18 March 2013/06 Jumada l-Ula 1434/28 Esfand 1391/07 Yi-Mao (2nd month) 4711

Reports that Asian stock markets dropped, along with the euro, as details of the financial bailout of Cyprus were revealed.

The European Union (EU) agreed to bailout the island country of Cyprus, but only if individual bank accounts were heavily taxed, in some cases as high as 10%!

Now Cypriots are making a run on the banks, trying to cash out their accounts.  So far, in the ongoing European bailouts, Cyprus is the only country that has been ordered to tax bank accounts.

But because of the way EU officials avoided questions about the possibility of other European bank accounts being taxed, there is a fear that runs on the banks will spread outside Cyprus.

The 10% tax could end up being 12.5%, that’s according to Reuters. Officials are trying to change the bailout rules by lowering the tax for people with less than $129000 USD in a bank account, but the difference would be passed on to wealthier accounts.

If the Cypriot Parliament does not ratify the bailout deal, then there is no bank account tax and no bailout money. (they should do what Iceland did, default!)