When news broke last March about Cyprus, my mind immediately went to this . . .
Which wasn’t completely out of left field. While news reports may not have been referring to the weed worshipping, Cuban-American/ Latino hip hop group, what they were referring to was an island country in the Eastern Mediterranean Sea called Cyprus, a bankruptcy-bound, eurozone nation who had joined the ever-growing Banking Crisis Club; shit in Cyprus had, indeed, gone “loco”. But the truly say what? angle to the story of Cyprus is a methodology used to save Cyprus’ banks: siphoning people’s bank accounts.
While I knew bank account drains n’ freezes were a real possibility, especially considering our dependency on the could-collapse-society-at-the-touch-of-a-button, technological banking system, I maintained a sense of experiential distance from the Cypriot people based on my belief that Canadians remained far removed from a kick in the balls of that severity, even under the regime of Emperor Harper. And as I wrapped my toque swaddled head around the notion of Cypriots being held responsible for the financial flubbers of their governments and banks – the top dog, douche bags, really – I parked my ski-doo, smoked a rock with Toronto mayor, Rob Ford, and had a moment of silence for the people of Cyprus while the intergalactic, nerd-sexy intro to Rush’s Tom Sawyer hummed from a nearby igloo.
But the illusionary, beaver pelt shroud I hid behind in the name of (what once appeared to be) true Canadian democracy became ravaged by the unromantic, Canadian wind chill when reports hit that Emperor Harper’s regime has proposed a similar “bail in” in the new Canadian budget.
On page 145 of Emperor Harper’s Economic Action Plan 2013, it states should any “systemically important banks” fail, these banks will be resolved “without the use of taxpayer funds.” Instead, “the Government proposes to implement a ‘bail-in’ regime for systemically important banks.” And, “this regime will be designed to ensure that, in the unlikely event that a systemically important bank depletes its capital, the bank can be recapitalized and returned to viability through the very rapid conversion of certain bank liabilities into regulatory capital.”
Certain bank liabilities = bank deposits
To further break that down, if a bank shits the bed, the Harper Government has set the stage to steal money from the accounts of Canadians and give it to said bank in order to keep it in business. And with the situation in Cyprus acting as an example of how ball breaking this kick in the bean bag could be, it is reported that some Cypriots with deposits over 100,000 euros could have lost as much as 80 percent of those deposits. For a more in depth breakdown, read, Cyprus-style “Bail-ins” are Proposed in the New 2013 Canadian Budget.
(Add on: It was brought to my attention I should mention that some deposits in Canadian banks are covered by the CDIC [Canadian Deposit Insurance Corp] for up to $100,000. They had a similar program in Cyprus, and I’ve been told that despite having such a program, they did consider torquing the douche-dom and confiscating amounts that were under the limit and supposedly insured. Ultimately they only confiscated hefty portions of accounts over $100,000 as to not completely shit on people’s remaining confidence in the banking system. Needless to say, it’s a toss up whether the Harper Government would actually honor said insurance program.)
It’s expected that the implementation of “bail-ins” will gradually become a normalized, bank-salvaging phenomenon, thus reflecting the mounting severity in which the 1% rapes and pillages the 99. Pardon me for jumping from Cyprus Hill to Sublime, but this is very Robbin’ the Hood.
Resources to better understand our inherently doomed, global monetary system:
+ Part II of the Zeitgeist trilogy, Zeitgeist: Addendum (documentary movie)
+ The Banking System Cartoon (for the ADHD’ers looking for a non-committal nose dive)
+ More Canadian specific, here is a 12 year old breaking down the corrupt Canadian banking system
Additional (off-topic, but related) news stories:
+ RBC Replaces Canadian Staff with Foreign Workers (worthy reality check to make note of: the CEO of RBC took home 12.6 million last year)
+ Senate Scandal may be Harper’s Worst Hour – Oh look, douche bag, Canadian politicians sponging off the backs of taxpayers so they can personally live like motherfucking Chad Kroeger– naturally.