a Cyprus-like scenario would happen here too. Saving big banks who give away credit cards like confetti and beg even kids just out of their teens to start borrowing without giving two hoots about how they will make good on loans, is more important to Jim Flaherty and his boss Stephen Harper, than the stupid citizens who have voted them to power.
Yup .... your Conservative govt. in action, stealth action .... against YOU !!!
Brian Lilley writing at his blog:
.....I started asking on Monday, and again on Tuesday, whether the confiscation of money from private bank accounts could happen in Canada the way it has happened in Cyprus. My argument was that yes it could, especially given that Cyprus is a modern European nation and that the decision to dip into accounts was made by finance ministers and officials from countries such as Germany, France and Italy.
This was not a Robert Mugabe theft of cash. If it can happen there then it can happen here.
Little did I know that the answer was already in the budget on page 145 (155 of the PDF) ...................
.....“Bail-in” is exactly how Eurozone officials described what happened in Cyprus (details here and here). In order for the country to get the bail-out from the EU, the banks needed to get a bail-in from their depositors. At first this meant every depositor and then just those with deposits over €100,000.
I asked officials from Finance Minister Jim Flaherty’s for comment on what this section means to them, here is the response from Flaherty’s Director of Communications Dan Miles.
“Bail-in arrangements are NOT ‘bail-out’ arrangements∙No denial in there that depositors will be asked to pay up if Canadian banks fail. Some think that is a probability that will never happen but obviously the Finance Department thinks it could happen or it would not devise rules. The Big Six Banks were also recently told to ................
Under a ‘bail-out’ arrangements, taxpayers money has to be used to save a failing financial institution∙
Under a ‘bail-in’ arrangements, a failing financial institution has to tap into their own special reserves or assets (which they have been forced to put aside) to keep their operations going∙
This keeps the financial institution in tract, without risking taxpayer money. This is what Canada is doing, in line with recent international agreements.”
"I am shocked,shocked....."(my apologies to Claude Raines in Casablanca)
ReplyDeleteSeriously though, I browsed through your posting yesterday and did not take it seriously but today, I just saw a CTV news item about this subject. My ears really perked up. One slaves and saves and this hijacking can happen??. So maybe this couple I know are smarter than I thought, their outlook on life is to spend it all, save none, live for the moment. I always thought that was crazy talk. Not anymore. Hopefully if ever the time comes when it can be carried out, that the cut off is high enough not to afect the average middle class savings amount, the average of those who actually are frugal with their money and have savings. Hopefully the amount is somewhere above $200,000 and does not count RRSP's. Hell, I think outrage should sweep across the country and force a change in the wording. If the Cons did this, who the hell can we turn to, not the f'in NDP or Libs, that's for sure.
Anyway, I am outraged that the Conservatives actually have a loophole that can allow this theft to occur. And I thought 'never in a million years' will we ever be at a risk for the Cyprus cure. Maybe if I spread my money around into different banks, I can totally eliminate the risk to myself. I did not see anything about at what amount the savings have to be before can take their slice of the pie, or, if you will, their lb of flesh.
We always have to read in between the lines when politicians, irrelevant of their stripes write or say anything that concerns us. All of them are con masters of the first order. Brian Lilley was the first to talk about something Cyprus-like happening in Canada and that was before dissecting the Budget. I had not given a drastic scenario to Canada ... but fleetingly had thought of the USA getting further into a financial mess before Obama calls it a day, when doing that earlier post.
DeleteThis is a wakeup call to all of us who might have 100K or above in one given bank account. Diversify should be the name of the game from now on... and the sooner the better.
The powers-that-be have intentionally kept the interest rates down to a minimum... which are great for borrowers who mostly default on their loans ... but a curse to savers and retirees who depend on interest payments. Diversifying your money would mean getting banks competing to hold your money and this hopefully will benefit both savers and banks who are willing and ready to give depositors a higher rate of interest.
So, maybe ... something good might come out of Flaherty's conniving tricks which have woken up many of us. Pulling our money from banks where we had a big lumpsum might get them to sing a better rate of deposit interest to keep our hard earned cash.