Customer funds were long considered 'sacred' at brokerage firms, and were segregated from the proprietary operations of the company. And they were stolen at MF Global, and no one has been punished.
Bank deposits, protected by insurance and the guarantees of the government, were long considered 'sacred' at financial institutions. And they are being stolen in Cyprus as a matter of convenience to the crony capitalists in Europe, who are loathe to force the banks to take their losses. And so they impose them on the people.
And this is what was done, and is still being done, in the US and the UK as well. It is merely being done in a different form.
The Parliament of Cyprus will vote on this plan on Monday.
There are always various ways, and people, who will be willing to justify such theft. The banks were taking dirty Russian money, the people are lazy spendthrifts. This is always how it goes when the oligarchs steal to finance their gambling losses. And in their insular arrogance they always go too far, provoke a reaction, and then act surprised.
As I wrote a few weeks ago:
Politicians from both sides of the aisle will swear pious oaths to protect and foster the well being of the middle class. They will say that their policies and proposals are all designed for its betterment. And yet the state of the middle class continues to dwindle into despair and disrepair. Why is this?Protect yourselves. And do not look only to your wealth, but also to what is lasting.
It is not because of the predominance of a right or left ideology, of taxation and deficits and austerity. It is not because of the re-emergence of a perversion of the gospel, in the predestination of prosperity. We have seen all this before. It is not because in our comfort we have lost the sense of the imperative of common cause.
It is because of the overwhelming corruption of power, and of the cynical amorality of thoroughly modern political managers who worship power and personal wealth as ends unto themselves. They distract the people with artificially divisive social issues and crises, while robbing them blind.
It is driven by the allure of the cartels, monopolies, and monied interests, and their corrupt political bargains. It is a child of the subornation of perjury on a massive scale. It is the unscrupulous servility to power of those who have sworn to uphold and protect the law. What is truth? Whatever suits us, whatever we say it is, by whoever has the power and the craft to define 'we.' It is not the triumph of evil so much as the absence of any sense of the good, of honor, honesty, and of simple common decency.
And it is marked by the daily subverting of the law as a matter of convenience and comfort to the insatiable few, and the cravenness of their enablers, driven by personal ambition, ignorance, and fear. It is the will to power, the elevation of the ascendant self and the system that supports it, above all else. Greed is good. Whatever works. And the enemy is all that is not the self, but that which is the other.
And where there is nothing sacred, the people perish.
"For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world, and lose his soul?"
