Cyprus-Forum.com

[Cap]

Seems like I was correct in judgement.
It never seems to end does it?

Here we go again, another scandal.

Dozens named in Greece football 'scandal'
Plainclothes policemen escort two civilians arrested in connection with a probe into match-fixing in Greek football in Athens on Thursday The naming of 68 accused follows the arrest of 10 suspects earlier in the week

Nearly 70 people have been named in Greece in connection with an alleged football match-fixing scandal.

They include two Super League club presidents, club owners, players, referees and a chief of police.

They are charged with a variety of offences including illegal gambling, fraud, extortion and money laundering.

The culture minister, Giorgos Nikitiadis, described the alleged scandal as "the darkest page in the history of Greek football".

He promised the investigation to clean up the sport would go "as deep and as high as necessary".

Ten suspects were arrested and detained earlier in the week.
'Violent threats'

The investigation began after European football's governing body Uefa published a list of 41 match results from 2009-10 which they believe to be suspicious.
Olympiakos Piraeus player and Greece defender Avraam Papadopoulos attends a news conference in Piraeus, near Athens Top defender Avraam Papadopoulos denies any involvement in match-fixing

Among the 68 suspects named by judicial authorities on Friday were Vangelis Marinakis, Greece's top football league official and chairman of champion club Olympiakos Piraeus, and Avraam Papadopoulos, national team and Olympiakos defender.

Both men deny involvement.

Late on Friday, a court order banned all 68 from leaving the country.

Details of the alleged scandal were given in a 130-page document seen by the news agency Associated Press.

It says the document contains numerous transcripts of recorded telephone conversations - many filled with profanities and threats of physical violence - allegedly between corrupt team officials deciding match results, using players and referees.

Bets on the allegedly fixed games were placed online or with betting agencies in Greece, Europe and Asian countries, according to the document, AP says.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-13914118

[Pyrpolizer]

Actually this topic shouldn't be in the CP section unless the title was changed to "greek mess in relation to CP".

Imo there is a general misleading/misunderstanding/misinformation about the Greek economy.
It is not really the Greek economy that is a mess, but the economics of the Government.The Greek private sector is almost as "healthy" and producing as it was before. With almost 1/3 of it been underground economy, with huge tax evasion, and almost no foreign investment.

And how about Cyprus? don't we have a worse situation here, where the government pays her employees almost double salaries and spends the taxpayers money in a much worse fashion than Greece?

as for the occupied where half the Kibrislis are public servants?

[Nikitas]

I am here, and living the crisis gives you another perspective altogether. It also hits your pocket directly and painfully.

First of all the "help" received is in the form of loans, not burdening taxpayers in other Eu nations. Germany borrows at 3 per cent and lends Greece at 5, that is the nature of EU solidarity.

The core of the problem is that obvious steps, like decreasing the civil service, creating a more business friendly climate etc, are hard to implement in a nation that has been paternalistic-statist since its inception. But no matter how the establishment tries to weasel out of these changes they are being enforced by the IMF-EU, and I am betting that the state that will emerge in 5 years will be a much improved one.

As for nepotism and corruption and tax evasion. A recent study of the "black" economy in the EU places Greece somewhere in the middle. The black economy is alive and well in such paragons of financial virtue as Denmark, Germany and the UK.

Corruption- the News of the World scandal and the Deutsch Bank fines in the US show that if anything, others do it more and better than the Greeks. Is there anyone the Germans have not bribed since 2000 to get contracts? Just look up the Siemens affair in the USA for an idea of how efficient they have been at it. Until 2000 it was legal and acceptable under the German tax code to enter foreign bribes as a tax deductible expense.

It obviously helps to publish bullshit about a fantasy of a corrupt country and create a myth.
Recently the Daily Mail published a total bullshit article about people using the Athens Metro with no tickets which cheating was supposedly financed by the north EU taxpayer. Firstly the Metro is a self financed private company. Secondly in Greece we have 90 mimute multi journey tickets and obviously those coming to the metro from a bus have already franked their tickets. But the "journalist" that wrote the article wanted to create a sensation and did it.

Do not believe all you read. Has anyone mentioned that Greek exports have risen 12 per cent since January? Or that Greek shipowners are the biggest clients of the Far Eastern shipyards with hunndreds of ships in construction? There is good news out there, but at the moment no one is looking for it.

[supporttheunderdog]

Be cautious about boasting about the Greek Ship owners andf their ships on order because, world-wide, ship owning is in the Sh"tter, big time.

As an example in 2005 One particular type of Tanker was earning on average about US$45,000 per day, which I think rose to about US$68000 or so in 2008 - similar sorts or tate changes have affected other types of ship. and thinking tjhe 2008 rates would continue or improve, lots of people piled in to buy new ships.

Then the World Financial F*ck-up occured!

It started with the US, who cut back on buying household goods, so the Chinese slowed up making them making, and in importing the raw products they needed to do this. No one needed all of the ships,

Today, on average, that type of Tanker is earning under US$6000 per day. That simply doesn't pay the running costs, let alone the finance charges. The fuel alone can be at least US$12000 per day!!

Again other types of ship suffred big percentage rate cuts.

Some owners were lucky: they did long term deals to charter their ships out at the good hire rates availalble in 2008 but those people who have chartered in often cannot get the money to cover hire, leat the fuel costs, and they are going to the wall, leaving the owners with problems, mostly of having to find someone else to hire the ship to, at the current low rates, but sometimes, because of quirks in Maritime law, resposnible for some the debts of the charterer.

Many people who fixed deals at the top of the market to buy or hire ships are now trying to find every which way they can to to get out of the contract or to reduce what they pay, including some of these Greek Shipowners, who are probbaly kakking their pants hoping the market will spring back to the 2007/8 levels.
Each new ship only addes to their woes.

[Nikitas]

Underdog,

Shipping has always been a cyclical business and always will be and the ups and downs affect all owners. I wonder what Maersk with 600 ships thinks about your forecast of their business being in the shitter. The shipowners I know personally seem to be doing well, one operates heavy lifting ships, another ocean going tugs, a third LPG carriers. As for orders, no Greek shipowner has cancelled builds or options yet. So they seem to calculate that something will change.

The overall reality is that EU has no policy and no solidarity to deal with crises so they fall back on cheap slogans like the Greeks do not work, when their own surveys show that per capita Greeks put in most hours in the EU, have fewer holidays than Germans and indulge in the black economy no more and no less than most. Tax rates are among the highest in the EU.

If German economists are so smart how come they made no warning sounds when Greece was ranking No 1 in BMW imports a few years back. The surpluses of Germany are the deficits of the south, their favorite clients for anything, from cars to infrastructure and telephone systems (call me Siemens) are in the south of the EU.

And they did bribe their way to success, even in the USA who slapped them with repeated fines and agreements for restitution. The latest US scandal was only last month when Deutsch Bank, a bank for fucks sake, the temple of integrity, got fined hundreds of millions for encouraging and abetting US tax evaders!

THe latest news is that Siemens who bribed heavily in Greece is SUING Greece in a Munich district court seeking a declaration that it bears no liability for bribery, since it has already done a deal with German prosecutors to settle. These are the leaders, or that is how they would like to project themselves, of the EU and the Eurozone. They are the ones who talk about corruption and tax evasion as being problems, they should know, they create them.

[Nikitas]

Cap,
See the footbal scandal in its international context. Match fixing has been investigated by UEFA in several countries, including Turkey, it reaches as far as Malaysia, and it originated ....where else, the mother of all business in Europe, in Germany of course.

[Nikitas]

Pyro,

With one of the "guarantor" powers in dire economic straits, the other getting there fast and the third thinking it is the world's next economic superpower, obviously the situation belongs to the CYPROB.

Now we wait till the Turkish economic bubble bursts and we see exactly where we are going. The Turks think that they will keep selling when their clients are bankrupt and will be able to pay 30 per cent export subsidies forever. They have a surprise coming.

[supporttheunderdog]

Underdog,

Shipping has always been a cyclical business and always will be and the ups and downs affect all owners. I wonder what Maersk with 600 ships thinks about your forecast of their business being in the shitter. The shipowners I know personally seem to be doing well, one operates heavy lifting ships, another ocean going tugs, a third LPG carriers. As for orders, no Greek shipowner has cancelled builds or options yet. So they seem to calculate that something will change.

The overall reality is that EU has no policy and no solidarity to deal with crises so they fall back on cheap slogans like the Greeks do not work, when their own surveys show that per capita Greeks put in most hours in the EU, have fewer holidays than Germans and indulge in the black economy no more and no less than most. Tax rates are among the highest in the EU.

If German economists are so smart how come they made no warning sounds when Greece was ranking No 1 in BMW imports a few years back. The surpluses of Germany are the deficits of the south, their favorite clients for anything, from cars to infrastructure and telephone systems (call me Siemens) are in the south of the EU.

And they did bribe their way to success, even in the USA who slapped them with repeated fines and agreements for restitution. The latest US scandal was only last month when Deutsch Bank, a bank for fucks sake, the temple of integrity, got fined hundreds of millions for encouraging and abetting US tax evaders!

THe latest news is that Siemens who bribed heavily in Greece is SUING Greece in a Munich district court seeking a declaration that it bears no liability for bribery, since it has already done a deal with German prosecutors to settle. These are the leaders, or that is how they would like to project themselves, of the EU and the Eurozone. They are the ones who talk about corruption and tax evasion as being problems, they should know, they create them.

I work in shipping so I may well be in better touch with what is happening than you: It is isn't shipping that is Cyclical but the world economy, and by and large when the world is doing well so does shipping. In that respect a lot of world trade is dependant on what America and Europe buy, particularly from Asia. At the moment the Americans and Europeans are not buying as much: in consequence less goods are moving. Trans-Pacific and Europe/Asia services are really feeling the pinch. There are knock-on effects in the carriage of raw materials. fuels. minerals. etc. that the Asian manufactures buy to turn into what we Europeans and the Americans buy.

The ship types you list, heavy lift, ocean going tugs, LPG, tend to be more "niche" market with fewer players, and where due to the specialisation involved, fewer people pile in . They are less subject to the cyclical problems in world trade. The bulk of world shipping is however carried in tankers, dry-bulk ships and container ships. and these are not doing so well.

In that respect I have been able to gather some more details on the earnings of prominent ship types: apologies for the fact that the columns do not line up fully

rates per day
2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 May-11
Tankers
Modern VLCC 58,024 60,829 55,488 92,511 32,009 37,929 23,085 14,438
suezmax 50,700 49,590 42,595 76,634 28,211 31,259 25,048 18,275
Aframax 41,032 38,598 35,185 49,944 15,483 19,792 14,824 13,016
Product tankers 31,123 27,184 26,016 22,336 8,194 10,180 12,721 12,747

Bulkers
capeSize 47,475 41,710 103,097 90,481 36,605 30,587 5,884 5,389
panamax 21,897 21,897 47,603 41,498 14,132 20,221 11,367 13,107
handymax 21,286 21,478 45,082 38,679 15,827 12,798 11,440 11,919

Containers 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 May-11
725 TEU feedermax 9,888 12,755 8,900 9,054 7,563 3,558 4,535 6,100
1000 TEU Handy GRD 14,475 17,700 12,350 12,500 10,346 4,075 6,133 9,000
1400 TEU '' '' 23,108 27,146 17,079 16,613 14,108 4,754 6,800 12,100
2000 TEU G/less 26,267 28,750 18,392 19,696 16,313 5,054 7,467 12,600
2750 '' '' 33,850 34,813 22,646 26,292 21,958 5,638 9,942 17,750
3500 '' '' 35,621 38,427 26,583 29,958 26,125 6,575 13,250 20,000

1700DWT MPP 11,321 14,938 12,083 14,792 17,792 9,101 9,604 10,000

The figures show that most ship types are probably operating at loss. Only the 1700 DWT Multi purpose ships are operating at close to 2005 levels, and operating costs have increased.

In tankers the figures for new orders show 900 or so ships/110m DWT ion order, or 24% of the current fleet.
In bulkers the figures are 3000 ships/250 m DWT on order, or 46% of current fleet
In containers the order book represents 28% of the world fleet.

All this capacity has to be absorbed and quite simply world trade is not expected to increase that much and scrapping likewise is unlikely to make much of a dent, since there are lots of ships which are not yet life-expired and with money still owing .

What has also hurt is that in the past year Bunker prices have gone up: in August 2010 380 CST stood at about USD450, and now it it is about US$675: 180 CST has gone from 470 to just over 700 in the same period: MDO has gone from about $690 to over $1000 (all prices per tonne). These are close to 50% increases.

These fuel increases have started to alter the dynamics of world trade: with low fuel prices it was very cost effective to make in Asia where manufacturing costs were cheap: with higher transport costs it is increasingly cost effective to make more locally in Europe and the USA.

Most container lines have posted losses: they are dumping capacity - they are doing more slot sharing - some have gone altogether. Same in Bulk and tanker trades: in every trade some owners are selling ships to reduce costs and raise capital to help deal with the debts.

The only thing stopping a major collapse is the reluctance of the banks to pull the plug and be left with ships on their hands which they can only sell at a very low price, less than the debts, and behind the scenes hell of a lot of loan re-arrangements are taking place.

As for Greek Ship owners not wanting to cancel I can tell you that is not true. We had to deal with one Greek based operator who had bought a ship under construction at the top of the boom. When the market collapsed and well before delivery was due the buyer then threatened to cancel: we had quite a long /costly legal dispute with him, and he ultimately got a discount on the price of $3 Million out of about $ 75 million. It is quite hard to cancel an order without very good reason.

The problem lay withe cheap and easy credit. It ain't going to get better soon - Europe and America must start buying more, but they do not have the money. Indeed
some people think, possibly with some justification, that the worst may still be to come as they say that lurking in the background is growing US debt crises.

That is what the ship owners are probably praying about.

As for Siemens, and corruption and the *ankers and accountants, I mostly agree with you.

If Siemens have committed a criminal offence in Germany then fine, let them do a deal with the German Prosecutors but if what they did was also criminal under Greek law as far as I am concerned they separately have to deal with the Greek Prosecuting Authorities: I do not think even double jeopardy applies - seperate place seperate charges. Unless clearly agreed between the Greek and German Authorities I cannot see how any decision of the German legal authorities can be binding on Greece as that interferes with the sovereign right of the Greeks to enforce their laws in their country.

[supporttheunderdog]

Underdog,

Shipping has always been a cyclical business and always will be and the ups and downs affect all owners. I wonder what Maersk with 600 ships thinks about your forecast of their business being in the shitter. The shipowners I know personally seem to be doing well, one operates heavy lifting ships, another ocean going tugs, a third LPG carriers. As for orders, no Greek shipowner has cancelled builds or options yet. So they seem to calculate that something will change.

The overall reality is that EU has no policy and no solidarity to deal with crises so they fall back on cheap slogans like the Greeks do not work, when their own surveys show that per capita Greeks put in most hours in the EU, have fewer holidays than Germans and indulge in the black economy no more and no less than most. Tax rates are among the highest in the EU.

If German economists are so smart how come they made no warning sounds when Greece was ranking No 1 in BMW imports a few years back. The surpluses of Germany are the deficits of the south, their favorite clients for anything, from cars to infrastructure and telephone systems (call me Siemens) are in the south of the EU.

And they did bribe their way to success, even in the USA who slapped them with repeated fines and agreements for restitution. The latest US scandal was only last month when Deutsch Bank, a bank for fucks sake, the temple of integrity, got fined hundreds of millions for encouraging and abetting US tax evaders!

THe latest news is that Siemens who bribed heavily in Greece is SUING Greece in a Munich district court seeking a declaration that it bears no liability for bribery, since it has already done a deal with German prosecutors to settle. These are the leaders, or that is how they would like to project themselves, of the EU and the Eurozone. They are the ones who talk about corruption and tax evasion as being problems, they should know, they create them.

Mearsk is now making losses
http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/839d1cc4 ... z1v4JSNT3M

As for Greek Buyers not cancelling
http://www.seanews.com.tr/article/SHIPB ... cellation/

Now everyone also seems to concede that Greece will exit the Euro: The sad factor in all of this is that it is the ordinary Greek working person who is most likely to suffer the worst. The richer Greeks have already exported their wealth from Greece so they will not be hit by the problems that will flow from the forecast return to the Drachma and the anticipated rapid collapse in value of that currency.

The problem is our local banks are not just going to get a haircut, some could be virtually decapitated by their own financial mismanagement in buying so heavily into the Greek bonds, where agin we have the typical blame game - no the *ankers say, its not our fault - its the regulators' or the governments' fault. B*ll*cks! Well Mr *anker, you chose to do the risky deals.

[GreekIslandGirl]

Now everyone also seems to concede that Greece will exit the Euro:

No one of any worth or significance in the EU concedes such a thing - only the muck-spreader HFM/bankers and propaganda merchants who are trying to fulfill their doomsday prophecies by repetition of this well-worn woe are once again, and again, and again churning out this tired prediction.

Heard it all before. Hear it every few months. Heard it year in year out now. Have I told you how many times I've heard this already?

Well, Greece is in it to win it!