Plain Talk About the Cyprus Crisis

The crisis in Cyprus continues. The banks remain closed. It may not command the hotspot in the major financial media at the moment, but it could prove momentous nonetheless. We'll try to comment as appropriate. Let's start with that "tax" recommended by the IMF that the Cyprus government originally supported, but last week rejected when it came to a vote.

What was proposed by the IMF wasn't a tax at all. The use of the term "tax" is deceitful, a form of lie intended to distort what is really going on here. The proposal of a "tax" on individual bank depositor accounts was simply an attempt at "legal" confiscation. To put it more bluntly, the IMF proposal would have stolen money from private accounts, pure and simple. To call it a "tax" was a purposeful manipulation of language - again, a lie. Anyone living in civil society functioning under the rule of law who understands this would naturally recoil at the attempt by the IMF and the Cypriot government to pervert language in order to accomplish their objective of saving the banking system of Cyprus.

It is important to right now set the record straight and resist the endless repetitions by not only the source of the lie - the IMF, as well as the Cypriot government - but also by the media.

I would also suggest you ask yourself exactly why the media spreads this falsehood. Are they ignorant? If so, are they culpably ignorant (which means they should have known better)? Or are they actually complicit in perpetrating this lie, and, if so, why are they doing that?

We have just been pushed to the next stage of our ongoing economic and financial crisis. So far, governments and central banks have resorted to printing money (QE) to try to control the massive debt overhang that sits on top of the developed world's economies, as well as provide liquidity in the event that a tear occurs in the $600 trillion of over-the-counter derivatives laced throughout the financial system. The money printing escapes the attention of enough of the sheeple so that those responsible are not held accountable in any meaningful way. But the IMF's proposal took another approach: directly confiscating private assets.

I see no discernible difference between what the IMF and Cyprus government tried to pull and what was done by Jon Corzine at MF Global. There, sacrosanct client money was taken - i.e., stolen - from individually owned private accounts by a commercial enterprise. The victims are still awaiting full restitution of their money. Here, a government was on the verge of doing the same, except that, had it succeeded, there would be no recourse for the victims.

If you don't see this as a new phase in our ongoing crisis, you're not paying attention, or you're not thinking. So let's wake up and pay attention now to how this situation is resolved. 

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