This cartoon by Michael Ramirez, the two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning cartoonist for Investors Business Daily, relates to the Cypus banking crisis and plans to impose a levy on deposits in Cypriot banks as part of an EU bailout. In a reversal of the usual bank robbery situation, the cashier is holding up a customer, who has his hands in the air.
COMMENTARY
The original plan to impose a levy on all depositors provoked widespread outrage, and the Cypriot parliament rejected the EU-backed proposal on Tuesday, calling it "legalised bank robbery". A new plan has been put forward by leading Cypriot bankers which would impose a levy on higher deposits, but exempt smaller depositors. MPs are due to vote today on new proposals, the result of which will decide Cyprus's fate (follow live coverage from The Guardian).
VOCABULARY
In American English, a bank cashier is called a teller.
