Cyprus And The IMF

Quite rightly, the decision to take 9.9% from accounts held in Cypriots banks with more than €100,000 in them and 6.75% from everyone else has been met with outrage in Cyprus.
This is a condition set upon the 10bn euro loan to save the country from bankruptcy by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) along with shrinking its banking sector and increasing taxes.
In a horrifying new twist, bank depositors are facing a raid on their savings and have been rushing to the nations banks and cashpoint machines to withdraw their savings only to be met with closed doors and 'technical difficutles' in out of order ATM's.
Resentment and anger quickly set in directed at the Cypriot Government who have accepted the take the IMF deal of implementing the savings levy or they you won't get the loan but the Government of Cyprus is not the real villan here, as usual it is the IMF.
Christine Lagarde, managing director of the IMF, said: 'I welcome the agreement reached today to address Cyprus’ economic challenges' but she would, the IMF has a long history of loaning out money but extracting much more than it's pound of flesh in return.
A critic of the IMF described its practises as 'enforcing budgetary belt tightening to countries who are much too poor to own belts' as it extend loans only if countries agree to accept 'structural adjustment programs' which are conditions such as the bank savings levy the Cypriots have now had foisted upon them and other demands such as the recipient governments privatising public assets, cutting state funding on social services like health care, education, childcare, and pensions so they can make the repayments.  
Quite apart from dictating democratically elected Government policies, the loan repayments create a huge debt trap, the overwhelming debt repayments leading to the allocation of enormous portions of their national incomes towards paying interest. The developing world owes a total of £2.5 trillion in international debt, a stunning nine times more in debt repayment than they receive in aid from Western countries.
After the devastating earthquake in Haiti, an IMF loan receipient,  the IMF blocked the government plan of raising the minimum wage to stimulate the economy and instead demanded the privatisation of public companies and the cutting of government services by 50%.
The IMF is a loan of last resort and the Cypriot Government must know this but the Cypriot people should realise that they can punish the Government by removing them from office but the loan will still be there and whoever you elect is not controlling your economic policy anymore, the banks and bank rollers of the IMF are and they don't give a fig about social consequences, they just want their money back with extortionate interest and if that means taking a percentage of your savings, they will and there is nothing you or any Government you choose to replace this one with can do about it because turning a profit is all they care about.
Capitalism, don't you just love it.