Steal or die are the current orders from Brussels:
Our foreign correspondent Richard Spencer is in Nicosia. He, along with Bruno Waterfield, Tom Parfitt and Alex Spillius, explain the implications of the ECB’s liquidity cut off. They write: The European Central Bank will switch off the cash life support taps for banks in Cyprus wiping out £1.7 billion in British savings after next Monday unless the island signs off on a radical debt-cutting programme with the eurozone and International Monetary Fund.
Unless a deal is in place the euro’s central bank will withdraw “emergency liquidity assistance” leading to the immediate collapse of the two largest Cypriot banks and a financial crash in Cyprus. Cypriot banks are totally reliant on the ECB for funding and have taken over €9.1 billion in an emergency programme to ensure cash does not run out.
However, the Cypriot Parliament, courtesy of their Russian-instilled spines, is insisting that it will not approve any “deposit haircut”. Next week could be interesting.
On a tangentially related note, those of you waiting for the next entry in the Inflation/Deflation debate need to relax and be patient. In addition to all the excitement of the Cypriot affair, I’ve been finishing up the new Selenoth ebook that will be published soon, (next week if all goes smoothly), as well as addressing an amount of game-related business. While the debate is important, it has not been a priority this week.