The Botching of the Cyprus Bailout: Worse Than Lehman Brothers
[T]hey have opted for a “solution” that amounts to probably the single most inexplicably irresponsible decision in banking supervision in the advanced world since the 1930s.
Boldfaced red emphasis added by me.
Filed under Collapse, Fraud, Pottersville
I warned about this starting in 2008. Now it’s happened. In Cyprus.
Cyprus Bank Deposits to Be Taxed in $13 Billion Bailout
The tax on deposits, as well as hurting wealthy Russians with money in Cypriot banks, will also sting ordinary citizens. Some ATMs in the country ran out of cash, Erotokritos Chlorakiotis, general manager of the Cooperative Central Bank, told state-run CYBC.
Funds to pay the levy were frozen in accounts immediately, ECB Executive Board Member Joerg Asmussen said. The levy will be assessed before Cypriot banks reopen on March 19 after a March 18 national holiday. Sarris said electronic transfers will also be limited until then.
Boldfaced emphasis added by me.
Let’s cut to the damn chase: That’s not a tax. That’s a confiscation of the hard-earned money of working people to restore the losses of the idle betting classes (what are laughably called “investors” — but who aren’t).
We’re in the fifth year of this slow-motion collapse. And it’s not over yet.
Additional:
Filed under Collapse, Pottersville
Filed under Collapse, Pottersville
Verizon introduced a new pre-pay phone plan today: Smartphone Options for the Budget-Minded
Seventy dollars a month is hilariously overpriced and the three available phones suck too.
Although I’m glad to see the cellcos finally acknowledging the financial constraints most people are under, this is nothing more than throwing stale crumbs at people. At some point, either Sprint or T-Mobile will get truly desperate and revolutionary and drop all subscription plans, go all pre-pay, and demand phone makers like Samsung (and even Apple) drop the price of their hardware so it properly falls into line. The era of the overpriced seven-hundred-dollar smartphone will also then come to an end. And good bloody riddance to it!
Additional:
Walmart and Straight Talk to offer prepaid iPhone 4 and 5 starting January 11th
Previously here:
Introducing the Facebook Card, a New Type of Gift Card
Beginning today, people can give their friends gifts to Jamba Juice, Olive Garden, Sephora, and Target all on one reusable gift card from Facebook.
Gift Cards are a special pet of mine. I’ve written about them before:
The Gift Card Advantage
Google Play Wakes Up To In-Store Gift Cards
Google Play Gift Cards: No Credit Card Required
The real world is that we are bankrupt. Gift Cards acknowledge that fact. They let people who have had their plastic revoked — or who have cut up their plastic to kill their debt slavery — still have access to buying on the Net.
This new Facebook Card goes one further, reaching out the non-Net real world.
This is a huge paradigm shift.
How long before they add partners like supermarkets and drug stores? So Facebook friends can help out other Facebook friends who might need help getting groceries or paying for a prescription? (Note: Target already deals in pharmacy scrips!)
If you don’t see how huge this is, you’re just not paying attention.
This is epic huge.
Filed under Collapse, Pottersville
Obamaism Will Fail Because Socialism Always Does
We are not encouraging people to do better. We are not inspiring people to be the best they can be. We are essentially acknowledging that people are not very good and don’t have much hope.
That’s Limbaugh.
But who is not encouraging people? What’s still the most influential medium out there despite declining ratings? Television. Has he ever watched Maury or Jerry Springer? Any of the bubbleheaded late-night celebrity talkfests?
That’s all the free market he worships.
If people can make a buck off other people by letting them think it’s OK for them to be pigs, then they will. That’s “class warfare” right there. “Keep being stupid, because you keep making us rich.”
He does the very same thing by never acknowledging any of the truths of life. He spews cant based on hypocrisy that allows the very villains who bleed us to carry on with what they do.
Look in the mirror. You are the problem too.
Filed under Collapse, Pottersville, Stupid
iPad Hack Statement Of Responsibility
The beast is so monstrous it will devour us all. None will be spared.
Filed under Collapse, Police Abuse, Pottersville
Filed under Collapse
The Interior Secretary’s $222,000 Bathroom
Maybe the Pentagon’s legendary $600 toilet seat was a bargain.
The personal bathroom used by the secretary of the Interior is so swanky that its renovation cost $222,000. No detail was overlooked: It has a $3,500 sub-zero refrigerator (hey, if you’re going to have a fridge in the bathroom, it might as well be a good one) and a $689 faucet. At least the “vintage tissue holder” was cheap: just $65 bucks.
When you’re suckered into thinking people who need assistance are sucking us dry, remember the guy who requires $220,000 just to take a shit.
And how much did your house cost? Oh, you can’t afford a house?
England’s old King George is having a great laugh.
Filed under Collapse
