[450] First, They came for the Cypriots...

[John Foege]

Rule Of Law: Markets tumbled after Cyprus and the EU said they might
tax private bank accounts to pay for a bailout. Arbitrary property
grabs are a new low and a bad precedent in this crisis. Worse still,
it can happen here.

As bad as tumbling markets around the world are, they seem to be the
only signal strong enough to catch the attention of Europe's otherwise
unaccountable bureaucrats who have long since learned to ignore street
riots.

As stocks fell from Tokyo to New York, Europe's leaders are scrambling
to say they had nothing to do with the cause — the shutdown of all
Cyprus banks and ATMs for at least three days and the expropriation of
a large chunk of each now-captive account, as a "tax" to pay for
Cyprus' $13 billion EU bailout, Europe's fifth.

Cyprus Prime Minister Nicos Anastasiades bitterly asserted he had been
"blackmailed" by the EU and the International Monetary Fund to go
along with the idea on Saturday, or there'd be no bailout. Cyprus'
central bank chief Panicos Demetriades said the same thing.

Aside from the fact that no fiscally responsible country should need a
bailout and the roots of Cyprus' financial crisis is based on
long-term big-spending government and low-information voters, the bank
shutdown nevertheless sets an ugly precedent rooted in the growing
arrogance of EU power.

Until now, tax hikes and haircuts for bond-holders have been how
Europe's bailouts have been handled. (And, among the countries that
never want to be in that position again, such as Estonia and Latvia,
spending cuts.) At least markets could recognize such solutions and
price in the risk accordingly.

But confiscating savings in banks and denying people access to their
property without warning is something entirely different — and will do
great damage to citizens' willingness to save, invest and build
wealth.

Oh sure, the rationale was that most of the depositors were shady
foreigners, particularly from Russia, laundering money. But the photos
of Cypriots banging on bank doors and protesting, much as the people
of Argentina did when the same thing happened to them in 2002, tells a
different story of human suffering.

The expropriation of the tiny country's savings may have seemed like
an easy test case for the EU because the population is small and some
of the depositors are rich and unsympathetic, but the blowback will
hit savings and investment — and future economic growth — all over
Europe.

Worse still, it could catch on here.

Already Congressional Democrats are plotting the expropriation of
Americans' private 401(k) and IRA retirement savings accounts in favor
of "a guaranteed income." If bank accounts can be casually
expropriated in Cyprus to pay for big-spending governments and
bailouts, there is no reason a nice slice of the $19 trillion in
retirement accounts can't get the same treatment.

If it happens, it will signal the end of individual freedom and the
return of feudalism.

Frederick Hayek had a phrase for this: "The Road To Serfdom." Let's
hope there will be more than just markets to make this state theft of
private property stop.

Read More At Investor's Business Daily:
http://news.investors.com/ibd-editorials/031813-648417-expropriating-cyprus-private-insured-deposits-is-eu-overreach.htm#ixzz2NxHX0SMF
Follow us: @IBDinvestors on Twitter | InvestorsBusinessDaily on Facebook
_______________________________________________
450 mailing list
450 at lists.vhfwiki.com
http://lists.vhfwiki.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/450