would have happened if, say, they gave 48 hours notice?
- 14y ago
- JumpCrisscross 14y agoThat the Cypriots preferred levying a tax on small accounts to increasing the rate above 10% for large depositors points to the island still eyeing a future as an offshore banking centre.