On tonight's TV show, Glenn went into further detail on the letter to his kids, what you can do to prepare for tough economic times, and why you needed to be careful and discreet on your plans:
Original Story:
News broke over the weekend that as part of the bailout of the banks in the small, European country of Cyprus, ordinary bank depositors would have to pay a “haircut” tax of at least 6.75%.
In other words, if you managed to save $10,000 in the bank, already having paid all the various taxes that hit your paycheck before you get to deposit it, you’re going to lose $675 of that to help pay for the bailout.
The unprecedented penalty meant that everyday Cypriots would have to give up a percentage of whatever they had saved in the back. Unsurprisingly, there was soon a run on the banks and ATMs as people tried to get their money out. But as Glenn warned on radio this morning, the real danger is that this unheard of penalty could be placed on other, larger European countries who are facing a growing and ongoing debt crisis.
“The announcement was intentionally made late Friday or early Saturday and buried in an avalanche of details,” Glenn said. “The only coverage of this issue when it came out, the only coverage was on Twitter. “
When the news started to spread that the bailout deal could happen, Cypriots started to go to the ATMs to get the money out before the tax hit them, but quickly found they couldn’t get their cash out of the banks.
“Even though the tax is not yet supposed law because the government of Cyprus hasn't voted on it yet, the people who tried to pull their money out of ATMs or banks over the weekend found they couldn't do it,” Glenn said.
“Now think of that. There is no law, but the people could not access their accounts and take their money out of the banks. Taking money from people is really bad, but elections have consequences. And if you elected these guys to represent you and they are going to vote for it and you don't stop them, elections have consequences.”
The taxes are being imposed by the EU, the IMF, and the government of Cyprus.
“But here's the real nasty stuff: You're asking the people who played by the rules, you're asking the people who lived within their means to bail out the big banks that didn't.”
“Now here's the lessons you should learn from this: You cannot print your way out of an eventual day of reckoning, a day of reckoning is coming. There is nothing that's going to avoid the appointment with you and the Good Lord. There is also, you cannot violate fundamental universal truths, fundamental economics, fundamental mathematics, you cannot break universal truth and expect not to pay the consequences. We are living in a world that has gone insane. They are changing the math to make it work for us to be able to... whatever it is we do. Whatever it is we want. We want more free healthcare, we want more this, we want more that, we want to fight wars. We want to bail out all the other countries. We want to save the banks. We want to cure this disease and this country. We want to redistribute our wealth. We want to make sure that the poor people in Africa don't struggle because we're so rich. I got news for ya: You cannot have it all. You cannot do it all. And our day of reckoning will come,” Glenn continued.
“The tax, however, is intended to send a very important message, and here it is, and it's not meant just for the people of Cyprus. It is meant for you as well, and here's the message: That money doesn't belong to you.”
After reading about the news of the Cyprus bailout, Glenn wrote a letter to his family and shared some pieces of it with the audience. In the letter, Glenn encouraged his family members to have thirty days cash on hand to deal with anything that might come up. Cash to cover food, rent, travel and other expenses.
“If you don't have 30 days cash on hand, if you don't have an emergency plan of how your family moves or functions in the case of a banking shutdown, in case of a seizure situation, in case of a national emergency, if you are not, A, positioned in a place where you are surrounded by like minded people, you might want to reconsider this. If you are someone who does not have enough cash, you have to go to the ATM over the weekend or you're not going to be able to eat, I would suggest you look at your food situation and you look at your cash situation,” Glenn said.
“Last night I wrote to my family, and I want to discuss with you that I believe that you need to be you need to understand what Immanuel Kant said one time, and I only remember it because it was such a foreign idea to me at the time. This is back in the Nineties, that I pondered for a few weeks what the world must have been like that would make a man say something like this: There are many things that I believe that I shall never say, but I shall never say the things that I do not believe. What kind of world does it have to be, thought an American, Glenn Beck, in 1995, what kind of world do you have to live in where you are afraid to say things that you truly believe? Well, we are here now,” Glenn said.
“The other thing is something that General Anthony Wayne said in a letter to George Washington written at 2:00 in the morning: Your officers and your men behaved like men determined to be free,” Glenn said.
“The world is coming undone and the world is splitting into different camps. Those who understand individual liberty, that it is not about the collective, that the only way to truly bring the collective up is for individuals to empower themselves and to behave like men determined to be free. When you understand what that means, it means that you are someone who obeys the law, that you are somebody who does not pick the pocket of your neighbor, that does not, does not push off responsibility to others, that you take responsibility for your action and you insist that those around you also take honest accounting and responsibility for what they have done. And that's the way you get to be free.”
“But the other group that the world is splitting off into is one that will take anything. They are a drowning swimmer and they will pull you under the water.”
Glenn said that while people need to start living their lives as men determined to be free, they must also use discretion in what they say to others.
“Please, do not tell anyone. Do not panic. There's time, but this is a warning that you should see. Deepen your preparation and keep it to yourself,” Glenn said.
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