I was just wondering when this would happen and which country will be the first one to do this. Are the American savers going to have the same fate? How else will the US federal government going to pay off the trillions of debt.
'THEFT, PURE AND SIMPLE'
In a radical departure from previous aid packages - and
one that gave rise to incredulity and anger across the country - euro
zone finance ministers forced Cyprus' savers to pay up to 10 percent of
their deposits to raise almost 6 billion euros.
Parliament was due to meet on Sunday to vote on the measure, and approval was far from assured.
The decision prompted a run on cashpoints, most of
which were depleted by mid afternoon, and co-operative credit societies
closed to prevent angry savers withdrawing deposits.
The deposit levy - set at 9.9 percent on bank deposits
exceeding 100,000 euros and 6.7 percent on anything below that - will
take place on Tuesday after a bank holiday on Monday.
To guard against capital flight, Cyprus took immediate
steps to prevent electronic money transfers over the weekend.
At one cashpoint in the capital Nicosia, a pensioner
couple said they had visited several automatic teller machines without
success. "We are trying to pull as much as we can," one told Reuters,
reaching for a wallet containing four debit cards.
"I'm extremely angry. I worked years and years to get
it together and now I am losing it on the say-so of the Dutch and the
Germans," said British-Cypriot Andy Georgiou, 54, who returned to Cyprus
in mid-2012 with his savings.
"They call Sicily the island of the mafia. It's not
Sicily, it's Cyprus. This is theft, pure and simple," said a pensioner.
The levy breaks a euro zone taboo by hitting depositors.
from http://ca.news.yahoo.com/savers-forced-bear-costs-cyprus-bailout-051941784.html
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