Government would never steal your money...

Imagine you wake up one weekend morning. You get in your car, needing to get to the store to grab a few things, Cheerios, batteries for the remote, some new underwear, the usual. You stop at the gas station and stick your debit card into the pump. 'Declined' the display reads. Huh, that's odd, I know I got plenty of cash in the bank. You disregard it and swipe the credit card instead. Then as the grocery store the same thing happens. Now you are a little bit worried and embarrassed. You run to the ATM to try and get some more info, and your receipt statement says;

'Your account has been frozen by order of the U.S. Government'

But it doesn't stop there. Everyone's money is on lock down, because the government needs as much of it in the banks as possible for a one time 'tax' on everyone's savings. as much as 10%!

Don't think this nightmare could ever happen? It's happening right now to people in Cyprus.

President Anastassiades

Last weekend, Euro-zone finance ministers, in response to a large chunk of change lost from holdings in Greece prior ro their economic implosion, had the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the Cypriot government agree on a bailout package for Cyprus, comprising 10 billion euro contribution from Europe and the IMF combine and an approximately 5.8 billion ($7.5 billion) euro contribution from depositors in the Cyprus banking system. The contribution from the banking system is to come through a 6.75% one-off tax on deposits below 100,000 euros ($130,000) and 9.9% taxation on deposits at or above 100,000 euros.

Anastassiades, who just assumed the presidency March 1, urged Cypriot lawmakers to approve the levy in a vote Monday. But he also said he was working to amend "in the next hours to limit the effect on small depositors " The country is still waiting to see what is meant by "small depositors."

people trying to save their money

The government has since shut down electronic transfers and some reports have said that the ATMs in Cyprus have had all their cash drained. President Anastassiades went on national television today to calm people who are emptying their accounts of cash. He even promised revenues from natural gas reserves to entice people to keep their money in Cypriot banks for the next two years. The government has closed banks through Tuesday to prevent mass withdrawals. It will not surprise me if people in Greece, Spain and other weak economic Euro Zone countries will start moving Euros to stronger countries such as Germany and the UK. If you see governments start to impose limits on capital movement I would expect those countries interest rates to rise.

We have about $6 trillion in savings accounts in the US. You don't think a one time shot of 10% of that is tempting prize for a government that spends like a alcoholic in a liqueur store.

Or what about IRA's? There is about the same amount in the countries retirement savings as there is in national debt. 

Don't think the government would simply take your money on the promise to pay you back, well, first of all, I'd have you research what social security is, and then I'd invite you to learn about something that's already been proposed at the federal level, called Guaranteed Retirement Accounts (GRA's)

In 2008, presidential candidate Obama first proposed a prototype nationalized GRA plan. In his 2010 State of the Union address he called for an “effort to increase retirement savings by requiring all businesses to offer automatic IRA accounts,” claiming such a government guaranteed plan would let employees automatically enroll in direct-deposit retirement accounts and allow them to expand matching tax credits.

It would not be a far stretch to 'offer' the following plan to the masses; simply hand over all your retirement savings, subject yourself to a new tax, and the government will take care of you when you get old. Basically a massive expansion of Social Security with the promise to obtain large amounts of capital now to help service the debt. It may be too good a deal for our government to pass up. Like a person breaking their IRA to pay off the credit card trying to save money on interest.

The more interesting question is how much coverage a country basically stealing your money gets in the media. I'm sure what is happening to this European democracy, that fell on hard times, is of little interest, since something like that could never happen here.