31/07/2012
The legacy media has been running endless stories about hard-done-by Greeks, on the brink of poverty. And doubtless they are all true.
But there is another side to these hard-luck stories.
Die Welt is reporting that "allegedly poor Greeks" have been depositing huge sums of money in foreign accounts. The most glaring case, according to a report in Athens newspaper
Ta Nea is of a man who told the Inland Revenue he had zero income yet managed to deposit â¬25 million abroad.
This newspaper has published a copy of the list of alleged offenders, held by the Bank of Greece, authenticated by the Ministry of Finance. In 2010 alone, 731 Greeks have transferred nearly one billion euros to other countries, including the UK, Switzerland and Cyprus. Yet, according to their tax return, 403 of them were poverty-stricken.
Of course, one look at
Piraeus Harbour will tell you that there is no shortage of the idle rich, even if so many ordinary people are indeed suffering real hardship.
Yet Draghi and others, including now Monti, continue to bleat their mantra that they will do whatever it takes to save the euro. But Ambrose
makes it clear that any efforts will have to be pretty heroic.
Given how much this is all going to cost, it isn't only the Germans who are asking whether it is all worth it. And when Ambrose cites an estimate that Spain and Italy amount will need â¬1.1 trillion bailout funds over three years, the question takes on huge importance.
Despite Draghi's rhetoric, that sort of money simply doesnât exist. Any attempt to raise such sums on the open market would expose the bluff behind the bailout machinery, and bring the whole edifice crashing down. Unless the ECB pulls off the rescue of the century, we are looking at a re-run of 1931.
