Hi Vendit..... we have been speculating on exactly what is going on in Cypress, with the EU imposted tax on all bank depositors due to take place on Tuesday......here are a couple of potential conjectures....
I don't see how this is not going to increase fears for the 'PIGS" countries of the EU.......
Garry one interesting aspect of why EU executives in Brussels may be targeting Cypress is that it is a tax haven for billionaires.
The flow of much of the world’s oil is controlled from a small suite of offices perched over a Tiffany & Co. store in the Chelsea section of London. That’s where John Fredriksen, a Norwegian shipping magnate worth $13.2 billion, manages the world’s largest fleet of supertankers, the most valuable deep-water drilling company and an armada of about 128 other vessels that carry minerals, grains and liquefied gases.
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the guy is Norwegian by birth, runs his business outof London, where he has a $172 million dollar estate in insanely expensive Chelsea, London and yet he is a citizen of Cypress due to it's tax haven status.
Whether he’s holding court with Norwegian money managers at the ritzy Theater Cafe in Oslo or downing beers with shipowners at industry confabs in Athens, the chatty billionaire loves being the big dog in tankers. Although he quit high school at age 16, Fredriksen lives in a refurbished 18th-century rectory with 2 acres (1 hectare) of gardens in Chelsea that’s worth more than 110 million pounds ($172 million).
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By 1996, Fredriksen had resettled in London and Cyprus, and he eventually became a citizen of the Mediterranean nation, which doesn’t tax dividend-based income. That year, he took control of Frontline, a Swedish tanker company, in a $462 million deal and moved it from Stockholm to the Oslo Stock Exchange, and to the New York Stock Exchange in 2000. He started acquiring tankers, and within five years Frontline had 80 ships valued at $4.6 billion.
He presumably has money in the Cypress banks and who knows how many billionaires have big sums of money there.... we definitely know there are a number of wealthy Russians..... some who seem to also be placing money in Cypress....
It's obviously not fair to be hitting small savers with a tax.... and it's arguably wrong to be changing the rules in the middle of the game, even on the rich....... I think it underscores the real long term significance and insolvency of more than half of the EuroZone
John |
