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.

Take a short trip on the metro to the city’s cooler northern suburbs, and you will find an enclave of staggering opulence.

Here, in the suburb of Kifissia, amid clean, tree-lined streets full of designer boutiques and car showrooms selling luxury marques such as Porsche and Ferrari, live some of the richest men and women in the world.

With its streets paved with marble, and dotted with charming parks and cafes, this suburb is home to shipping tycoons such as Spiros Latsis, a billionaire and friend of Prince Charles, as well as countless other wealthy industrialists and politicians.

One of the reasons they are so rich is that rather than paying millions in tax to the Greek state, as they rightfully should, many of these residents are living entirely tax-free.

Along street after street of opulent mansions and villas, surrounded by high walls and with their own pools, most of the millionaires living here are, officially, virtually paupers.

How so? Simple: they are allowed to state their own earnings for tax purposes, figures which are rarely challenged. And rich Greeks take full advantage.

Astonishingly, only 5,000 people in a country of 12 million admit to earning more than £90,000 a year — a salary that would not be enough to buy a garden shed in Kifissia.

Yet studies have shown that more than 60,000 Greek homes each have investments worth more than £1m, let alone unknown quantities in overseas banks, prompting one economist to describe Greece as a ‘poor country full of rich people’.

Manipulating a corrupt tax system, many of the residents simply say that they earn below the basic tax threshold of around £10,000 a year, even though they own boats, second homes on Greek islands and properties overseas.

And, should the taxman rumble this common ruse, it can be dealt with using a ‘fakelaki’ — an envelope stuffed with cash. There is even a semi-official rate for bribes: passing a false tax return requires a payment of up to 10,000 euros (the average Greek family is reckoned to pay out £2,000 a year in fakelaki.)

Even more incredibly, Greek shipping magnates — the king of kings among the wealthy of Kifissia — are automatically exempt from tax, supposedly on account of the great benefits they bring the country.

Yet the shipyards are empty; once employing 15,000, they now have less than 500 to service the once-mighty Greek shipping lines which, like the rest of the country, are in terminal decline.

With Greek President George Papandreou calling for a crackdown on these tax dodgers — who are believed to cost the economy as much as £40bn a year — he is now resorting to bizarre means to identify the cheats. After issuing warnings last year, government officials say he is set to deploy helicopter snoopers, along with scrutiny of Google Earth satellite pictures, to show who has a swimming pool in the northern suburbs — an indicator, officials say, of the owner’s wealth.

Officially, just over 300 Kifissia residents admitted to having a pool. The true figure is believed to be 20,000. There is even a boom in sales of tarpaulins to cover pools and make them invisible to the aerial tax inspectors.

But faced with the threat of a crackdown, money is now pouring out of the country into overseas tax havens such as Liechtenstein, the Bahamas and Cyprus.

‘Other popular alternatives include setting up offshore companies in Cyprus or the British Virgin Islands, or the purchase of real estate abroad,’ says one doctor, who declares an income of less than £90,000 yet earns five times that amount.

There has also been a boom in London property purchases by Athens-based Greeks in an attempt to hide their true worth from their domestic tax authorities.

‘These anti-tax evasion measures by the government force us to resort to even more detailed tax evasion ploys,’ admits Petros Iliopoulos, a civil engineer.

Hotlines have been set up offering rewards for people who inform on tax dodgers. Last month, to show the government is serious, it named and shamed 68 high-earning doctors found guilty of tax evasion.

Perhaps if the Greeks themselves had shown more willingness to tighten their belts and pay taxes due to the state, voters across Europe might not now be feeling such anger towards them.

But having strolled the streets of Kifissia, and watched the Greek hordes stream past the honesty boxes on the underground, it does not take a degree in European economics to know when somebody is taking advantage — at our expense.

as the old story goes in greece ......
of course i don't pay tax; i pay the taxman

Meanwhile at Chequers.

meanwhile
rather than posting your customary unamusing cartoons, i and perhaps we would be more interested to hear what you (fred) think should happen both to and in greece

Can you see Cameron being turfed overboard at the back of the boat as garbage!

Or, is it Manuel!

meanwhile
rather than posting your customary unamusing cartoons, i and perhaps we would be more interested to hear what you (fred) think should happen both to and in greece

The Euro may take a hit tomorrow against most currencies. The pound may do well vs Euro.

great discussions - eur already plunged 1.5% at start of trading in asia - think we all know what is going on in greece - additionally so many factors to consider, contagion, nutters behind the wheels @greece @ecb @imf @eurozone, russia, grexit, brexit (uk lol) other countries, immigration, china et cetera - and now the US sticking their oar in (obviously the US never have selfish reasons to do this lol) - fantastic day ahead tomorrow

apparently fred has no view at all of the future and can only dream of what he fondly thinks of as the golden years of the 50s
he's now so old and dribbly that he can no longer think for himself but needs his agency nurse to do it for him

lol cynic

ft front page tomorrow............readable by enlarging the page wiv a click

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CInQrcnWEAAHmUF.jpg:large

Fiber off 1.6 cents at the Asian open. Hardly another SNB Black Swan.

Manuel,

When I consider you I think of the following:

"
Do you know the sad thing is that even if some reached Utopia they would be greedy enough to want more for themselves and they have the arrogance to think they justified it?"

==-=-=-===-

Also, arrogance does not make up for ignorance, but probably your case you are too ignorant to realise this.

But I was told not to

Manuel,

When I consider you I think of the following:

"
Do you know the sad thing is that even if some reached Utopia they would be greedy enough to want more for themselves and they have the arrogance to think they justified it?"

==-=-=-===-

Also, arrogance does not make up for ignorance, but probably in your case you are too ignorant to realise this.

But I was told not to go gently into the night and I don't intend to.

Have you heard, it's in the stars

Next July we collide with mars






Well, did you ever

What a swell party it's been

Bollocks. Next July the euro will be in a far, far better place than it is today - with or without the bubbles. And Greece will always be an accident waiting to happen, inside or outside of the EZ, because they'll never learn.

Timeo Danaos et dona ferentes.

shouldnt that be: beware greeks bearing debt of gargantuan proportions?! lol

the euro would miss countries like greece - because these losers help keep the euro at lower value - oh the irony - LOL

I agree hilly.

But The land of €l Greco isn't the only one waiting for an excuse to blow up.

The rest are probably stable enough. What bothers me is the previous rush to sign up all the eastern European countries.