Cyprus Border Guards Seizing Money From Suitcases

via @lachlan, the shape of things to come to America, and soon.

Customs officials said border guards at the counrtry’s air and sea ports have been instructed to check baggage and monitor whether travelers are taking more than €10,000 (about $13,000) out of the country. Any amount above that €10,000 threshold can be confiscated.

And it is coming to America. Have no doubt.

What I find most interesting about this story are the repeated assurances - often delivered with a sneer at doomsday prepper hysteria - that nothing of the sort could ever happen in the United States. But every article pooh-poohing the "hysterics" mentions something our government is doing, or has done, that echoes the crisis in Cyprus. They talked about raiding pension funds and stuffing them with government I.O.U.s; American liberals are salivating at the thought of doing the same to our 401k accounts....

It all boils down to governments making promises they can't keep... and insisting those promises are still valid, long past the point of no return, unto the point of systemic collapse.

At some point debts must be paid, and ugly debts results in ugly solutions. No one, I don't think, really imagined France would simply seize all of the property owned by the Catholic church to pay its debts in 1792... until they did.

posted by Ace at 02:16 PM

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