Cash Withdrawal Limits and “Bank Holidays” Coming?

Collapsing commodities prices, erratic market turmoil and the bursting of Chinese bubbles are leading to a crisis in confidence in the economic system across the globe. The long-expected crisis to which the global financial and systemic crisis in 2008 may have been a mere prelude may be upon us.

Governments have no appetite for further bailouts. The EU states have passed legislation which will make the banks or rather unfortunate and unsuspecting depositors liable for the bank’s lending and speculative profligacy.

Greece Contemplates Nuclear Options: May Print Euros, Launch Parallel Currency, Nationalize Banks

As we said earlier today, following today’s dramatic referendum result the Greeks may have burned all symbolic bridges with the Eurozone. However, there still is one key link: the insolvent Greek banks’ reliance on the ECB’s goodwill via the ELA. While we have explained countless times that even a modest ELA collateral haircut would lead to prompt depositor bail-ins, here is DB’s George Saravelos with a simplified version of the potential worst case for Greece in the coming days:

The ECB is scheduled to meet tomorrow morning to decide on ELA policy. An outright suspension would effectively put the banking system into immediate resolution and would be a step closer to Eurozone exit. All outstanding Greek bank ELA liquidity (and hence deposits) would become immediately due and payable to the Bank of Greece. The maintenance of ELA at the existing level is the most likely outcome, at least until the European political reaction has materialized. This will in any case materially increase the pressure on the economy in coming days.

All of which of course, is meant to suggest that there is no formal way to expel Greece from the Euro and only a slow (or not so slow) economic and financial collapse of Greece is what the Troika and ECB have left as a negotiating card.

Euro Slides After Reports Troika Is Preparing Greek Plan B, C, & D Including Parallel Currency

 

Earlier we detailed reports that The IMF was preparing a contingency plan in the event of a Greek default, and furthermore that Andrea Merkel was under increasing pressure to “let Greece go,” and now, as Eurogroup ministers begin to gather for today’s crucial ‘deal-or-no-deal’ meeting, Die Welt reports The Troika has 4 scenarios for Greece  – one positive and three increasingly negative ranging from the need for further bailouts to paying staff in IOUs and issuing a parallel currency.

While Austria’s Hans Jorg Schelling sticks to his statement that:

“There’s nothing to it The Plan B was not discussed..”

It appears, yet again, another European elite was lying (because it was important), as now, as Die Welt reports (via Google Translate), hope is fading fast for a deal…

The ECB Is Considering A Parallel Greek Currency

As mentioned here many times for a long time, a “currency A” and “currency B” situation could be coming. This would likely be the best hedge in keeping Greece from going 110% Communist and allowing Russia to further creep into Europe, up from 100% when the Alexis Tsipras government took hold of the country. This will also keep the EU, at least for the short-term, from imploding.

 

As we first reported yesterday, one of the proposed measures to be implemented in Greece just before, or during its default and/or exit from the Eurozone, in addition to pervasive capital controls of course, is the implementation of a parallel “currency”, or as explained yesterday, a government paying its citizens with IOUs.

This is what we said less than 24 hours ago:

Eight possible scenarios if Greece defaults and leaves the Eurozone

A look at possible scenarios if Greece defaults and leaves the Eurozone:

…

2. Bank runs

Regular citizens will empty their bank accounts before they converted into a new currency worth less than the previous one. The government may impose a freeze on withdrawal and banks from other countries that have lent to Greece could also collapse.

On Poland and Detroit. Not For the Faint of Heart.

Back to finance.  Poland did exactly what I and a few others have been warning about for years with regards to private retirement accounts and pensions.  Poland confiscated 50% of all private pension funds last week.  PRIVATE pensions.

As Warren Pollock and I have been screaming, one of the largest chunks of collateral left in the system is private retirement money, both in the form of 401(k)s and IRAs and in private pension accounts.  In the U.S., the latest data for 2012 shows that there are now $10.5 Trillion in private 401k and IRA holdings, with another $9 Trillion in pensions and annuities.

The regime has been fairly open about its plans to “nationalize”, read CONFISCATE, this collateral and implement a system of “mandatory retirement savings accounts”, which will be just another confiscatory redistribution into the hands of the oligarchs and their cronies.  This what Poland just did.  This is what MF Global was in its essence.  This is what Cyprus was, except the Cypriot confiscation was done to demand deposit accounts instead of retirement accounts, which is now termed a “bail-in” – but it is all of the same stripe, namely the utter destruction of the notion of private property and the redistribution of all wealth into the hands of the oligarchs.   In Poland, the private pension paradigm has now also been destroyed because no one will want to put money into a private pension after this knowing that it can and will be stolen by the government at any time with zero redress.