for the love of god...listen
laiki bank is bankrupt. What happens in a us bank when it goes belly up? ... Well it has happened over 300 time since 2007,.. So what happens? Well at best a customer can get 1.5 million, but most will at most get up to 250k us dollars and that is only under certain conditions and only in banks that the fdic insures. Those are the fdic rules. Also the fdic deposit insurance plan is only viable if the fdic has the money or the us federal government "bails out" the fdic. The fdic does not have the 4+ trillion dollars needed to guarantee all deposits in the us.. It does not even have 100 billion. So when washington mutual went belly up due to the sub-prime crisis, then the fdic was screwed, because the deposits in washington mutual was far far more than what it had in reserves. That is why the feds forced bank of america to suck up washington mutual, because the fdic could not pay the 100+ billion needed to guarantee the deposits in the bank. Fact is that the fdic at the end of 2009 or 10, only had like 45 million dollars left and had to get more capital.... See the problem?
Now in europe the limit in most countries is 100k euros, and with the new banking union in the eurozone, then it will be 100k euros for all eurozone countries. But until the banking union is in place, then it is each country that is guaranteeing the deposits, not the eurozone. Hence when the top two cyprus banks got into trouble and laiki bank went bankrupt, the first thing they cyprus government did was to sieze the bank and nationalize it. Problem was that the debts in the bank were so much bigger than the over all cyprus economy and that meant that the cyprus government got in trouble... They could not afford to guarantee the deposits of the top two banks, let alone laiki bank.
So the problem was that without help from the eurozone to bail-out these two banks, then these banks would go bankrupt and all the deposits would poof, not only those over 100k.
Now i admit fully that the first attempt that was made, that even put a small charge on depositors under 100k was a boneheaded idiotic move that put the whole banking system at risk in every country in the industrialized world.. Simply because most people have lived in a fantasy world thinking that all their deposits in the banks were guaranteed... But the fact of the matter is.. They are not. And this is this realization that is hitting most people.. Holy ****, the banks are not 100% safe, especially if you have more than the guaranteed amount.
So the fact is, the depositors in laiki bank are actually getting a better deal compared to a normal bank bankruptcy... At least they are getting some of their money over 100k back.
Let me ask you this... Lehman brothers went belly up.. Did everyone get their money they had deposited there? Yes it was not a bank bank, but the principle is the same.