Cyprus Bank Depositors May Lose 60%

If you have worked hard and saved your money in the bank...how would you feel if the bank closed and then the government took 60% of your savings?

Of course the people with NO SAVINGS would say, "Yes!  Take it from those people with savings!"

Cyprus may imposes losses of as much as 60 percent on Bank of Cyprus Plc accounts exceeding 100,000 euros ($128,000) as part of an aid deal to stop the country from going bankrupt.

Customers will have 37.5 percent of their deposits above this amount converted into shares with full voting rights and access to any future Bank of Cyprus dividend, the Nicosia-based central bank said in an e-mailed statement. A further 22.5 percent will be temporarily withheld to ensure the lender meets the terms of its recapitalization, as agreed under Cyprus’s loan agreement with international creditors, the central bank said.

The deposit-loss plan “will make things worse as small and medium-sized companies will run out of liquidity,” Marios Mavrides, a lawmaker for the ruling Disy party, said in a phone interview from Nicosia. The move “does not help to gain back people’s trust, deposits should be free in order to gain that trust,” he said.

The remaining 40 percent of Bank of Cyprus deposits above 100,000 euros that aren’t subject to the bail-in will be temporarily frozen to ensure the lender’s liquidity. This money, which won’t be used to recapitalize the lender, will receive interest at 10 percent above current levels and be released “within a short time-frame”, the central bank said.

Cyprus Popular Bank (CPB) will be divided into “good” and “bad” banks, according to the statement. Deposits of less than 100,000 euros will be absorbed by Bank of Cyprus and those above that level will be placed in the bad bank.

Here;  http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-03-30/bank-of-cyprus-s-customers-may-lose-as-much-as-60-on-deposits.html

We have been saying all along that all of our monetary systems are based on CONFIDENCE.

So how do you suppose this will help Cyprus regain folk's confidence?

Of course this is all still subject to wrangling and negotiating....but the fact that it is even being discussed is going to erode CONFIDENCE.

But of course that could never happen here...BECAUSE THIS IS AMERICA!!

Here Come the Locusts

Have you noticed the recent headlines about locusts?

Today the headline is from Madagascar;

A severe plague of locusts has infested about half of Madagascar, threatening crops and raising concerns about food shortages, a UN agency says.

The UN's Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) said billions of the plant-devouring insects could cause hunger for 60% of the population.

About $22m (£14.5m) was urgently needed to fight the plague in a country where many people are poor, the FAO added.

It was the worst plague to hit the island since the 1950s, the FAO said.

FAO locust control expert Annie Monard told BBC Focus on Africa the plague posed a major threat to the Indian Ocean island.

'Generation of locusts'

"The last one was in the 1950s and it had a duration of 17 years so if nothing is done it can last for five to 10 years, depending on the conditions," she said.

Continue reading the main story

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Nearly 60% of the island's more than 22 million people could be threatened by a significant worsening of hunger”

Annie MonardLocust control expert

"Currently, about half the country is infested by hoppers and flying swarms - each swarm made up of billions of plant-devouring insects," the FAO said in a statement.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-21955740

Yesterday the headlines about locusts were in Israel;

Locusts have Descended on Israel this week, just in time forPassover. As millions of Jews commemorate the story of thechildren of Israel’s exodus from Egypt, including the 10 plagues that afflicted Pharaoh and his people, millions of the crunchy buggers are creeping all over Israel’s southern deserts.

This is nothing like the eighth plague of biblical times, in whichlocusts covered “the whole face of the earth” in a kind of collective punishment for the Egyptians whose leader refused to let his Hebrew slaves go free.

Here;  http://news.yahoo.com/bible-comes-life-locusts-swarm-israel-190310435.html

I believe they were in Egypt a few weeks ago.  Famine usually results when locusts eat all the food.

North Korea Targets Texas

Porky from the North is not happy with being pushed around by all of the more advanced nations...so today he released his attack plans.

A map detailing Mr Kim’s “US Mainland Strike Plan” was released by the Communist dictatorship on Friday.

A South Korean news organisation, NK News, published a composite image with a map of America overlaying the original. It claimed that Mr Bush’s home state of Texas was, possibly, in North Korea’s sights.

  Three other US targets appeared to have clear strategic value: Washington, DC, America’s capital; California, its most populous state; and Hawaii, a key US military outpost in the Pacific.

Yet Texans reacted with bemusement yesterday upon learning that they, too, may be in the line of fire. “Was it me?” asked Karl Rove, Mr Bush’s former aide and fellow Texan.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/northkorea/9961795/North-Korea-Kim-Jong-un-targets-George-W.-Bushs-home-state-of-Texas.html

Not Even Gold Will Save You

Sorry guys...I'm still posting from an I Pad and connection is sketchy so have to stay brief...

Anyway we have spoken much of gold over these past years and how many folks think it will save the from the collapse coming but Marc Farber is telling us it won't...

Marc Faber, who authors the Gloom Boom & Doom newsletter, is usually pretty bearish on stocks and bullish on gold.

Lately, though, gold doesn't seem like it can catch a bid.

"Despite the continued reverberations regarding the Cyprus bailout and its involvement of bank deposits, gold struggled to maintain the positive momentum created in the first two weeks of March and instead now looks very likely to move lower, towards $1580/oz," wrote Deutsche Bank commodities analyst Xiao Fu in a note this morning.

Now from time to time it will lift the NASDAQ like between 1997 and March 2000. Then it lifted home prices in the U.S. until 2007. Then it lifted the commodity prices in 2008 until July 2008 when the global economy was already in recession. More recently it has lifted selected emerging economies, stock markets in Indonesia, Philippines, Thailand, up four times from 2009 lows and now the U.S.

So we are creating bubbles and bubbles and bubbles. This bubble will come to an end. My concern is that we are going to have a systemic crisis where it is going to be very difficult to hide. Even in gold, it will be difficult to hide.

Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/faber-gold-wont-be-a-place-to-hide-2013-3#ixzz2OsSVnyyC

Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/faber-gold-wont-be-a-place-to-hide-2013-3#ixzz2OsQb6gMn

Remember as well, the Bible tells us twice that "your gold and silver will not save you" from the wrath of God which is coming.  Only Christ can do that. amen!

North Korea Orders Combat Posture to Hit USA

It appears the 28 yr old leader is ramping up his threats.  Is he bluffing?

North Korea says it has ordered artillery and rocket units into "combat posture" to prepare to target US bases in Hawaii, Guam and the US mainland.

The announcement, carried by KCNA news agency, follows days of strong rhetoric from Pyongyang.

The Pentagon condemned the threats, saying the US was ready to respond to "any contingency".

South Korea on Tuesday marked the third anniversary of the sinking of the Cheonan ship, in which 46 sailors died.

It said there was no unusual activity in the North.

Tensions remain high on the Korean peninsula in the wake of North Korea's third nuclear test on 12 February. The test led to new UN sanctions which Pyongyang strongly opposes.

Joint US-South Korea annual military drills have further angered the communist nation. In recent weeks its habitually fiery rhetoric has escalated - it has threatened the US with "pre-emptive nuclear attacks", as well as strikes on US military bases in Japan.

"From this moment, the Supreme Command of the Korean People's Army will be putting in combat duty posture No 1 all field artillery units including long-range artillery units and strategic rocket units that will target all enemy objects in US invasionary bases on its mainland, Hawaii and Guam," the KCNA statement said.

North Korea is not thought to have the technology to strike the US mainland with either a nuclear weapon or a ballistic missile, but it is capable of targeting US military bases in the region with its mid-range missiles.

Here.  http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=5356588014812300590#editor/target=post;postID=4195962207981977994

Dangerous Drift to War in Asia

Wars and rumors of war continue...today more talk of war in Asia between China and Japan.

Japan's national ideology is pacifist, and this is written into Article 9 of its constitution, which states that "the Japanese people forever renounce war as a sovereign right of the nation and the threat or use of force as means of settling international disputes."

This peace complex adds a strange twist to events. It inhibits Japan as a muscular China presses its claim on the Diaoyu/Senkaku islands -- a cluster of uninhabited rocks near Taiwan -- and as Chinese warships push deep into Japanese waters.

Yet there is no doubt that Japan will fight.

"We simply cannot tolerate any challenge now, or in the future. No nation should underestimate the firmness of our resolve," said Shinzo Abe, the hawkish premier bent on national revival.

After talking to Japanese officials in Tokyo over the last few days, I have the strong impression not only that they are ready to fight, but also that they expect to win, and furthermore that conflict may come at any moment.

Here;  http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/comment/ambroseevans_pritchard/9950791/The-dangerous-drift-towards-world-war-in-Asia.html

This post may look different as I am currently riding down Hwy 65 in Montgomery, AL typing on I Pad 

So we may also want to look at book of Daniel and wonder if what I am doing may apply to what angelGabriel said " and knowledge shall increase"

Christians Practicing Judaism

I'm trying this from am I Pad in Nashville...so will be brief as typing is slow.

Check out this article about Jews, Christians and the Last Days that appeared today in the New York Times.

Of all the surprises promised by the recent TLC reality show “The Sisterhood,” which followed the lives of five Atlanta preachers’ wives, the only one that truly amazed me was the Christian bar mitzvah, an event organized by Pastor Tara Lewis and her husband, Pastor Brian, for their son, Trevor. Brian was born to Jewish parents; Tara was not. Both are born-again Christians, and they’re of one mind about their son’s bar mitzvah as a Christ-centered take on the traditional Jewish coming-of-age ceremony.

Personally, I am deeply uncomfortable with the role assigned to Jews in the end-times pageant of Hagee and his ilk. So I was surprised to learn that Rabbi Pearlson knows and seemingly respects Hagee. A few years ago both men attended a rally of what Pearlson calls “pro-Israel Zionist Christians” at Miami’s Ministerio Internacional El Rey Jesús. The Christians, Pearlson recalls, were “folk-dancing and singing songs in Hebrew — correctly.” Firing up the crowd, Hagee urged the Christians not to proselytize to the Jews in attendance because of the Jews’ “unique relationship to God.” The event raised $250,000 for Israeli bomb shelters. By the rabbi’s recollection, some of the things Hagee said that night “made the Jewish people there cry,” they were so touched.

Here;  www.nytimes.com/2013/03/24/magazine/oy-vey-christian-soldiers.html?pagewanted=all