We’d like to remind Forumites to please avoid political debate on the Forum.

This is to keep it a safe and useful space for MoneySaving discussions. Threads that are – or become – political in nature may be removed in line with the Forum’s rules. Thank you for your understanding.

📨 Have you signed up to the Forum's new Email Digest yet? Get a selection of trending threads sent straight to your inbox daily, weekly or monthly!
The Forum now has a brand new text editor, adding a bunch of handy features to use when creating posts. Read more in our how-to guide

The Cyprus Situation

1234579

Comments

  • grey_gym_sock
    grey_gym_sock Posts: 4,508 Forumite
    JohnRo wrote: »
    Fiat currencies have thus far always failed, eventually, there's no shortage of examples.

    more generally, haven't all economic systems failed eventually? even ancient egypt ...

    though i agree there seems to be vast and murky powers in the general area of finance.
  • innovate
    innovate Posts: 16,217 Forumite
    10,000 Posts Combo Breaker
    Jegersmart wrote: »
    haha.....check this:
    innocent until proven guilty
  • innovate
    innovate Posts: 16,217 Forumite
    10,000 Posts Combo Breaker
    kidmugsy wrote: »
    True: but if one of the big banks goes bust at the Cyprus scale the FSCS will then become government-funded, I predict, because it will have no practical way of raising the funds required without recourse to the taxpayer.

    I predict that the only thing coming from the taxpayer would perhaps be a loan to the FSCS next time one of the UK banks mucks up. No more bail-outs. No more knighthoods and hundreds of thousands of pensions for incompetence.
  • JohnRo
    JohnRo Posts: 2,887 Forumite
    Tenth Anniversary 1,000 Posts Combo Breaker
    more generally, haven't all economic systems failed eventually? even ancient egypt ...

    though i agree there seems to be vast and murky powers in the general area of finance.

    I expect it's difficult to say whether an economic collapse is a symptom or a cause in somewhere like Egypt. I don't have all the information, I could trawl the net but I suspect that the correlation between catastrophic economic collapse and fiat currencies is much stronger than the relationship with waxing and waning spheres of influence and power through the ages.

    A bit of a chicken and egg scenario I suppose, just in time for Easter...
    'We don't need to be smarter than the rest; we need to be more disciplined than the rest.' - WB
  • Jegersmart
    Jegersmart Posts: 1,158 Forumite
    innovate wrote: »
    I predict that the only thing coming from the taxpayer would perhaps be a loan to the FSCS next time one of the UK banks mucks up. No more bail-outs. No more knighthoods and hundreds of thousands of pensions for incompetence.

    A bailout IS a loan - it is funded by debt, no one has that money just lying around.....

    J
  • Jegersmart
    Jegersmart Posts: 1,158 Forumite
    innovate wrote: »
    innocent until proven guilty

    Sure, I mean when you consider who she works for - there should be some chance that in this case she is innocent.

    The problem is that the legal system is part of the larger monetary system and is not "pure" in that respect - and this has been shown and discussed many, many times over.

    How likely do you think it is that she is actually innocent? How likely is that she will be found innocent by a legal body? Is there a difference between the two if it has been shown that a legal body is biased?

    J
  • jimjames
    jimjames Posts: 19,242 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 10,000 Posts Photogenic Name Dropper
    Hearing on the news how the controls etc will affect businesses as well as individuals just brings home how dependent we all are on electronic money transfers and banks in general.

    Even without the effect of the savings raid the impact of stopping transfers only in Cyprus is going to be massive. Obviously in Euros as with other things everyone is equal but some are more equal than others.
    Remember the saying: if it looks too good to be true it almost certainly is.
  • grizzly1911
    grizzly1911 Posts: 9,965 Forumite
    Jegersmart wrote: »
    Hi
    the Government (or FSCS) could never guarantee 20k let alone 85k per institution in outright terms....so my point is that it is purely a confidence game, because if the gurantee does not stack up in any financial sense, what is the point of having one? The answer is "confidence".....



    J

    I was mulling this over today and the reason why they chose EU100K. It is as you point out, just apolitical, round figure, plucked out of thin air.

    Appreciate it was Europe wide, hence the UK adopting it, but it wasn't long after they had upped it from £35K to £50K? anyway, again as you point another figure out of the air.

    Without the £85k "limit" it would be difficult for some people to actually find enough UK separate institutions, to get below the old £35K limit, as they have consolidated.

    The fact they are arbitrary limits only shows how weak they are and will be easily forgotten if the SHTF.

    It also makes you wonder how safe NS&I savings would be for individual investors if push came to shove.
    "If you act like an illiterate man, your learning will never stop... Being uneducated, you have no fear of the future.".....

    "big business is parasitic, like a mosquito, whereas I prefer the lighter touch, like that of a butterfly. "A butterfly can suck honey from the flower without damaging it," "Arunachalam Muruganantham
  • Masomnia
    Masomnia Posts: 19,506 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 10,000 Posts Name Dropper
    Presumably they'd print the money if it came to it with NS&I, you'd get you money back but whether it would be worth what it was when you deposited is quite another matter.
    “I could see that, if not actually disgruntled, he was far from being gruntled.” - P.G. Wodehouse
  • MoneySaverLog
    MoneySaverLog Posts: 3,232 Forumite
    Guy on Daybreak this morning suggested that Yes it could happen here. ;-(
This discussion has been closed.
Meet your Ambassadors

🚀 Getting Started

Hi new member!

Our Getting Started Guide will help you get the most out of the Forum

Categories

  • All Categories
  • 354K Banking & Borrowing
  • 254.3K Reduce Debt & Boost Income
  • 455.3K Spending & Discounts
  • 247.1K Work, Benefits & Business
  • 603.7K Mortgages, Homes & Bills
  • 178.3K Life & Family
  • 261.2K Travel & Transport
  • 1.5M Hobbies & Leisure
  • 16.1K Discuss & Feedback
  • 37.7K Read-Only Boards

Is this how you want to be seen?

We see you are using a default avatar. It takes only a few seconds to pick a picture.