My point was the Cyprus incident is a test case in forcing more away from cash and tangibles, so entities can seize wealth through confiscation and taxation.
Well that's on a somewhat different theme. I was just responding to those concerned that people could not live on $100 a day. I was just making the factual point that most also had use of debit cards for purchases. Will governments look to ways to effectively tax and cash equivalents? Yes, I agree that they will.
A member of the Cypriotic parlement handed over a list to a member of the European parlement. The list mentioned a number of Cypriotic politicians and companies that had loans at the Laiki Bank and the Bank of Cyprus. All these loans were written off some time ago and did not have to be paid back. So while people lose their saving accounts and taxpayers have to save the banks, these banks donated hundreds of thousands and apparently in 1 case millions of euros to a few lucky corrupt people. Apparently some American journalists have a copy of this list.
Democracy is when a leader of a country can control its country. An elected politician that says no money will be taken from your account and the next day its gone is just a neighbour. Democracy is an election to what style of delivery you prefer. the delivery will always come. Did anything change since obama took over ? did the printing stop, did the war did the eduction the economy anything ? no. It is just a bit more hidden and more tech savy. Even the terror and fear are there. it is just more on the tech side.
To answer your question, yes Russians will still go to Cyprus because, Cyprus has sandy beaches and warm Mediterranean weather they do not have but in much reduced numbers.
On Linkedin there is an ad by Austarlia or banks related to Australia that says bank with us we are not Cyprus we will not take 30% of your accounts. The ad is in relation to Forex accounts that were in Cyprus.
Sometimes when the juggler is real good it is hard to envision it all tumbling down. Ponzi was not even that good (a financial idiot not competent in simple math) and he got the balls moving for awhile. Check out this excerpt from Wikipedia which may or may not be accurate: When a Boston financial writer suggested there was no way Ponzi could legally deliver such high returns in a short period of time, Ponzi sued for libel and won $500,000 in damages. As libel law in those days placed the burden of proof on the writer and the paper, this effectively neutralized any serious probes into his dealings for some time.