A Run On The Banks? Not Exactly…

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This was going to go to the News Feed tonight, but it might better be used as food for thought on the front page instead. Instead of a run on the banks during this Great Depression, we’re going to have a run on the citizens. Amazing.

Here is the lead paragraph from an essay at Zero Hedge:

At first we thought Reuters had been punk’d in its article titled “EU executive sees personal savings used to plug long-term financing gap” which disclosed the latest leaked proposal by the European Commission, but after several hours without a retraction, we realized that the story is sadly true. Sadly, because everything that we warned about in “There May Be Only Painful Ways Out Of The Crisis” back in September of 2011, and everything that the depositors and citizens of Cyprus had to live through, seems on the verge of going continental. In a nutshell, and in Reuters’ own words, “the savings of the European Union’s 500 million citizens could be used to fund long-term investments to boost the economy and help plug the gap left by banks since the financial crisis, an EU document says.” What is left unsaid is that the “usage” will be on a purely involuntary basis, at the discretion of the “union”, and can thus best be described as confiscation.

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Read the rest here (plus links) and decide accordiingly.

When I showed the Baron this headline, he said, “yeah, Cyprus was a test run” and now Durden calls it “going continental”. My, how meanings change.

For any Americans who think this doesn’t apply, just how would you stop the government from taking your IRA??

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Oh my heavens. # One Rule, Dymphna: always check out the comments before you move on. Just look at this one:

No doubt if our old commenter, Sagunto, were still around he’d have some choice words for this bit of ROTFLYAO about Godly bankers in the Netherlands – but count your change anyway:

…[In] the Netherlands…starting later this year all 90,000 Dutch bankers will have to swear an oath that they’ll do their “utmost to maintain and promote confidence in the financial-services industry. So help me God.”

It’s part of a major attempt by regulators and banks to clean up after the financial crash of 2008, and put behind them scandals that continue to blacken the financial service industry’s reputation. Just last October, the big Dutch cooperative bank Rabobank paid a $1 billion fine to settle charges in the Libor rate-fixing scandal.

Board members of the banks have already been required to swear the oath since last year, but now it’s being expanded to cover everyone who works in the sector. It consists of eight statements [see link], including promises not to abuse knowledge and “to know my responsibility towards society.” There’s also a new banking code, a special declaration of moral and ethical conduct [see link] that all board members are required to sign, a “treat your customer fairly” initiative, and a “suitability” test for executive and non-executive directors of supervisory boards.

Bankers who fundamentally object to invoking God’s name can instead pledge: “This I declare and promise.”

The Dutch Banking Association, which is behind the move, says it is still developing the disciplinary procedures and sanctions for bank staff who are found in breach of the pledge.

“The idea is to set the tone at the top,” says Robert Van Altena, a partner at KPMG in Amsterdam. “The banks themselves realised that they have to regain trust.”

That’s a tall order, and one that, at this point, may actually require some divine intervention to achieve…

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Looks like the atheist bankers are left with no more than a pinky swear to back up their oaths – talk about second-class treatment. Were I an atheist I’d be annoyed by the flip-off demonstrated by these Calvinists.

In a pluralistic society there needs to be another form of oath-taking anyway. For instance the person giving his oath could use as his instrument of gravitas whatever or whomever was most important or essential to him. That would put far more credibility behind a public commitment than could ever be obtained with some holy book the oath-taker hadn’t read in decades. If ever.

Notice they have the empty ceremonies in place but haven’t yet gotten around to naming the sanctions that would back up this ceremony?

Farce.

7 thoughts on “A Run On The Banks? Not Exactly…”

    • welll…according to the Reuters story at Zero Hedge,all your pension belongs to government already. But you make an interesting point about severance pay and bonuses. Surely govt will figure out a way to get them too.

    • While you ignore my thesis re oath-taking per se, going from the process to address its content – which was never part of my postulation – I will address your drop into Content anyway:

      I *think* you’re making the point that having banksters swear to anything is an exercise in futility? I agree with that sentiment. However, since this underlying argument is only implicit I’m not sure I’ve addressed what you were attempting to communicate. As Peter Drucker famously said, “Communication is always the act of the recipient” so we may have a FAIL here.

      Perhaps you could clarify?

      • The “Flying Spaghetti Monster” is a construct used by some British secularists when protesting preferential treatment given to the religious of any faith- apologies if you knew this. My point, which I should have made more clearly, was that non-believers should be allowed to affirm, rather than swear, as they can in British courts.

        I resent the assumption by Phil, below, that atheists are lacking in sincerity.

  3. Hmmmm, seems like you have hit on a really important point there baron. In a country with no faith, no culture, oaths, like words mean just what you want them to mean. Somehow swearing an oath with your left hand on your nike trainers, your iphone, or an autographed picture of the O’Bamessiah doesn’t really inspire any confidence. It’s not so long past that sacred oaths were, well sacred (decades rather than centuries). Of course, when your only God is man, then whatever you decide is in your best interests, or furthers your agenda is right by you. Swear an oath? NO PROBLEM – only words isn’t it ?

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