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Where The Greeks Are Hiding Their Cash
While today surprised some with its lack of images of Greeks standing in line furiously pulling cash from bank ATMs, as Bloomberg reports, Greeks are anxiously stashing cash in the most unusual places...
As Bloomberg reports, in the days after Tsipras’s election, the nation’s banks found themselves busy again...
The teller at National Bank of Greece SA leaned forward to tell one customer something he’s noticed over the past few days.
“Had you come in last week, without warning, I wouldn’t have been able to give you so much cash,” he said in a low voice to the client withdrawing 20,000 euros. “We didn’t have the money.”
And stashing it wherever they can - that's not under the eye of the government...
He said customers coming in to withdraw funds ahead of the election were for the most part older Greeks worried about their savings, removing cash and stashing it in safe deposit boxes.
Another favorite for an older generation of Greeks is to buy gold sovereigns from the central bank.
On Greek said that he’d withdrawn 25,000 euros from the bank, taken it home, worked loose a tile in the bathroom and stashed the money there.
Another took the cash to his village and buried it in the garden.
Yet another fashioned a small safe box in the air-conditioning unit on his balcony.
“I can’t fault these people,” said Karavelas, 37. “They were obviously people who had worked hard for their money, with families and jobs, not oligarchs.”
And deposit runs continue...
The deposit outflows in the walk up to the elections would rival banks’ losses in 2012 when back-to-back elections in May and June fanned fears Greece would leave the euro.
“The story of the Greek deposits is not one of a bank run but a bank marathon,” said Andreas Koutras, a partner at In Touch Capital Markets Ltd. in London. “The smart money is long gone and there are few accounts with more than 100,000. The true barometer of fear is the amount of hard cash that is withdrawn, not how much is transferred outside Greece. This has gone up the past two months.”
And finally, if you are wondering why Greek Bank runs have not been greater so far...
Karavelas, the taxi driver, said he commiserates with his clients even though he has little to worry about. “I don’t have deposits,” said the father of two who still has his savings in the bank. “I have about 1,000, 2,000 euros in the bank and that’s for my children.”
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Sniff the cash.
I hid my euros in Angela Merkel's bra. Ain't nobody going to try to get them there. See...I'm thinking!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zvl9N9GdraQ
Picture on the home page reminded me of Mr Panos
I'm gonna hide mine in Whitney Houstons' daughter's shroud. Nobody'll think of lookin' there!
don't forget to use dessicant to help preserve your paper bills when they are stuffed away in some airtight place. All it takes is one experience with aged rotten bills that can't be spent and you'll know what you forgot to do.
Now you know why house to house combat is so much fun....and profitable
This guy must be greek....
http://blog.seattlepi.com/seattle911/2015/02/03/police-recover-stolen-ca...
Mr. Panos aways brings a smile to my face. Rob the Euro blind with my blessing.
Gold Bitchez...I pick up pennies
greeks money is in german nazi bank accounts....
or.. more recently, in rich alcoholic russians ones.
I suspect that some of the Greeks digging holes in the garden to bury their stash willaccidentally dig up coin stashes from when the Romans took over Greece 2100 years ago.
Same as it ever was...
so, next step is to organize bank runs ???
of course a few well placed articles here and there might be of help ...
Most Greeks I think have already taken their money out. As long as the Greek banks are dependent upon the EU/IMF/Troika/whatever... you would be silly not to. Two words... capital controls.
Just remember to diversify your hiding places. In the event of being threatened with violence, you just reveal a small percentage of your cash cache unless you get the opportunity to kill the thief.
Even when walking about with cash, I keep most of it hidden in another pocket or money belt etc. and have a smaller amount I can be robbed of in my wallet while getting away with most of the money and hopefully, my life.
Desiccant isn't the answer. You gotta wash it......literally! Put your cash in the washing machine. It is the germs on it that causes your cotton to fall apart. 20 years and it still looks good in that mason jar.
Another option, if you don't mind a bit of FX risk, is to convert it to, say, CAD or AUD, as these countries' bills are made of a polymer instead of paper.
"don't forget to use dessicant to help preserve your paper bills when they are stuffed away in some airtight place. "
Ain't that the truth!
I saw some $100 bills a co-worker had buried and they had been gotten to by some insects, mold and damp. He was up all night ironing them out and had to take quite a few into a bank for exchange. It was a funny and informative morning at work that day.
Bullish for Shake Shak, Lululemon, Radio Shack & JPM.
Never trust a Greek who's broke! He's got money hidden in the matress! All Drachmas!
My understanding is that each Euro bank note is attributed to a constituent Euro state, by an alpha character on the bank serial note.
If true, Greek Euro notes can be invalidated and made worthless by the ECB. The Euro notes being hidden at home, might as well be drachmas. Maybe that's why the banks aren't running dry; print baby print!
Got gold bitchez?
Correct...
http://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/news/article-2145882/How-tell-euro-no...
Whew! I'm glad you didn't stash it in the other place or you would have found mine!
That's dirty underwear talk, sir. Never wash them in public OR is that wash your pubes in public? Whatever sommat stinks in those drawers and it ain't just the Scandinavian Herring.
Sniff led me to 37.9752033, 23.7369431
Greek Parliment....nice.
What are they? Armstrong dates?
Smell the glove.
"Where The Greeks Are Hiding Their Cash"
Man..... I was hoping this article was NSFW.
ECB/Germany will do it the US/Korean way. Pay people in Euroscipt, every few months call in the script and only allow exchange of a few hundred old Euroscript for new Euroscript. Banks only have current Euroscript, which will be the only legal tender for Greece. Of course, may take a war to do this ...
Stupid, don't tell them where you hid it you dummy!
"Hi Mr. Papadoupakoukos! I'm from Bloomberg News Incorporated Company and we're having a contest for what's the most totally awesome hiding place for your life savings ever. All I need is your current address and you could win a Danish Negative Interest Loan!"
Can't believe that in todays world people think fiat is wealth. Truly unbelievable.
As long as you can exchange it for wealth, it is wealth.. just as gold is wealth.
The difference (obviously) is that 100 years from now, the gold will still be exchangeable for wealth. Euros/USD/GBP? Not so much.
The banksters will eat away at that fiat cash with inflation. Here is the USSA, the police will just beat it out of you regardless if you have any cash - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1oTWMXfb_QY
My first thought exactly. Who the hell is asking people where they hid their cash and who the hell is dumb enough to tell them?
Well, my stuff is buried somewhere in Texas.
No one will think of looking there....
It's been deposited into the MATTRESS BANK.
Greeks are going back to time-proven basics when a Monetary or Financial Reboot looms: CASH & BARTER.
Got Cash? Got Assets? Got Skills?
Yes? Great! Step over here please...
No? Then F... Off!
Just put it somewere in the periodic table.....
Most think it's furniture and look no further
The best place I have ever heard of hiding came from another hedgie referring to hiding gold.
Hide it in a box marked old books, behind the box marked porn!
Most of them have no cash so they don't care.
Why didnt they just convert them into GOLD!?
metal detectors. if you hide gold in your home in greece you are far more likely to be robbed and it is guaranteed that it will be found in less than 10 min. cash is harder to find. unfortunate but true. all of greece is being combed by metal detectors....
If you have reinforced cement or rebar running within the cinder blocks no worries. That metal detector will be going off constantly.
The only way they find any gold coins hidden within those walls is to start tearing the walls down. And if they do that, they find the cash too !
Metal detectors are sophisticated radio transceivers which can be tuned to "discriminate" between iron, aluminum, etc. The bigger the sweep disc, the deeper the machine can search. The first metal detectors were used to locate landmines. I would be very concerned about triggering booby-traps or honey pots if I were hunting other people's gold stash and digging up "gold hits". If you are screening out copper while scanning for gold, you might miss that there are wires in the ground, part of a device "protecting" your "target".
Fools think they can go onto US Civil War battlefields at night and dig relics for sale to collectors. Park Service rangers use IR and nightvision binoculars to see everything goin on after dark. Rangers are steady jailing fools with metal detectors who don't know what is going on.
Scatter lots of small pieces of other metals around. Even some silver clad coins around the yard - that should keep them looking and looking and looking...
The guy withdrawing 20,000 euros was told by the teller last week they had no money, but now they have plenty? Where did the banks suddenly get all chock full of money from? I must be missing something here.
I do not know, but I hear the next delivery will be on the backs of German tanks.
You know, for security, It's common to have armored conveyance for cash.
yeah and the teller just told the guy ....
and the guy happened to talk to the journalist ...
it is all BS
Does Germany even have 1 tank?
actually germany make most of the tanks for europe now.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leopard_2
Yep, the Krauts love their tanks. I have not been there in a while, but last time I was, I noted every single bridge in the entire country, even little crossings over little creeks, has three weight limitation notices - one for cars, one for large trucks, and another for tanks.
http://storage.torontosun.com/v1/blogs-prod-photos/a/e/1/5/4/ae154bc9de6...
Putin has offered the T90S expedited delivery option, with enhanced capacity gas tank.
I don't know how but banks made sure to have enough cash for a small bank run so as not to cause a panic
they can bury them wherever they wish... and when they dig them up they will still have the same intrinsic value... ZERO.
Nu uh I read this old book once that said doing that generates interest
I know you joke, but in the current NIRP environment buried cash effecively appears to have higher interest rate than deposits do, which is as insane as it sounds.
Kinda makes that old argument that gold doesn't earn interest even worse to doesn't it?
I think it underscores that the answer to that particular argument is "it doesn't need to."
It won't be long before they're updating currency every 6 months and the old stuff is cancelled.
Or cancelling cash altogether and insisting on electronic-only money.
In fact, I can see the Greeks saying they're doing this to stop tax-evasion.
If I was really in the mood to be obnoxious- I would start another debate about the relative performance of physical gold versus Keynes' British fiat during the Weimar hyperinflation. But since Greek fear today is deflation (i.e a rising price of money, currency, fiat and the like) I'll just leave that alone....
But it's ironic that if the ECB actually fears deflation like the Devil itself, that they are doing everything possible to facilitate it and tip that domino in Greece...
Just like if one buried 10K worth of Confederate notes, or 10K worth of German DM, Netherlands Guilders, or French Francs before the Euro came about.
If the Euro dissolves, the notes will be good paper ruined with ink, and perhaps collectors items, but most likely not remotely close to what they were once valued at.
Good mulching material, leave it in the garden.
Bad call. It will kill the garden, just as it has everything else.
markets at all time highs because, yellen, this bank run is obviously bullish, right?
Funny how they put euro notes in a SD box - keeping cash that way in the US is illegal.
?
If the SD box is in a bank, what's the difference? they can take it either way. Out of your account directly, or drill the locks for the safe deposit box.
Its worse than keeping it in an account. At least with an account you can go to an ATM after hours.
ATMs are easily throttled. See Cyprus.
No doubt. But Ill take my chances with trying to find an ATM before I would store cash in a safety deposit box where a) you can only gain access if they allow you and b) doubtful they will let you take cash in the event of a crisis.
but your finanical institution limits the amount that you can w/d in a day...no matter how many atm's you visit, no?
Maybe it is illegal, but it is for sure stupid. Gov lookign out for our safety for once?
If yur sckerd just say so. Me, after that last G-20 I am definately an idiot.
Storiing cash in a S.D. box might be ill-advised, but it's not illegal. Some banks prohibit it in their terms of service, but that's purely a contractual thing, mostly to avoid liability and tax evasion issues with the IRS.
At some point the people will care about who they vote for & what the stand for & if it all makes sense!
The real shocker will be when this kind of thing starts to happen all over Europe. And the US. And Japan. And... well, you get the picture.
Knock it off.
Leave the Rothchilds alone.
Unfortunately,the Greeks can't stash it up their assholes,it's the first place their banksters would look..
Well, I guess bank runs aren't going to be a big problem then. Maybe this will be easier than anyone thought.
The Greeks may want to take heed of Gresham's law, and get into gold, and/or silver.
Then their is Caldwell's law: "If you don't have it, you don't got it."
The banksters need to repay us.
Gresham's law: "Bad money drives out good."
Caldwell's law #2: "Guillotines then deal with the purveyors of 'bad money'."
So, whats the drill? Withdraw Euros, convert to Rubles?
Looks to me like Greeks aren't very enthusiastic about seeing their Euros converted to Drachmas. Perhaps leaving the Euro isn't the cure-all that many ZHer's think?
Probably has more to do with anticipating an elevated exchange rate?
pretty sure the plan was never to save in pesos or drachma or whatever. pay in shit currencies, save in accumulated gold, usd, eur, or chf denominated securities.
Not portable USB drives.
The most unusual place to hide cash is in a TBTF bank with 200 trillion in derivatives paying .05% interest and a fresh bail in law their lobbyists just pushed through.
Military coup in 3..2...1...
When they bring out those stashes of euros i'm gonna purchase them for posterity at around 5% of their former value.
A kind of library/museum with all the walls papered over in Euros. Maybe a foundation like Clinton and Barry have planned. Maybe the ashes of both these fuckers and MANY others can be displayed for the whole world as a reminder of how bastards like those participated in the destruction of the planet.
Tick fucking Tock fuckers.
I would hide my Euros at Obama's birth place in Kenya.
No one is going to look there.
Or where his academic 'qualifications' are hidden. Safest place imaginable.
Here is your proof that journalism in the MSM does not exist
zerp , nothing, zero, and I mean nothing from the MSM about the real situation in Greece!!!
there is no more journalism.
The viewer demographics aren't there Mr Dollar.
Buy Gold You Dumb Fucks.
A teller doesn't know how much is in the safe. And if their stash below 20k the doors would have been locked.
Summary: BS
As a former bank employee I can tell you that in all the places I worked, the tellers knew exactly how much was in the safe. Just barely enough to operate, if that. The official reason was that it was for security, in case of robbery there was nothing to get. Those of us with half a brain knew better. Your local bank branch could run out of money on the first customer.
That actually happened to me once. I went to cash a 20k check at US Bank and was told I could have the cash in a week. No thanks, I went to my credit union and got the cash right then. I went back to US Bank to deposit it and was told that I could not write checks on this cash deposit for a week. I didn't deposit it there. Instead, I closed my account and deposited it in my credit union. Too stupid a story to believe, but true.
My CU told me today, if I wanted more than $10,000 cash, they would need a days heads-up.
During the stupid Occupy Wall St days.I would tell the hipsters if they want to crash the system...just get everyone to cash their checks and ask for cash. The banks would collapse.
Dumb arses all stood out in the cold and rain freezing their butts trying to change things.
Capital controls?
Went to the CBA in Australia a few months ago to get 5,000 and the teller was very reluctant, advised me that they would do it 'this' time but I needed to arrange for large amounts of cash in the future in advance, I laughed at them, they are supposed to be a bank for Christs sake, holding my cash,, they acted like I was taking it from their 'own' money......which now I think about it probably was exactly how they considered it.
The last goddamn place to put cash is in a "safe" deposit box. Let's see, whose building is that box in?
Greeks have cash?
The best place to keep your cash is right next to your rifle, your pistol, extra loaded magazines, and your trigger finger!
I store my cash in my ass. The only thing likely to find it is another man's penis.
Stay away from O'boner then.
Hey, these bills are wrinkled.
I'm frigging dying here! That was DEFINITELY the funniest thing I've read all day!
Thank you for that! :O)
THE SAVINGS THAT THEY HAD WERE TAKEN BY Merkel THROUGH
traitors Greek POLITICIANS who put SO MANY TAXES. Those WHO HAVE MORE MONEY ARE VERY FEWI.
SO NOBODY IS INTERESTED IF THE BANKS HAVE MONEY OR NOT .
The very rich PEOPLE TOOK THEIR MONEY OUT OF THE COUNTRY .
Merkel is now trying to turn the GREEK PEOPLE AGAINST Tsipras .
THIS MAY HAPPEN WHEN pensioners, EMPLOYEES WILL CANNOT TAKE
THEIR PENSIONS AND THEIR WAGES TOUS.
ONLY BACK IN NATIONAL CURRENCY IS THE SOLUTION .
OUTSIDE OF THE EUROZONE BUT INSIDE THE EUROPEAN UNION
These older Greeks have lived through decades of dysfunctional Greek governance, which is just the latest iteration of people attempting to survive in the wake of government; whether elective, monarchical, or dictatorial.
USA never liked formation of EU