[Sirius]

Originally Posted by Chris

Actually, what people are asking for is equal treatment. The EU bureaucracy *tried* to expropriate savings below the guarantee threshold and only the intransigence of the Cypriot parliament prevented them doing it. As it is, what was arranged for Cyprus was not on the same terms as had been applied elsewhere, such as in Ireland, and completely failed to acknowledge that the banking collapse in Cyprus was in no small measure brought about by the debt haircuts imposed on Greece's creditors by that same EU bureaucracy - Cyprus being a major creditor, seriously exposed to the disaster in Greece.

The bail-outs in each case are a political smash and grab, each one more difficult to pull off than the last, as the ultimate victims get wiser and harder to fleece with each passing job. It's no way to run a currency, and is why the Euro will fail. The only question here is just how much money they are prepared to pour down the drain attempting to shore up their vanity project in the meantime. On current evidence they may stretch out the end-game another five years. But the end will come, and the longer they delay, the worse it will be.

They should nip it in the bud now. The longer it takes before they kill it the harder it will be to recover.