A lot of financial experts and other commentators are up in arms about the Cyprus Solution, which slaps a 40% ‘fee’ on savers with more than 100,000 euros in a couple of local banks. ‘Poor, unsuspecting savers’, allegedly. Many of them are British pensioners lured to Aphrodite’s Isle by a mouth-watering 5% tax rate; and even more are Russsian emigres from whom (à la Russia’s President Medvedev’s enigmatic quoation from Lenin) “the stealing of what has already been stolen continues”. 
Now I’m not anti-capitalist, nor pro-communist but I do wonder how this arrangement is remotely less acceptable than forcing innocent tax-payers to pick up the tab for the profligacy of bankers; because the thing about banks is that we usually rely on them to stay in business and not to mess with our money, but when they fail, we the savers bear some responsiblity for having chosen to let them use it. It’s a business arangement gone wrong – between consenting partners, not between banks and their ‘victims’.
Of course I sympathise with the British pensioners whose retirement bubble has burst so spectacularly – surely the Bank of Cyprus, if not the Laiki bank, was ‘reliable’? It probably was, for many years. But if I were a eurozone taxpayer I would strongly resent having to bail it out when tens of thousands of depositors, attracted by the offer of tax holidays in the sun, held on to their funds.
Boadicea's Chariot 
Well the great €uro experiment was always going to end in tears. If Cyprus had retained the Cyprus £ none of this would have happened. The retirees could have enjoyed the sun and kept their savings in GBPs DMs or some other sensible currency. They were lured by the apparent stability of the €uro.
People don’t seem to realise that the Eurozone has toxified even the ‘stronger’ N European economies. Apparently the Germas are owed north of € 1 trillion and I can’t see them getting paid in the near future.
Janus, what about ordinary Cypriots, not the expats, who didn’t have a great choice of banks in which to deposit their hard-earned savings? In hindsight, they will no doubt be wishing they had chosen the Bank of Sock and Mattress. Many won’t have to worry about saving in the future, since so many jobs will be lost.
It appears to be a choice of two (we)evils!
Neither option looks frightfully attractive.
Personally being of frog peasant ancestry I’ve never trusted banks too much, once financial situations have become so tortuous as to nobody understands them its time to take one’s swag and head for the hills.
I agree with jazz, the whole thing was doomed to failure from the beginning.
Actually it would never occur to me to leave any money of consequence in a bank! I’m surprised more people don’t buy houses at least they don’t disappear overnight.
There is an unfortunate consequence for setting such a precedence as Cyprus, one can foresee people all over the PIIGS withdrawing their loot and setting off a banking crisis. Would you be too happy leaving all one’s worldly wealth in some bank in Italy or Spain?
No, me neither!
The sooner the Eurozone/EU collapses the better, what a pigs ear of a total disaster for so many people and if it doesn’t end up with a war/civil war/ethnic cleansing/genocide again it will be a miracle.