Hurrah! Boo! Cyprus is Saved! Cyprus is Doomed!

There are so many angles to the story of what happened to Cyprus over the past week or so that it boggles the mind to consider just a few of the long-term ramifications, but, clearly, the deal struck late, late Sunday evening by the ECB, IMF and the European Commission, deferred to by the president of Cyprus - who really didn't have much say and actually threatened to resign (he should have) - was a game changer in more ways than one.

First, the deal.

Instead of making everybody pay, which was the original plan foisted upon the Cypriot parliament and summarily dismissed in a unanimous vote, the brain trust that is the ECB worked out a plan that would fold up one insolvent bank - Laiki - and reorganize another (Bank of Cyprus), impose capital control limiting withdrawals to 100 euros, and force depositors with over 100,000 euros - because there are so few bond holders - to pay down the bank's debt, with a levy of up to 40% on those deposits.

OK? Stay with me here. Because the plan is not a bailout, but a reorganization, the parliament of Cyprus will not have to vote on it. There. All fixed.

Except that mush of the money that's going to be "levied" in the "reorganization" is Russian money, laundered or otherwise, and the Russians are not very happy, even though Angela Merkel is. Hmmm... Russians unhappy, Germans happy. That doesn't sound familiar, does it?

Further, banks in Cyprus are supposed to open tomorrow, but probably won't, and even when they do, the flight of capital will be intense, even at the absurdly tiny levels of 100 euros a day. This story is still very, very fluid and has a multitude of effects on all of Europe and the rest of the world, so, stay tuned.

As far as the markets were concerned, news of a "solution" to the Cyprus problem was greeted with hallelujahs and buying, with the futures of US indices all heading skyward and the Euro ramping up against the dollar.

Stocks in the US (and Europe) opened higher, leveled off until, until, Dutch Finance Minister and recently-appointed head of the ECB, Jeroen Dijsselblom, went on the record to say that the Cyprus solution may well be a "template" for other troubled banks in the Eurozone.

Uh-oh. markets tanked. The Dow, which was up 51 points, went negative by 128. European bourses revered. The EUR/USD FX pair went negative in a big way. Impairment of depositor money (government-sanctioned theft) is not what rich people want to hear. Never mind the poor and not-so-poor with deposits of under 100,000 euros, which are guaranteed by the bankrupt ECB, it's the rich people's money that's going to bail out banks in the future Europe.

Ouchie! But, that's what should happen. Insolvent banks should be wound down first by smacking the junior and then senior bond holders and, if that's not enough to cover the debts, uninsured depositors pony up the balance.

So, that's Cyprus, the future of Europe and the global financial system all rolled up into 12 or 14 neat paragraphs. If you've got over 100,000 euros in any bank these days, you are either as nuts as our Federal Reserve chairman or a big business that needs that amount of capital to meet payroll, expenses, etc. For those, there is no alternative (well, there is, but what business really wants to keep that much cash lying around?).

For people with less than 100,000 euros or the equivalent in dollars (about $129,000 right now), how much do you want to risk in any bank, any bank which could be closed indefinitely in case of a financial crisis or emeeeeeeergency, with no access to your funds until the "officials" deem the situation resolved?

Let's just say that the answer for most people would be, "not much."

Well, that just raises another fearsome looking ugly head in the form of capital controls (you can only take out "so much" today) or, outright loss. The answer is bank runs of the kind not seen since the Great Depression, when, remember, banks were closed for weeks and longer and some never reopened. IT CAN HAPPEN HERE because it already did.

So, where do you put all that extra cash of yours, lucky you? Most Americans have sums of money in "investments" which are just promises and based upon given market levels which change from day to day. Trust. It's a fun term.

Others have money in banks. Best advice is, if you must keep your dough in a bank, spread it around. A better solution would be to invest (you have enough money, right?) in a very heavy safe, a good alarm system, a coule of good firearms and maybe a couple of alert, healthy guard dogs. Yeah. Old school, like medieval days, which is to where the world is headed. Maybe a moat filled with crocodiles, drawbridge and turrets should be the new home design for the 2020s?

You laugh. Don't. Money in banks, as proven by the bizarre and brazen moves of the psychopathic leaders of the ECB, IMF and EU. is not as safe as you'd like to think. Ask anyone who lived through the Great Depression. Most people kept more money stuffed into their mattresses than in their local banks, and, with good reason. The banks failed and their money was gone. Poof!

The choice is yours, dear readers, play the game of chicken with the elites, who have no taste nor mercy for the likes of you and yours, or take action. keep in banks only what you need, because, when you think of it, the FDIC insures deposits of up to $250,000 in the US. That went up from $50,000 prior to the crash in 2008. Why? Because people smart enough to understand what was going on were taking their money out and the government and the banks would really have gone bust in a huge way had there been real banks runs like in the 1930s.

Without looking it up, the FDIC budget is something along the lines of $50 billion. The amount of deposits in US banks is on the order of $14 TRILLION. Do the math.

That's it for today. We're all Cypriots now.

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Cyprus Situation Still Uncertain; US Traders Content to Take the Risk

With the situation in Cyprus still murky, at best, US investors shrugged off the dilemma from overseas and bid stocks up to their best levels of the week during Friday's session, ending the week down marginally, but essentially flat.

Holding stocks over the weekend seems a risky bet, being that the troika has given the Cypriot government until Monday to sort things out and come up with a solution to salvage what's left of their failed banking system and creaking government.

The latest from Nicosea, the capitol of Cyprus, appeared to have the parliament eyeing a tax on depositors once again in an effort to keep the deal offered by the ECB and IMF on the table. The parliament had unanimously rejected the option to tax deposits in Cypriot banks earlier in the week, but it now appears that they have run out of viable options.

How the tax, or levy, is finally worked out remains a sticking point. Deposits of under 100,000 euros are supposedly protected by law, as they are by the FDIC in the US, but lawmakers and Eurozone leaders seem willing to overturn that protection in favor of bailing out the troubled banks and economy of Cyprus.

Taxing savers will no doubt raise the specter of fear in many european nations, that regular depositors will no longer be protected by laws designed to keep governments and financial authorities' hands off the people's money.

With Europe already on a weekend, there's little doubt what savers in countries like Greece, italy, spain and Portugal have been doing on Friday: withdrawing sufficient fund to weather the weekend and beyond, should the leaders in the EU and Cyprus continue on their mad path to destruction of confidence in the financial system.

Banks in Cyprus will remain closed until Tuesday, no matter what is decided or left up in the air. The weekend should prove to be an interesting one from the standpoint of global economic viability.

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Situation in Cyprus Still Unresolved; European, US Stocks Hit

If Americans could pull themselves away from their TV sets and the NCAA tournament for a few moments, some of them might come to the realization that what's happening in Cyprus might just have huge global implications in the not-so-distant future.

While the story so far consists of a multitude of moving parts, what is known so far is that Cypriot banks - oversized in relation to the nation's GDP - are in deep, deep trouble and that the "troika" (EU, ECB and IMF) has given the tiny island nation until Monday to come up with a viable plan.

Cyprus has been told it must raise 5.8 billion euros ($7.5 billion) if it is to receive 10 billion euros ($12.9 billion) from its fellow eurozone countries and the International Monetary Fund.

In the meantime, the banks remain closed, ostensibly to reopen on Tuesday of next week.

Many ATM machines have already run out of cash and one bank (Laiki) has already imposed capital controls, limiting withdrawals to 260 euros ($340) per person to conserve its dwindling funds. Rumors have it that Laiki will be folded into one or two of the other major banks in the nation, even though reported by CNBC, those reports have not been verified by reliable sources. The situation remains fluid with European officials, Russia (whose residents are responsible for the bulk of deposits in Cyprus' banks) and the Cypriot parliament are busy concocting ideas to rescue the banking system and the government, though nothing seems to be working particularly well at the moment.

Possible outcomes for Cyprus are varied and somewhat indecipherable at present, but what is known is that depositors almost certainly will be forced to surrender some of their funds via a tax, or levy, because there aren't enough bondholders in the banks to make up for the shortfall. Normally, those holders of bank debt would be first on the hook, but this situation is different from what has already occurred in Ireland, Greece, Spain, Portugal and Italy.

Nonetheless, whatever happens in Cyprus will have ramifications across Europe and the world. If the troika's plan to tax deposits becomes reality, it will almost certainly cause some degree of bank runs in the aforementioned countries that are already in trouble. The damage done to confidence in the system will be more severe. Banking and finance, largely based upon trust, cannot withstand wholesale looting of depositor accounts, no matter how small or seemingly trivial the amounts. The expectation is that banks are a safe place to park funds and the potential of either not having access to funds or having money appropriated (read: stolen) in order to bail out the bank itself or the government, is not part of the agreement.

Europeans are now looking at events in Cyprus through jaundiced eyes. The crisis is nigh upon four years old and the peripheral countries are still in recession, as is the whole of Europe. To date, all the plans of the EU, ECB and the IMF have amounted to only playing for time, and time is running short, both on the patience of the populaces and the viability of various governments.

The fear is that once the genie of appropriating depositor funds comes out of the bottle, it will be hard, if not impossible, to put back and will likely spread. No matter the eventual deal struck in Cyprus, capital flight is a certainty, the question being from where and to where the money will flow.

There's a certain unfairness about all of it, and a general sense of fear that hit markets this week with a thud. In the US, the damage has been downplayed thus far, but today's losses were the worst of the week and sent the major average to their lowest closes in nearly two weeks.

With the situation still unresolved, the anxiety on Wall Street and in other money centers around the globe is palpable. Unrestrained money printing, QE, low interest rates and other assorted "emergency" measures will not be able to trump a wholesale loss of confidence in the financial system itself, a condition which is likely long overdue.

Naturally, one cannot expect ordinary citizens and businesspeople around to world to immediately and simultaneously catch onto what's really occurring, but word is spreading, and quickly.

A piece of advice to everyone would be to watch one's finances carefully and keep a stash of cash outside the banking system, just in case. After all, it was one of our founding fathers - Benjamin Franklin - who opined, "an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure." And the cure has yet to be found.

Also of note is that traditional "safe havens" - gold and silver - have been appreciating slightly, with today's moves the most significant.

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Silver: 29.21, +0.395

Cyprus Still an Issue; Fed Statement a Snoozer

For some reason known only to those who choose to follow rather than lead, everything market-related hinged upon the release of the FOMC policy statement on federal funds rates, which, as almost everyone in the civilized world already knew, would remain unchanged.

Nonetheless, the bearded chairman and his scholarly cohorts ripped Cyprus from the front pages of economic news for the day and delivered their usual hokum statement about "moderate growth", "targeted inflation" and other assorted word-bites designed to make the markets kowtow to their planned economic dictums.

The committee also released forecasts on economic growth and unemployment for the remainder of 2013, 2104 and 2015 - forecasts which are generally nothing but flights of fancy and will almost certainly miss their marks widely.

And, there was a press conference and question and answer period, in which chairman Bernanke reread the aforementioned statement, added a few humorless remarks and fielded a number of softball questions from the drooling press pool.

It was enough to lull babies and pets to sleep.

Meanwhile, the ECB and IMF continue to wrestle with the issue of what to do about Cyprus, which is still unsettled and operating without banks being open for a fifth straight day. Today's announcement was that Cypriot banks will remain closed until Tuesday of next week, as the government expects massive bank runs once they are open for business.

Imagine the grand, self-important EU ministers losing any remaining credibility over what amounts to a three to six billion euro matter. Incredible as it sounds, that's what's happening.

Party on, America.

Party on, Europe.

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Silver: 28.82, -0.026

Cypriot Parliament Rejects Savings Levy; EU, ECB, IMF Relent

Congrats to the Cyprus parliament for calling the bluff on the EU, ECB and the IMF.

Shortly after noon EDT, the Cypriot parliament voted unanimously - in a rare show of anti-Euro solidarity - to reject the bailout plan proposed by the "troika" (EU, ECB, IMF) that would have imposed a tax on savers, a stark violation of the rule of law.

The plan called for a 9.9% tax on savings accounts in banks with holdings of more than 100,000 Euros, and a 6.5% levy on those under the 100,000 Euro threshold.

The vote had been delayed for two days, but, in the end, the parliament stood up for the welfare of the people and the sanctity of personal property rights, or, could it have been a reaction to a very real threat from retaliation from Russian oligarchs and mobsters (recognized as one and the same, in some circles)?

Much of the billions of Euros on deposit in Cypriot banks belong to Russians, a fact not lost on those who had the fate of their country and countrymen in their hands.

Whatever the case, the troika's gambit to impose a tax on savings accounts went up in flames, fabulously, though one has to fear that this was more of a test run for a future raid on the money held by individuals and companies in banks across Europe. So deep was the opposition that the parliament rejected the plan in toto, sending the ECB and IMF back to the drawing board.

The EU quickly issued a statement to the effect that it would use existing means to bailout the banks in Cyprus, and with them, the bankrupt government. Though nothing material was offered right away, all in Europe know that whatever solution the troika devises will be austere toward the general populace and kind to banks.

In the end, it will be the people who suffer most, as it has been in Greece, Portugal, Ireland and, to a lesser extent, Spain and Italy.

At one point during the back-and-forth of memos and media bites, one of the EU finance ministers quipped that Europe was two-thirds of the way through the crisis. Skeptics of the overall viability of the European Union will note that using 2008 as a baseline, the year 2014 would serve as an end to the crisis, otherwise meaning the collapse of the EU and the end of the Euro as a multi-national currency.

It doesn't get any stranger than in Europe, the dystopian nightmare conceived as a method to compete on a global scale which has devolved rapidly into an Orwellian series of meetings, dictums, bailouts, trial runs and sovereign failures.

America took the drama in stride, the markets stumbling through the early part of the session only to rally in the afternoon, though the crisis in Cyprus is still far from over. This was only act one of what will certainly be a three-to-five piece performance.

While it may be back to normal (whatever that means) for US and global markets for the next few days, the FOMC meeting of the Fed wraps up tomorrow at 2:00 pm EDT and the budget battle in the US congress continues to gain pace, with the Senate and House bills far from resolution.

As usual, congress will be out of session beginning March 25, though it must pass a continuing resolution by the 27th in order to forestall a government shutdown due to lack of funding. As in Europe, the nefarious machinations of government are never without a dramatic deadline. Thus, the remainder of the week will shift focus from the tiny island nation of Cyprus to the secluded denizens within the halls of congress.

For now...

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