European Union imposes bank bailout on Cyprus

Jordan Shilton & Chris Marsden

EU officials insist on installing an economic dictatorship over the Cypriot economy.

The Cypriot government and the European Union (EU) arrived at an agreement early yesterday morning to secure a bailout of Cypriot banks and avert state bankruptcy in Cyprus.

The terms set by the bailout amount to the economic devastation of the island country in the interests of Europe’s financial elite. Cyprus’s financial sector, accounting for around half of economic output, will immediately be reduced by up to half. Laiki bank, the second largest, is to be wound up with its debts to the ECB taken on by the Bank of Cyprus. Further losses are inevitable, as banking done in Cyprus is shifted to other euro zone countries’ banks.

The dictates of the EU and the criminal financial practices of Cyprus’s ruling elite alike have paved the way for massive attacks on working people. With unemployment at more than 14 percent, there will inevitably be thousands of job losses in banking, Cyprus’s main employer, and from restructured companies and privatised services.

The bailout, which is massively opposed by the Cypriot population, is to be imposed without a vote in the Cypriot parliament. To this end, the original proposal to impose a levy on bank deposits, which had been rejected by the Cypriot parliament, was removed from the final agreement. The new plan provides for the freezing of all deposits over €100,000 to cover the bailout. Depositors and shareholders in Laiki will see their assets transferred to a “bad bank” and could lose everything.

These measures, together with a privatisation programme and tax increases, are projected to raise the €7 billion Cyprus has been ask to contribute to the €17 billion bailout from the EU, ECB and International Monetary Fund.


Cyprus Update

Stephen Lendman

It's all over but the post mortems. Eurocrats demanded their pound of flesh. Cypriot officials surrendered. They sold out their people. They deserve better. Expect greater than ever hard times. Expect growing poverty, unemployment and despair. Expect public anger. At issue is whether it'll bubble up and explode.

Zero Hedge headlined "Next Up For Cyprus: Depression." It forecasts real GDP declining over 20% by 2017. "Risks are clearly on the downside." Ahead expect more bailout help needed.

With tongue in cheek perhaps, European Commission economic chief Olli Rehn said "It's clear the depth of the financial crisis in Cyprus means the near future will be very difficult for the country and its people." He omitted saying Cyprus' trouble is protracted. Ordinary people will suffer most. Responsible solutions weren't chosen.

They'd have softened crisis conditions if implemented. They'd have hastened recovery. They'd have mitigated pain and suffering. Bailing out bankers matters most. "Congratulations Cyprus." Sacrificing sovereign rights benefits German Chancellor Angela Merkel. Her September reelection chances improved.


Attorney General Eric Holder: If the President Does It, It's Legal

John W. Whitehead

"I never thought I would see the day when a Justice Department would claim that only the most extreme infliction of pain and physical abuse constitutes torture and that acts that are merely cruel, inhuman and degrading are consistent with United States law and policy, that the Supreme Court would have to order the president of the United States to treat detainees in accordance with the Geneva Convention, never thought that I would see that a president would act in direct defiance of federal law by authorizing warrantless NSA surveillance of American citizens. This disrespect for the rule of law is not only wrong, it is destructive." ~ Eric Holder, June 2008 speech to the American Constitution Society

Since the early days of our republic, the Attorney General (AG) of the United States has served as the chief lawyer for the government, entrusted with ensuring that the nation's laws are faithfully carried out and holding government officials accountable to abiding by their oaths of office to "uphold and defend the Constitution."

Unfortunately, far from holding government officials accountable to abiding by the rule of law, the attorneys general of each successive administration have increasingly aided and abetted the Executive Branch in skirting and, more often than not, flouting the law altogether, justifying all manner of civil liberties and human rights violations and trampling the Constitution in the process, particularly the Fourth Amendment.

No better example is there of the perversion of the office of the AG than its current occupant Eric Holder, who was appointed by President Obama in 2009. Hailed by civil liberties and watchdog groups alike for his pledge to "reverse the disastrous course that we have been on over the past few years" and usher in a new era of civil liberties under Obama, Holder has instead carried on the sorry tradition of his predecessors, going to great lengths to "justify" egregious government actions that can only be described as immoral, unjust and illegal.


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