And the banks lie as well, never forget that.
No shit, Sherlock? Sorry for the irony, but where did I say the opposite? I'm repeating post after post that bank shareholders should lose everything, and get absolutely nothing in return. Their clients will inevitably have to lose something too, but they should at least receive the bank's assets in return. You people seem to want to give blame to governments but it is actually the incredibly sick financial world that is the root of most of these problems.
This "sick financial world" only exists mainly due to central bank's monopoly on money supply. Add to that also all the regulation they impose, creating insurmountable barriers of entry in the banking business. Was it governments that decided to mix sub-prime morgages into cool looking but seemingly unrelated constructs?
Was it governments that were wallowing for years in profits from these derivatives?
It seems you post in these boards much more than you read and learn from them. All these financial instruments, all these high profits, were only possible due the artificial creation of credit through money supply inflation. Please, study how business cycles are formed. The government is there to produce something: an environment of law and order, which in turn fosters greater economic activity. People can spend more time doing useful things because we do not have to be constantly looking over our shoulders and fighting off robbers. Or, at least, that is how it should work (but governments are bloated and irresposibly trying to do more than they should and we need to cut back their powers to a great degree). This is the root of all the madness in the world. First you propose a theory (government produces and environment of law and order), then you immediately note the empirical evidence is the exact opposite of what your theory predicts, and instead of abandoning your theory as obviously flawed, you determine that reality is flawed instead. This is how most sane people operate. They decide what they would like things to be like, then they check if that's the case. If not, they act to try to correct the things to their liking. In the example above, Peter Lambert noted that he saw a problem with how governments operate, and proposed a cure (not specific, though). That's only sanity if you define "sane as "doing the same thing again and expecting a different result." Bravo, jususranvier. |
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This is the most touching topic I've ever seen on these boards.
Congratulations for your strength and wisdom Mr Finney. You're one in a million.
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That's kind of yours, thanks.  |
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I apologize to anyone who would rather have claims paid in Bitcoins, however legally that would be impossible.
Why? I don't think that's the case. |
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Yes, the private keys where the money is stored are your backup. Don't lose them.
EDIT: That said, please keep in mind that when you make a transaction, the source addresses are fully emptied, even if the amount you want to transfer is smaller than what's contained in these addresses. In such case, the remaining "change" will normally be transferred to a new address of yours (a new private key).
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If you're geek enough, than try to set up an offline wallet. For convenience, keep your blockchain.info (or other) wallet as secondary, with lower amounts you could eventually afford to lose. Basically, in analogy with fiat, your offline wallet is your bank account and your secondary wallet is the cash on your physical wallet. (of course that, giving the recent banking events, an offline bitcoin wallet seems much safer than a bank account ) |
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The issue is that the government promised to make depositors whole in the event of a bank failure by providing them with deposit insurance and then reneged on that obligation.
That promise is void since they have no actual means to ethically fulfill them, ever. To fulfill it, they would have to steal innocent people that have nothing to do with the problem. So, in the end, "bank deposit insurances" are just another politician's lie. People must understand that. This would be equivalent to the United States postponing its social security problem by declaring a 10% tax on social security payments and implementing the tax by reducing those payments.
And do you honestly believe that something of the kind (or worse) won't happen someday? The social security is a clock-bomb ticking. It will blow one day. You can't run away from reality. |
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Can you think of a fairest way to deal with a bank failure than what I describe above? Yes. The way every civilized country does it. Honor the value of insured accounts, and if the bank can't, the government honors the insurance policy on them. But that's far from "civilized", it's much worse! Understand one basic thing: the government doesn't produce anything. Every penny it has, it has taken from innocent people. Forcing the taxvictims to pay the burden is way much unfairer. They have nothing to do with the issue! These "account deposit insurances" are an outright lie, an illusion. It's better that people wake up to reality and realize there's nothing guaranteed in life. No, what you say is not a better solution. Bank clients will have to suffer losses if you want anything fair as outcome. Of course, it's fundamental that current shareholders lose everything, but I have a feeling that such thing just won't happen, unfortunately. |
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The proposed bail-in would not solve anything either. Even if EU provided the full loan and not a single depositor lost a penny directly it would still not solve the problem.
That would be a worse solution. The EU-taxvictims have nothing to do with this mess. It's less worse to make the bank clients' lose, than to force random people that have nothing to do with it to pay. The EU shouldn't lend anything. The bank shareholders should lose all their ownership. Cuts should be made, starting by risky-investment-clients like bondholders, and then eventually account holders. The new ownership should be transferred to those who suffered such cuts in proportion to the amount they lost. I don't know any better way to deal with a bank failure. Forcing taxvictims to pay is definitely worse. Inflating the money supply to save banks is even worse. The problem is also in the fact that wast majority of the victims are non the wiser and unable to comprehend trivially simple concepts that are hidden behind of all the smoke and mirrors.
Yes, people have been tricked into believing that their bank deposits are "guaranteed". That's just impossible, nothing in life is guaranteed, starting by life itself. But if after all these turmoil in the euro-zone you still believe your bank deposits are "guaranteed", I can only be sorry for you. It is pretty much an equivalent of everyone forced to bet all their money and all their annual income every year in a casino where the house has 3-10% edge.
hehe, sort of. You're not really forced to have a bank account, but it's hard to live without one. And all banks practice fractional reserves, protected by the central bank, so your analogy has some good ground. But hey, that's part of what Bitcoin is here to solve, isn't it? |
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Actually you do not get it. It is all about sovereignty or lack of thereof.
But that's not the issue here. Okay, want to be sovereign and independent of EU? Great. Declare independence. That might solve some problems, but not this particular problem of these major banks which are bankrupt. |
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people to banksters:  Although I understand the feeling, this is naive. These banks are broken. It's inevitable, somebody is going to lose money. Either it will be every euro-user via inflation (the worst solution), either will be tax payersvictims (also awful), or it will be the bank's clients. This last solution is, after all, the least unfair, as long as the current shareholders of these banks lose everything, and shares are given for those clients who suffered a cut. Of course, bondholders and other riskier-investors should suffer cuts before checking account holders, but apparently these banks have very few bondholders, so the haircut on the accounts is inevitable - unless you replace it by something even worse. |
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There are some positive aspects on this Cypriot story. The EU has basically sent a message to other members in difficulties: "We will not save you. You'll have to find your own way out of your mess." I just read a couple of very interesting articles on this debacle: I'm really curious as to what the Cypriot government will do now. |
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Cypriot MPs flatly reject bank deposit levy with 36 against, 19 abstentions and not a single vote in favour tl;dr Cypriots to EU: "Fuck You!" That's it? The parliament voted 'No'? What now? They'll let the banks break? Force taxpayers to save them? What? |
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You people do realise that the x% they're deducting will be paid back in shares in the bank that your deposit is in?
Really? But what's the deal? Are the current stock holders losing their shares? If they're just equating the previous market values of these shares and distributing according to the amount cut this is not fair. The correct way of doing this would be: - Remove all shares from current share holders
- Do the necessary cuts - but here, I think risky or more "long-term" investors should be cut before checking account holders.
- Distribute the new shares proportionally to the amount you contributed in the rescue. Say, if your cut contributed to 0.1% of the total amount levied, then you'll own 0.1% of the bank. Previous owners lose everything.
That's the fairest possible way of dealing with a bank failure I'm aware of. What is the value of a share in a business so corrupt and incompetent that it has to steal from its customers (including me) to stay afloat?
Can you think of a fairest way to deal with a bank failure than what I describe above? At least in this scheme, the current owners lose everything, and the clients that lose something become the new owners, in proportion to what they lost. In other words, those who definitely must be "punished" do lose all, and those who are "punished" simply for having chosen a bad bank at least get something in exchange for it. |
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In Russia this would be "Do not piss against the wind."
Did I get it right. OKpay or whomever got their bank account raided and they have passed it onto their customers? This cannot be lawful. Their "taxes" is their responsibility, not their customers. The accounts in Cyprus banks are not in the names of the cardholders, are they? Will they next pass on corporation tax as "an unrecognized transaction" tomorrow?
Every business passes its taxes on to its customers, always. How else are they supposed to operate? That shouldn't be news. |
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I do not think that there was another real option for cyprus. The whole bank system in cyprus would crash and then all the money would be lost. Now are "only" 9.9% affected.
This is not true. That are much better ways to liquidate a bank than to cut money from deposits. Listen to Jesus: http://foundationsofecon.blogspot.fr/2012/07/fraud-cause-of-great-recession.html Basically, you remove all ownership from current owners. Then you start taking cuts from the most risky investments clients of that bank had on it. Bank deposits are supposed to be the last ones, since they're hardly considered an "investment". Once you take the necessary amount of resources to save the bank, you redistribute the new ownership among all those who payed for its bailout, proportionally. See the documentary I linked above, Jesus explains it in more detail. This is a much more honest/fair way to let a bank break. The most important is that the current stock holders lose everything, and those who pay for the bailout earn something in exchange (the bank itself). But, of course, politicians aren't going to let that happen, since their wealthy friends wouldn't be very happy with them if they did. Cyprus cannot just print more money so what else should they do?
Let the damn banks break. |
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This is, probably, the first precedence of legal stealing from whole population's bank accounts,
I'm pretty sure Argentina confiscated savings a few years ago. And the Brazilian government did it years before (~1991). This is definitely not a first. As hyperinflation, confiscations like this have happened multiple times in different places. Humanity has a hard time learning from its past mistakes. |
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As much as i dont like fiat monetary system, before this 10% or whatever cut can be applied, local law must be done and this takes time, so you have time to withdraw your funds.
No, they don't. The amount that will be taken will be calculated based on last Friday's balance, if I'm not mistaken. Actually, these amounts are already frozen, as OKPay mail above says. |
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I would say a pile of gold coins is pretty safe as well.
At least while you don't get burgled. |
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