http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/19/business/global/cyprus-bailout-incites-turmoil-as-blame-flies.html?ref=todayspaper&_r=0

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: barry levine 
Date: Tue, Mar 19, 2013 at 4:52 PM
Subject: re: Cyprus Bailout Incites Turmoil as Blame Flies
To: letters@nytimes.com


To the Editor:

      Taxes have  two inextricable roles in society; they raise the revenue to run a State, and they create the incentive structure in which citizens function.  Taxing Cypriots who save to bail out banks there would indeed raise some money for those banks. But the incentives created--to yank savings out of the banking system--are wholly irresponsible. It's a recipe for a catastrophic crash. Now we see that those bankers who advocated austerity in the name of building "confidence" never deserved our attention. They are willing to destroy confidence utterly for a short-term infusion of cash.

Barry Haskell Levine