I heard it through the grapevine. The father of a member of the government died. He was to be buried in an island. Another member of the government wanted to send a wreath. He contacted some mortuary in the island and he was told that they had no golden (I guess colorwise) thread to write his name. They offered to write it with a golden marker. He was appalled. I guess that working as a diplomat kind of does that. So what did he do? He had one bought in the capital and flown it to the island with a helicopter. I guess that having a ministry with helicopters kind of gives you that privilege. The tales that people spin in such days are horrendous. I am certain that it never happened. Not in these days of prostate examining.

 

I heard it through the grapevine. The IRS went over various immigration records. They picked up all the names of the various attorneys that were involved in various permit cases. Then they started checking whether these attorneys had declared any such income. You can easily guess what they found. My question? Is such thinking *that* hard???? I guess that such incidents kind of state that all these troubles will pull us kicking and screaming into the 21st century. In some cases of course (in others it will pull us kicking and screaming into the 18th century). I have to admit that bringing us even into the 20th century will be an improvement.

 

I heard it through the grapevine. Person A is in some IRS offices for a case. The office is full of slimy greedy animals called IRS inspectors. At some point he realizes that IRS Inspector B (who is not handling his case) has a certain pricey item.

A: “I like that item”

B: “Really? It’s not that bad I guess”

A: “It does go for quite some money I guess”

B: “Well… It’s a gift. I wouldn’t know”

A: “Take a guess. How much do you think it’s worth?”

B: “hm… I don’t know”

A: “1500€ should be the retail price for It”

B: “Really? You don’t say?”

A: “Of course if you take 60% off, you can find the wholesale price”

B: “Uh-huh! Interesting”

A: “True enough”

B: “Say. How come you know all this stuff?”

A: “Well, am I wrong?”

B: “Come on. Do tell”

A: “I sell such items. Retail”

B: “Hey. Sit down. Let’s have a chat”

A: “I cannot. I have to go to another IRS office”

B: “Sit down. Sit down”

A: “Not now. I am in a hurry. But I will be back sometime”

B: “When?”

A: “Next week or something. Don’t worry. We’ll talk then”

 

Isn’t flirting always nice?

 

Now the next item does not come from the grapevine :) I keep hearing the last couple of years about Greeks cashing out from the banks. At first there was talk about people taking their money to foreign banks. Last couple of reports is of people cashing it out in order to pay all these extra taxes and to make a living because wages and commerce are free falling. Therefore I checked some data from the Bank of Greece to see with my own eyes what the numbers really are. I found the inflation indices here http://www.bankofgreece.gr/Pages/el/Statistics/prices.aspx and the deposits date here http://www.bankofgreece.gr/Pages/el/Statistics/monetary/deposits.aspx

 

I found corresponding data from March 1998 till September 2011. I checked out only the household savings and I also took inflation into account.

 

The chart shows the household savings from March 1998 to September 2011. It also plots these numbers adjusted for inflation taking as a basis March 1998 prices. `Further on I split it into 4 time periods. March 1998 to December 2001. January 2002 (when we gave up drachma for euro) to July 2004. August 2004 (Olympic Games) to December 2009 (highest peak and around the time that the new (then) Pasok government started admitting that things are quite bleak). And January 2010 till today.

 

I shall look only at the inflation adjusted data (which rather makes these more comparable (10 Euros in 1998 had a completely different purchasing value than 10 Euros at any other period in time)).

 

First of all note how every summer there is an increase. I guess that it reflects earnings from tourism. There was such a pump in 2010 and even in 2011. True enough since 2010 there have been increases only 4 times. August 2010, December 2010, July+August 2011.

 

Second. From 1998 till 2002 there is a steady increase. From 2002 till the Olympic Games there is a very small decline, almost a 0% change. From the Olympic Games onwards there is an impressive increase in household savings. Almost a 60% higher rate of increase than the pre-Euro era. And then, 2010 arrives. Since no new taxes were imposed at that time, it certainly appears that people withdrew their money because they were afraid of an impending bankruptcy. Then summer came, presumably with its tourism, which seems to have cooled things a little, but after that the free falling kept. It stopped in summer 2011 and then it appears to have resumed its course.

 

I am really curious (and worried) about what could stop that free fall. Other than reaching 0….

 

As you can see, there are some linear regression trend lines for each period. If you are wondering when the last trend line hits 0, it’s the summer of 2016.(for those who did not get it, if nothing changes, it looks as if Greek households will have no savings in Greek banks at that time. It looks…)

 

Till that time, I heard it through the grapevine http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zZe9OtFNt_8