There
will be no Helicopter Mario dispensing unlimited clouds of Euro’s come Tuesday,
no Euro-Solidarity Manna from Brussels, just the contrails of the Luftwaffe
escorting the dejected Cypriot PM and FinMin back home from a tongue lashing at
the hands of the Troika, a piece of paper signed by Die Führerin herself
inscribed with “monetary peace in our time” and “Glüchlich mit dem Sparprogramm
Dingem”. Without the Luftwaffe, Anastasiades and Sarris might have headed
straight for Athens and requested asylum. It won’t be pretty showing up in
Parliament tomorrow to lay down die neue Gesetze; to be passed or else. Signing
up will guarantee Quisling status and the "or else" bit looks equally
unappetizing. A tactical small heart attack and a few days im Krankenhaus could
look very attractive to all alternatives. Either that or a quick application to
the Cyprus Chiltern Hundreds. It’s not going to be a paragon of parliamentary
democracy at work.
It
will rightly be very challenging for any thinking Cypriot to wonder why they
ever signed up for the Euro in the first place. Idle and blasphemous
speculation wonders how things in Cyprus might now be, had they remained a
British Crown Colony (see Bermuda, Cayman Islands) and allowed Sterling and the
Greenback to circulate freely. Liberated to pursue all the dodgy, island tax
haven deals in their wildest imagination, under the protection of HM Royal Navy
(do they still have any boats in the Med – Ed?) and the light touch regulatory
eyebrows of the Old Lady of Threadneedle St.
It’s
not turning out to be such a good weekend for the Russkies. Looks like it could
be a 40% Affens ‘aircut for Vlad Vlad’s boyos in the Cyprus banks. Of course
that won’t come out of Putin’s vig. Meanwhile Boris-in-exile-in-London of
Berezovsky fame seems to have been found in his bath, with extreme prejudice.
Is this another strike by Vlad Vlad’s hard men with their Polonium 210 trick or
did Boris just tire of this harsh and unrelenting world. And still in his
prime. It seems to be getting very dangerous to go to the potty. First Alfred H
had the idea, then sad Whitney Houston, then the Welshman from GCHQ/MI6 in a
holdall, followed by poor Reva Steenkamp and now Boris. Not to mention Lenny
Bruce and King Elvis himself. The other Boris of London has had his pants taken
down on TV in humiliating style, but not while in the bathroom. What a shame
Lord Paddy of Pantsdown already claimed the title. Even Georgy Markov’s
umbrella assassin has surfaced 40 years later. But that was just the Bulgars
free lancing. If you’re a buddy of Messrs. Litvinenko and Berezovsky it may be
time to stay under the covers, or ask Roman if you can join him in his box at
Stamford Bridge. At least Mikhail Khodorkovsky is getting at minimum two squares
a day of borscht and vodka for free. Just shows how important it is to keep up
paying the life insurance premiums to the ZAO Putin Life Co (Moscow).
How
are the Cyprus cookies going to crumble over the next 36 hours? Will the
Russians take their medicine and go quietly? Going is probably not in the
cards; since after the ‘aircut, what’s left still attached may be subject to
that infamous euphemism “exchange controls”. Which means we multiplied the
number you first thought of by 40%, debited your account, but the remainder is now
constituted into Cyprus government bonds yielding three fifths of not very
much; payable when the gas starts to flow. In the secondary market they’ll
float (sink – Ed?) to Kopecks on the Rouble. However the spinmeisters dress it
up, there will then be (at least) two kinds of Euro’s. One you can fold up and
use to buy a Bratwurst und Weissesbier in Berlin and one you can leave sitting
in a Cyprus bank gathering dust. Some will say that Consul Angelicus Merkelus
has taken her Hunnish legions across the Rubicon and has set her cap at Rome
itself. Heresy is afoot.
Plucky
Cyprus may have showed the way for Rome to ease its pain. The Orthodox Archbish
of Nicosia has generously offered all church property in Cyprus as collateral
for the national solidarity fund. Some very pretty monasteries. Does this offer
an idea for the new Pope Francis SJ to show his commitment to poverty in
worldly goods by offering up a mortgage on all 44 hectares of Citta del
Vaticano, together with all chattels and ceilings therein, as security for a
new issue of Italian government bonds? What a magnificent gesture that would
be. He is after all, of Italian heritage. Lovely Christina de la Casa Rosada
can eat her heart out.
Well
Monday did dawn on time across the Euro-Wasteland to the sight of pitiful
Cypriot ministers blinking in shock at what they just agreed (or pretended to
agree). Including we learn that, in true Euro-Dem style, no further Cypriot
parliamentary approval, debate nor endorsement is needed to implement the
Gauleiters’ diktats. Frau Tante Angela, Die Fürhrerin’s Jillboot is planted
firmly on the ministers’ windpipes. Humiliation does not come more abject. The
“laws” are already in place to allow mass expropriation of anyone foolish not
to have kept his Cypriot Euro’s in the mattress and for “capital controls” to
apply to the meager crust that the Huns from the North have deigned to allow to
remain un-plundered. Of course, the ECB’s Target2 claims are sacrosanct and
must be transferred to the Good Bank. If this is solidarity, it looks a lot
like Hegemonie. No indication of how long it will take Cypriot (unpaid)
bureaucrats to turn all this into a well oiled machine and allow the banks
still standing to “reopen” – aka allow anyone access to what’s left of his
Euro-funny-money.
Will
the Cypriots and their Russkie pals take all this with a bang or a whimper? Not
hard to imagine some big gas pumps across the Ukraine to go suddenly on the
blink. We will wait and see with great expectations.
Simon
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