The price of NATO membership for Sweden and Finland is for them to throw the Kurds under the bus to please Turkey

 Same as it ever was.

The Kurds have been pretty much voiceless in the West since Winston Churchill first threw them under the bus in 1919 and used British air forces to attack them, advocating eventually that Turkey be given control of northern Iraq.

 

 

 

NATO members once more are ignoring Turkey’s role against the Kurds. This concerns internal Kurdish oppression in Turkey, bombing the PKK and Yazidis in Northern Iraq and killing and cleansing Kurds in Northern Syria. ...

NATO, the European Union, and the G7 anti-Russian Federation alliance ignore human rights in Turkey and the fact that this nation is occupying two nations (Northern Cyprus and Northern Syria) – while also bombing Kurds and Yazidis in another nation (Iraq). At the same time, the EU and G7 seek Saudi Arabia to increase energy production. Therefore, ignoring the conflict in Yemen: the Saudi Arabia-led war that has been bombing this nation for many years (weapons bought from America, France, and the United Kingdom).

The Kurds are perennially thrown under the American and NATO bus. Hence, Finland and Sweden are set to join the anti-Kurdish power plays of NATO before even being accepted. 

More.

Cyprus has denied five Russian navy ships the right to moor and refuel there, so Cyprus' participation in EU sanctions has real teeth

 https://in-cyprus.philenews.com/cyprus-forbids-mooring-of-five-russian-navy-ships-this-week-due-to-ukraine-war/ :

Even though Russia has signed an agreement with Cyprus to give its navy ships access to the Mediterranean country’s ports Nicosia this week forbade five of them from mooring because of the Ukrainian invasion. ... the agreement on the provision of facilities and a mooring permit is suspended.

 

Germany is still hedging on banning Russia from the SWIFT system at this hour after worldwide outcry at EU intransigence two days ago

And as usual Biden is a follower, not a leader, still mulling over what he should do.

Austria, Hungary, France, Italy, Cyprus all have now signaled readiness to accept the draconian measure in order to cut off Russia's access to payment flows.

Germany could easily find itself without heat very shortly if it relents.

Meanwhile Ukrainians are bravely fighting off the Russians alone.

Rick Gates testimony the complete opposite of MSNBC buffoon Chris Hayes: Manafort working to ally Ukraine with EU not with Kremlin

From the story here:

Gates said that their shell companies in Cyprus had transferred money between themselves in payments disguised as loans.

Manafort crafted a policy for Yanukovych aimed at bringing Ukraine into the European Union called “Engage Ukraine”.

Manafort recruited top former European politicians to help out with that effort.

Manafort’s income fell precipitously after Yanukovych stepped down in 2014.

Manafort then had trouble paying his bills.

Manafort then worked briefly advising Ukraine’s current president, Petro Poroshenko. ...

“Engage Ukraine became the strategy for helping Ukraine enter the European Union,” he told prosecutors Tuesday.

AP finally runs story detailing Treasury's leadership of Trump-Russia investigation

Gee, how does the Treasury Dept. "collect a vast repository of records" in order to "piece money trails together and identify leads for criminal investigators", huh?

You don't suppose they ever wiretap anybody, do you?

Here:

U.S. Treasury Department agents have recently obtained information about offshore financial transactions involving President Donald Trump's former campaign chairman, Paul Manafort, as part of a federal anti-corruption probe into his work in Eastern Europe, The Associated Press has learned.

Information about Manafort's transactions was turned over earlier this year to U.S. agents working in the Treasury Department's Financial Crimes Enforcement Network by investigators in Cyprus at the U.S. agency's request, a person familiar with the case said, speaking on condition of anonymity because the person was not authorized to publicly discuss a criminal investigation. ...

Manafort, who was Trump's unpaid campaign chairman from March until August last year, has been a leading focus of the U.S. government's investigation into whether Trump associates coordinated with Moscow to meddle in the 2016 campaign. This week, the AP revealed his secret work for a Russian billionaire to advance the interests of Russian President Vladimir Putin a decade ago. ...

The Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, known as FinCEN, was established in 1990 and became a Treasury Department bureau soon after the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks. It collects a vast repository of records that financial institutions are required to report under the Bank Secrecy Act, such as suspicious activity reports and currency transaction reports, and assists law enforcement agencies in helping analyze complex data.

The agency is a part of an international network of so-called financial intelligence units that share information with each other in money laundering and terrorism financing investigations. Its work has been critical in helping officials piece money trails together and identify leads for criminal investigators.

America pushes NATO right up to the Russian border, the EU confiscates Cyprus' assets, and the Economist calls Putin paranoid

Proving once again that the West completely disrespects Russia. They could easily be our friends, if America were still a Christian country. That, dear friends, is the root of the problem.

The story "As ye sow, so shall ye reap: The collapse in the rouble is caused by Vladimir Putin’s belligerence, greed and paranoia" is here, in the ever arrogant Economist.

Is Crimea Payback For Cyprus?

I haven't heard anyone say this yet, but Russians lost a lot of money when the EU "bailed out" Cyprus by bailing it in. More to the point, the EU confiscated 40% of deposits in Cyprus banks in excess of 100,000 euros, which hit a lot of rich Russian depositors pretty hard. It was another example of EU overreach in the opinion of Russians, something of which the West has been very dismissive but which Putin has indicated will not fly anymore as early as 2008, and proved it when he annexed South Ossetia during the Olympic Games in China.

Crimea was a perfect opportunity for a little payback for Cyprus, considering that the US has been trying to push Ukraine into the arms of the EU, most recently when Senators John McCain and Chris Murphy visited Ukraine in December and threatened the country with sanctions if it did not ally with the West.

From Putin's perspective, the EU means losses for Russia. American policy isn't taking that seriously enough, because if it were Putin wouldn't need to resort to arms.

Another Gold Bear Recognizes Fair Value Is Below $500 The Ounce

Noted by Bob Pisani, here:

Gold bears like MKM note that if gold had simply moved with the CPI basket since 1913, it would stand at $490 an ounce. Wow. That is more than 60 percent below it's [sic] already low price. I doubt it will go anywhere near there.

Pisani and just about everyone else is focusing on the run-up in gold since 2008 to its extraordinarily high levels of recent years, finding it nearly inconceivable that gold could lose all of those gains since 2008, while ignoring at the same time the run-up to 2008 which established gold's floor for the last five years' move to the stratospheric level.

It would be easy to blame the financial crisis and/or QE for the last five years of gold price rises to $1900, but QE had nothing to do with the five to seven years before 2008 when gold rose to $800 from $300. Perhaps easy money could be credited with that in the 2000s, but we've had easy money before 2003, too. Alan Greenspan's easy money from 1995 did nothing for gold, which continued down to $263 by late 2000. So what made gold skyrocket beginning after 2003? Everyone is ignoring who were the buyers then who helped drive up the price of gold.

The answer is buyers of GLD, the gold ETF launched in 2004. If puny little Cyprus can set off a wave of gold selling today with 14 lousy metric tonnes in question at the maximum, think about what GLD has done to gold buying, and thus to the gold price, over the years building up a wave of 1300 tonnes from 2004. GLD easily qualifies as the major player in the buying action in an annual production environment of about double that figure. It's just that now the limit has been reached under current conditions, and people are starting to realize that confiscation is becoming thinkable again. The gold price has slowly eroded from the September 2011 peak, and is now being shoved over the edge by confiscation fears.

You build a market and they will come, until actual ownership becomes more important than a paper proxy. That is a problem GLD cannot solve, nor any other gold "investment" which does not involve transfering physical possession to the buyer. Germany, for example, no longer trusts its gold in others' hands and wants it back in country. Try telling that to GLD, which won't be transferring gold to any "owners". I'd say that's very negative for GLD going forward, and very negative for gold prices generally because of GLD's sheer heft, just as possible confiscation of weak sovereigns' gold looming as a very real possibility is negative for gold prices because of their relative size and importance.

When it comes to GLD or any other form of paper gold, the only important question is, "Where are all the customers' yachts?"

Gold Fell Out Of Bed Today, Dropping 4%

The carnage continues in after hours trading with spot prices around $1,477 the ounce.

It is thought in some quarters that the terms of the Cyprus deal requiring Cyprus to sell some of its gold to contribute for its bailout sets a bad precedent for other periphery countries in the Euro who may also be asked to sell gold to help pay for bailouts. The increased supply would be hugely negative for prices.

Sounds like people got out of GLD in particular big time just as the rumors were breaking in the middle of the week, and today the facts are spreading a dim pall over the entire gold market.

Deposit confiscation, then sovereign gold. Are they going to start going through the safe deposit boxes, too?

Russia Was Just The Excuse For The Eurogroup To Steal From Cyprus

So says Ambrose Evans-Pritchard, here, for the UK Telegraph:

"First they purloin the savings and bank deposits in Laiki and the Bank of Cyprus, including the working funds of the University of Cyprus, and thousands of small firms hanging on by their fingertips. Then they seize three quarters of the country’s gold reserves, making it ever harder for Cyprus to extricate itself from EMU at a later date. ...

"Cypriots are learning what it means to be a member of monetary union when things go badly wrong. The crisis costs have suddenly jumped from €17bn to €23bn, and the burden of finding an extra €6bn will fall on Cyprus alone. ...

"The workhouse treatment of Cyprus is nevertheless remarkable. The creditor powers walked away from their fresh pledges for an EMU banking union by whipping up largely bogus allegations of Russian money-laundering in Nicosia. A Council of Europe by a British prosecutor has failed to validate the claims. The EU authorities have gone to great lengths to insist that Cyprus is a 'special case', but I fail to see what is special about it. There is far more Russian money – laundered or otherwise – in the Netherlands. The banking centres of Ireland and Malta are just as large as a share of GDP. Luxembourg’s banking centre is at least four times more leveraged to the economy. ...

"The original plan in Cyprus – approved by the Eurogroup, but rejected by the Cypriot parliament – was to steal the money from any bank regardless of its health, and from small depositors regardless of the €100,000 guarantee. They have shown their character. The Eurogroup don’t give a damn about moral hazard. They are thieves."

First They Came For Your Silver . . .

First they came for your silver (1964, last year minted).

Then they came for your dollar (1971, final year of dollar convertibility to gold).

Then they came for your tax deductions (1986 Tax "Reform" repealed deductibility of credit card interest).

Then they came for your mortgages (1997, introduction of two year rule to get you to borrow and churn).

Then they came for your banks (1999, allowed commercial banks to act like investment banks but with FDIC backstop).

Now they are coming for your bank deposits (2013, Cyprus), and not coincidentally, your guns.

Next it will be your 401ks and IRAs.

And then?

Of course there were other firsts before 1964, but these will do for now.

Cyprus: "Punishing A Whole Country Just To Hit Russians"

'Particularly successful at luring Russians, Cyprus has built up a large infrastructure of lawyers, accountants and other professionals schooled in the arts of tax avoidance. Its corporate registry now has 320,000 registered companies, a staggering number for a country with only 860,000 people. Most are hollow shells set up for foreign companies and wealthy individuals seeking to avoid taxes.

'"We have been thrown to the wolves, and now the wolves have responded," said Nicholas Papadopoulos, who heads the financial and budgetary affairs committee in the House of Representatives.

'Bitterly critical of last week's bailout deal — which is forcing Cyprus to shrink its banking and financial services industry drastically and stick the largest bank depositors with much of the bill — Mr. Papadopoulos said the European Union was "punishing a whole country just to hit Russians."'

More here.

Why Deposit Confiscation On Cyprus Was Wrong

Liam Halligan, for the UK Telegraph, here:

"Across Cyprus this Easter, hundreds of family-owned businesses are trying to come to terms with what they see as the theft of their working capital. Numerous charities, universities and other educational endowments have also been whacked. As I said, depositors are not investors. There is an absolutely crucial distinction between them, or, at least, in a modern society, there should be. Moving on any depositors, large or small, seriously undermines the financial and legal fabric of capitalism itself."

US Bank Failures 2009-2011 See $3.92 Billion In Uninsured Deposits Lost

Click each to enlarge.

Losses from 2012 payoffs remain as yet unconcluded at the FDIC website. These things do take time.

"Payoffs" involve those relatively few institutions for which no one could be found to Purchase and Assume the failed bank. Typically depositors with funds in excess of FDIC limits are still made good in P&As, but not in Payoffs.

By way of contrast, bank failures have cost industry far more directly than customers directly during the late financial crisis. Uninsured depositors may have lost nearly $4 billion, but the Deposit Insurance Fund of the FDIC, paid into by every member bank, has had to shell out $87 billion from 2007. Just think what you'd have been hearing in the US if that sum had been sought from the uninsured depositors, who with $4.7 trillion today certainly have pockets deep enough! America actually treats its depositors, both insured and uninsured, far more fairly than in the EU, which is one important reason why the euro is doomed and net foreign investment in the US is gaining.

Uninsured deposits in little Cyprus are going to get hit to the tune of $6.5 billion to shore up its banks, which in turn are in trouble only because they held the bonds of Greece, on which the infamous Troika -- the European Central Bank, the European Union and the International Monetary Fund -- demanded haircuts in excess of 50% for the bailout of Greece. The Troika is actually directly responsible for causing the problem in Cyprus which the Troika now demands Cyprus depositors pay for. No wonder the European periphery hates the center.

Expect capital flight from Europe to accelerate to the US.

Wiped-Out Rich Russians In Cyprus' Banks Should Get Remaining Assets In Return

So Steve Forbes, rightly, here:

The deal in Cyprus spares insured deposits, those of less than 100,000 euros. But deposits above that threshold at the two largest and most troubled banks stand to lose money.

Capitalism might suggest that these uninsured deposits would be lost when the bank fails.

. . . [Steve] Forbes makes the case that the government has “mucked things up” since the beginning.

He argues the senior depositors who stand to be wiped out should be first in line to get what’s left of the “good assets” at the “bad banks,” as the FDIC does in the U.S.

Uninsured Deposits: Cyprus, Maybe 17 Billion Euros, America, $4.75 Trillion

All you high rollers had better hope the big banks don't go bust, but that's what the last five years have been all about now, haven't they?

Government of the banks, by the banks, and for the banks. Big banks. Big mutha banks.

Uninsured Deposits Make America A Much Bigger Casino Than Cyprus

According to the FDIC, here, at the end of 2012 there were $7.406 trillion in insured deposits, but that report covers commercial banks only.

According to the FDIC, here, at the end of 2012 there were $9.447 trillion in domestic deposits in the entire system of 7,083 institutions.

Does that mean there are $2.041 trillion in uninsured deposits? It's not that simple, and the number is actually much bigger than that.

Separately in its statistics on depository institutions the FDIC states that at the end of 2012 there were $8.6 trillion held in "domestic offices" of 6,096 commercial banks, of which 62.6% were insured, and $.8 trillion held in "domestic offices" of 987 savings institutions, of which 86.3% were insured. That's a total of 7,083 institutions with $6.1 trillion insured, and $3.3 trillion uninsured. Just over a year ago Felix Salmon put the figure then at about $3.1 trillion, properly not counting those deposits held outside of domestic offices in running the numbers, so the current $3.3 trillion today looks about right for one year later.

With $10.8 trillion in total deposits, however, both inside and outside of "domestic offices", does it not shock you that just $6.1 trillion is insured? That's insurance for just 56% of total deposits, and no insurance for 44%. It's a little misleading of the FDIC to say 64.27 is the percentage insured. Yeah, the percentage of "deposits held in domestic offices", not the percentage of "total deposits". The relevant line is indented in the illustration attached for a reason. It's a subset of what immediately comes before, not of "total deposits".

(Incidentally, at the end of 2003 there were 9,181 total institutions in the FDIC system. Today there are just 7,083, a decline of 23% in almost 10 years, most of it due to consolidation and just 22% due to bank failures since 2003.)

We're told that in the EMU bank heist in Cyprus, 38 billion euros of 68 billion euros in total deposits is held in accounts over 100,000 euros. But that's not saying 38 billion euros is uninsured. Anything over 100,000 euros is not insured, and that's what's getting plundered. But how much is that?

We're told the idea is to raise about 5 billion euros by expropriating depositors' funds, and that now all of it is going to come from the big depositors, not from the people with up to 100,000 euros. Reports say that the hit to these high rollers is going to be in the neighborhood of 30%. Simple math tells you therefore that 5 billion euros raised at a 30% rate must mean uninsured deposits in Cyprus run in the neighborhood of 17 billion euros, or just 25% of total deposits.

In the US it's 44% of total deposits, so whose banking system is the bigger casino, huh Mr. Moscovici?

With banks closed for the last week, the Central Bank of Cyprus imposed a 100-euro daily limit on withdrawals from cash machines at the two biggest banks to avert a run.

French Finance Minister Pierre Moscovici rejected charges that the EU had brought Cypriots to their knees, saying it was the island's offshore business model that had failed.

"To all those who say that we are strangling an entire people ... Cyprus is a casino economy that was on the brink of bankruptcy," he said.

EMU Sees Something Big On Cyprus And Decides To Tax It

Reuters, here:

Cyprus clinched a last-ditch deal with international lenders to shut down its second-largest bank and inflict heavy losses on uninsured depositors, including wealthy Russians, in return for a 10 billion euro ($13 billion) bailout. ...

Deposits above 100,000 euros in both banks, which are not guaranteed under EU law, will be frozen and used to resolve Laiki's debts and recapitalize Bank of Cyprus through a deposit/equity conversion. ...

The tottering banks held 68 billion euros in deposits, including 38 billion in accounts of more than 100,000 euros - enormous sums for an island of 1.1 million people that could never sustain such a big financial system on its own.

US Banks Still Keep Literally Trillion$ In Liabilities Hidden Off Balance Sheet

So said Floyd Norris just last week, for The New York Times, here.

And you thought they laundered money only in Cyprus.

Cyprus Bailout Deal Amounts To Robbery Of Ordinary Citizens' Accounts

The Chair of the European Parliament's Economic and Monetary Affairs Committee, Britain's Liberal Democrat Member of the European Parliament, Sharon Bowles, comments here on today's news that Cyprus residents, regardless of nationality, must agree to confiscation of personal savings (at either 9.9% or 6.75% of the total) in exchange for an EU bailout, or face a messy national bankruptcy:

"This grabbing of ordinary depositors' money is billed as a tax, so as to try and circumvent the EU's deposit guarantee laws. It robs smaller investors of the protection they were promised. If this were a bank, they would be in court for mis-selling.

"The lesson here is that the EU's Single Market rules will be flouted when the Eurozone, ECB and IMF says so. At a time when many are greatly concerned that the creation of the 'Banking Union', giving the ECB unprecedented power, will demote the priorities of the Single Market, we see it here in action.

"Deposit guarantees were brought in at a maximum harmonising level so that citizens across the EU would not have incentive to move funds from country to country. That has been blown apart.

"What else will be blown apart when convenient? All the capital requirements we have slaved over, what about the new recovery and resolution rules? What does this mean for confidence in cross-border banking and resolution and preventing the fragmentation of the banking sector?

"When the dust has settled on this deal, which I hope it never does, we will see that the Single Market has been sold down the river for a shoddy price. All the worse as the consequences for Cyprus of the Greek bond haircuts were obvious."

The UK Guardian has a full report here, Reuters here. The cost of the 10 billion Euro bailout is to be offset by the confiscations, totaling as much as 6 billion Euros, perhaps half of which will come from rich Russians living on Cyprus. ATMs on the Mediterranean island nation ran dry before noon yesterday.

Of such small sparks are conflagrations made.