Thought Id start this one going because its rather dead on this board at the moment and I suppose all my usual muckers are either at the Stella tennis event watching Dim Tim (lose again) or at Henly Regatta eating cucumber sandwiches (they wish,...NOT).

Anyway please feel free to just talk to yourself blast away and let it go on any company or subject you wish. Just wish Id thought of this one before.

cheers GF.

Is that the Labour donor figures from PWC etc? Fred
2517

Sky News tells how Greek bank shares are doing pretty well this morning.

National Bank of Greece is up about 1.9% (it's down over 70% on the year!) as I type.

However, there has been quite 'a run on the bank' of late:

UPDATE 1-Greek bank deposit outflows jump amid long weekend jitters-sources
Fri Feb 20, 2015 7:27am EST

By George Georgiopoulos - Who else? ;)

Feb 20 (Reuters) - Greek bank deposit outflows accelerated to a total of over 1 billion euros over the past two days, three senior banking sources told Reuters on Friday, little more than a week before the country's EU/IMF bailout deal is due to expire.

Withdrawals returned to levels before elections last month that brought a radical left-wing government to power, topping 500 million euros on Wednesday and again on Thursday due to fears about Greece's future in the euro zone.

With Athens struggling to secure a new funding deal with the euro zone before the bailout expires on Feb. 28, Greeks are increasingly nervous before a three-day weekend. This is due to memories that Cyprus imposed capital controls over a long weekend during a crisis in 2013, one senior banker said.

"Depositors have connected the three-day weekend with the capital controls that happened in Cyprus," the banker said, while noting that the Cypriot crisis was different since it was caused by the collapse of a bank.

Monday is a public holiday marking the start of the Greek Orthodox Lent season. The government, which was elected on promises to end austerity and scrap the bailout programme, has denied it has any plans for capital controls.

But euro zone countries led by Germany are demanding that Athens honour all its promises under the bailout to impose austerity policies and economic reforms, raising fears of an impasse that could lead to Greece running out of money and even leaving the euro zone.

"We have gone back to levels in the weeks before the Jan. 25 election. Deposit outflows topped 500 million in each of the last two days," the banker said.

The bleeding from banks put outflow levels close to the worst seen in January - when an estimated 12 billion euros left the system over the whole month - before slowing somewhat in February, bankers said.

Some Greeks are withdrawing cash to put in safe deposit boxes or hide at home, while others are switching their deposits into money market and bond mutual funds abroad. They fear the government might prevent them from withdrawing funds as a possible first step to preparing for a Greek exit from the euro, should the talks with the euro zone fail.

In 2013 Cyprus closed its banks for almost a fortnight due to a banking crisis. It remains in the euro zone but still has some capital controls, although they now cover only large transfers of cash abroad.

Greek banks have been receiving emergency funding controlled by the European Central Bank. On Wednesday, the ECB agreed to raise Emergency Liquidity Assistance to 68.3 billion euros but the increase was a modest 3.3 billion.

A Greek banker estimated this would cover the lenders' needs for a week, although at that point deposits were flowing out at a lower rate. (Writing by Deepa Babington; editing by David Stamp)

Looks like all the UK's burglars will have gone on holiday to Greece then, so we should be alright.

UKIP:.. The only party thinking ahead by billions of years -)

Ed Miliband confronted by disgruntled factory worker:

'They're all leaning towards Ukip'





Peter Baldwin said that the working class man was concerned about immigration and Europe



Kiran Moodley


Friday 20 February 2015

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/generalelection/ed-miliband-confronted-by-disgruntled-factory-worker-theyre-all-leaning-towards-ukip-10058512.html


A leisurely election tour around a factory turned sour for Ed Miliband on Thursday, when a disgruntled voter confronted the Labour leader and said that many working class people were "leaning towards Ukip".

Peter Baldwin, an electrician at BAE systems, approached Miliband during a visit by the leader to the jet fighter factory in Lancashire.

Baldwin said to Miliband: "At this moment in time I don't feel like voting Labour.

"This morning we sat in the brew room over there...and they are all leaning now towards Ukip. The question on everybody's mind is the referendum. I know what you're going to say. The working class man in here…"

Miliband, who was nodding along as he listened to Baldwin, interrupted the worker to say: "Immigration is the big issue for lots of people. On immigration, what we say is, when people come here they shouldn't get benefits for the first two years and then we should ensure that don’t allow wages to be under cut."

Baldwin responded: "There's too many people here that's why we got all these people out of work".


Miliband then replied: "I think we can actually get low-skilled immigration down if we clamp down on the benefits and stop the employers exploiting people. Part of the problem we've got – not companies like BAE – (but with) other companies, what you end up with is: workers paid less than the minimum wage, 15 people put in their house, and people say, 'Hang on a minute, that can't be right, we've got to do something about that."

Baldwin later spoke to The Telegraph about his meeting with Miliband, describing the Labour leader as sounding like a "public schoolboy", adding that "the Labour Party lost a lot of its values. They have always been the working man's party, they're drifting away from that."

Speaking to the BBC, he added: "Basically they are just not happy with Labour at the moment. The big thing with the working class man is immigration and Europe."

Mr Miliband said he did not believe Ukip was the part of working people.

"Stan - 13 Feb 2015 18:22 - 56576 of 56838

Don't watch QT usually now but did last night.

Who's that useless Susanne Evans when she's at home?'

Hey Max I think you missed that, who is it?

They say this and that about what to do about Immigration , but why does it take them an eternity to do anything for #@*&s sake.

Come on Max... answer the questions -):

I did miss it Stan.

Tell us the good bits.


btw, any comment on your fearless leaders factory tour?

Hard to remember any Max, who's my fearless leader then?

#56843

the tool on the right

Not mine, a case of mistaken identity.

nah, that's not fred
fred's seriously old

Ed Balls backtracks over 'receipts for odd jobs' claims
The shadow chancellor says he never meant that everyone in Britain should get a receipt from someone who 'cuts your hedge for a tenner'
By Peter Dominiczak, Political Editor3:36PM GMT 20 Feb 2015
Ed Balls has been forced to backtrack on his claim that everyone in the country should get receipts for cash-in-hand odd jobs.
Mr Balls has faced ridicule after he said that even someone who “cuts your hedge for a tenner” should provide an invoice to discourage tax avoidance, and claimed that he had the “name and address and a receipt” for every cash transaction because it was “the right thing to do”.
Senior Labour figures including Ed Miliband distanced themselves from Mr Balls’s comments.
The Telegraph subsequently disclosed that Mr Balls and 11 other members of the shadow cabinet claimed expenses for cleaning, gardening or odd jobs without submitting receipts.
Mr Balls has denied that he had failed to get receipts for particular cash jobs, stating that his cleaner was paid by direct debit and window-cleaner by cheque.

Iain Duncan Smith, the Work and Pensions Secretary, said that it was "absurd" to suggest that this was a requirement for anyone paying cash, while David Cameron joked that he hoped that after the election Mr Balls would have "more time to clean his own windows and cut his own hedge".
However, speaking to BBC Radio Leeds, Mr Balls said it would be “silly” to suggest that everyone in the country should get receipts from tradesmen.
In what appeared to be an embarrassing U-turn, Mr Balls said: "I'm not saying to people listening to this programme, or anywhere in the country, you've always got to get a receipt if you pay cash to somebody who is doing an odd job. I'm not saying that.
"I'm not saying that they've got to. I'm saying that for somebody like me in a sensitive position, dealing with the finances, I do need to get a receipt and I do.
"I think there's a serious point here which is we've all got a job to make sure ... small businesses who are paying their taxes aren't undercut by people who are not paying their taxes and are not doing things in a proper way. I never said everybody has got to get a receipt. That would be a silly thing to say."
Speaking to the BBC about what constituted tax avoidance last weekend, Mr Balls said: "The right thing to do if you are having somebody cut your hedge for a tenner is to make sure they give you their name and address and a receipt and a record for the fact that you have paid them."
Asked whether he himself followed that rule he said: "Absolutely. That's because I am the shadow chancellor and I'm extremely careful about these things."
He later added: "It's not your job to pay their taxes for them and I think most people you give a tenner to are not going to be VAT-registered.
"They've got the legal obligation to make sure they pay their taxes if it's that kind of transaction - but I think the sensible thing for anybody is that you've got a record of it and you've done it properly."

For his fellow sleep walkers or sheep DC.

LOL Max, brilliant. That isn't nasty just very funny. :0)

Interesting article for some:

https://www.henderson.com/ukpi/post/9822/divergent-paths-qe-around-the-world?o_cc=c3905

an extract from sky news on the net

Greece Agreement 'Old Deal In New Clothing'
........... It was said that behind-the-scenes, the Germans were refusing to talk to Mr Varoufakis - that some Greek finance officials had been urged to get rid of their boss.
That would be a terrific mistake: their new finance minister is one of the biggest assets Greece has, particularly when it comes to explaining to an international audience why austerity has not worked, and why future deals might have to be different.
And there will almost certainly need to be another deal once these four months have elapsed.
In the meantime, Mr Varoufakis and his colleagues have a tough job on their hands explaining why what was agreed in Brussels was a triumph rather than a defeat.
Their previous feat - overturning decades of two-party domination in Greece - may end up looking easy in comparison.

fred - i read the article, and unless i missed something as is so often the case, it really didn't have much to say at all, other than that we'ld all like to have our household debt written off