Based on your financial expertise, provide your response or viewpoint on the given financial question or topic. The response format is open.

Protecting savings from exceptional taxes
Don't worry. The Cyprus situation could only occur because those banks were paying interest rates well above EU market rates, and the government did not tax them at all. Even the one-time 6.75% tax discussed is comparable to e.g. Germany and the Netherlands, if you average over the last 5 years. The simple solution is to just spread your money over multiple banks, with assets at each bank staying below EUR 100.000. There are more than 100 banks large enough that they'll come under ECB supervision this year; you'd be able to squirrel away over 10 million there. (Each branch of the Dutch Rabobank is insured individually, so you could even save 14 million there alone, and they're collectively AAA-rated.) Additionally, those savings will then be backed by more than 10 governments, many of which are still AAA-rated.  Once you have to worry about those limits, you should really talk to an independent advisor. Investing in AAA government bonds is also pretty safe. The examples given by littleadv all involve known risky bonds. E.g. Argentina was on a credit watch, and paying 16% interest rates.