Spiegel sees risk on the horizon. I personally agree with most that Stefan Kaiser wrote. But, there is something he gets wrong though (all my translations):
No it does not show that at all. Compared to Cyprus' economy those banks where huge, but they have less total assets than Deutsche Bank has core tier 1 capital. These banks were important for the island only, in the grand theme of things, they just don't matter.
The only good thing in the Cyprus drama: It shows, that one can unwind an important bank and shrink another, without the financial markets going crazy.
FAZ has a whole comment about just the above issue.Coming to the conclusion that systemic significance of banks isn't frightening anymore, Cyprus "proved" that. Really? I mean REALLY?!? The tiny island with its tiny banks is your prove? Quality German Journalism FOR THE WIN!
a) For Cyprus those banks were definitely too big to fail.
b) For the rest of us it was nothing more than a test if our leaders had any decency and if they had crisis management skills. They failed us. We have another utterly undemocratic decision in Cyprus, that for no reason whatsoever became a two week disaster of epic proportions.
Yes, the comment is in so far correct, that we should let smaller banks fail, but we knew that before. Cyprus doesn't change a thing for the "too big to fail" problem. All it shows is a significant lack in leadership.
Sueddeutsche's Cerstin Gammelin comments that over night Cyprus has become a different country. And also mentions that the Euro isn't a success story for the island. Not bad. I liked it.
State television (not state controled just paid for by everybody - with a lot of polititians in the controlling body) ZDF does not understand that capital controls are in place. Udo van Kampen (in the video) does not mention Germany at all and thinks all will be well, since Cyprus finally agreed to "abandoning its shady business-model".
The privately owned n-tv makes the best coment (at least to my knowledge), mentions not only capital controls, but also thinks, that Cyprus might need another bailout soon, and talks about economic consequences.
I am pretty happy, that there is a diverse picture in the German news media. A few days ago it did not look at all like that. That the in my opinion best and most thoughtful comment, came from the news station n-tv, was pretty supprising. To me they were market fanboy, that also showed aweful American "action-documentaries" with an even worse German translation and WWII documentaries. Perhaps I need to take a closer look.
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