Been watching this Cyprus thing unfolding and I was echoing Bill H's big question myself, why do this for such an insignificant amount of money? Then I read Jim Sinclair's most recent comments and KWN and it all came clear to me. There is WAY MORE money in Cypriot banks than had been acknowledged. If I remember Jims numbers he was guessing something like 500B would be harvested with this theft, meaning there would be something like 5Trillion Euros on deposit in Cyprus by the Russians. This was a heist of the Russian oligarchs by the ECB. The Russians couldn't have complained that they had 500B taken, now could they? So if what we thought was going to be raised was 18B and in reality 500B was stolen ,(actually "stolen" may not be the correct word, as they Russians probably also stole the money from Russia!), then the ECB would pull in 472B Euros unreported to anyone. Really it is the only thing that adds up. Evidently the Russians got to some high level people in Cyprus to stop the blackmail by the ECB.

Regardless, this will undermine any confidence in banks going forward. FWIW, I am taking a firearms course in 2 weeks and here in CO there is no ammunition anywhere to be purchased. Nada. Of course it helps when the Department of Homeland Security purchases 1.2 million rounds for themselves!