The far-reaching implications of Cyprus' euro crisis

The political-economic implications of the Cyprus bailout are far-reaching. First of all, the eurozone has for the first time chosen not to protect depositors.

Usually when a bank goes belly up, you expect stock holders to be wiped out first, followed by bondholders. Only after exhausting all other options, depositors would be hurt. On Cyprus the battle between economics and politics resulted in another course: (senior) bondholders aren’t being touched, while retail savers are being pun...