Cyprus...Explained

Imagine for a moment that you are a middle class citizen of Cyprus. You work, pay your taxes and keep your nose clean, like most patriotic Cypriots. Your government has its share of incompetent boobs but in no larger supply than any other country. You put up with it because…what are you gonna do? You live on a beautiful island with mostly great weather, live and let live, right? Well, one day you wake up, head into Nicosia for some lokum and coffee. Then you stop by the ATM of your Cyprus Popular Bank to withdraw a few Euros when you notice an unusually long line. You think to yourself, “Damn Turks” and wait patiently for your turn. Soon the people ahead of you start to get agitated, a frenzy of Greek and Turkish epithets start to fly. It is only then that you discover that the machine is out of money, not only out of money, but closed indefinitely. You hurry home and fire up your laptop and discover that the 165,000 Euro balance in your savings account that you’re so proud of shows only 99,000 Euros. What in the name of Glafkos Clerides is going on here, you shout at the computer screen!?

It takes days but you finally piece it all together. The Cyprus Popular Bank has apparently been run by people so inept, they make Bernie Madoff look like Warren Buffett. They have made millions of ill-advised loans that would have bankrupted them long ago had it not been for huge infusions of cash from insanely wealthy Russian mobsters who picked your bank to launder all of their drug money through. Well, now your bank is in dire straits, needs to recapitalize, but the Eurozone beaurocrats wanted something in return. So, over the weekend, literally in the dead of night, the boobs in your government worked out a deal with the Boobs of the European Union where anyone with over 100,000 Euros in savings would have their accounts reduced by 40%. The money would be transferred to Brussels immediately, in exchange for a bank bailout, without your permission or consent.

Welcome to the New World Order.