for more on the world's most valuable fleet is tom metcalf. shipping industry there was some concern about this before the election. these guys are doing all right. tom: absolutely. this is one area where greece is a world-class industry sector. these guys are doing all right. at the moment, tough times, but these fortunes have been built up over decades, not the last few years. an extraordinary and of wealth has been generated. the fleet is worth more than $100 billion. these guys have $8 billion of net worth themselves. jonathan: as you look at the rates, what is the attitude towards these guys? we celebrate them in london. we celebrate them in the united states? do we celebrate them in athens? tom: i was there for a week and i think the angry side of that is pretty obvious. they get pretty frustrated as a general sense. perhaps they are not paying tax, etc. the interesting thing to look at is the new government. they had pretty aggressive rhetoric that these guys need to pay more. since then, there has not been much about that. i think they

joining us now for more is tom metcalf. great to have you on the program. give us some background. k billionaires and shipping magnate's are not really taxed that much. tom: it is actually written into the constitution that all international earnings on the shipping companies are basically exempt from tax. instead they pay a tonnage tax, a fairly nominal charge on the entire fleet. this is the hot potato right now, in terms of will the shipping industry pay more in greece or not? the billionaires at the top have already made their money and they are quite comfortable moving their things abroad if they need to. francine: we had a greek billionaire on this program maybe a month and a half ago and he was saying, we are just being compliant. you have other places in the world where they are paying a tax. it would be easy for these billionaires to just move their operations abroad because they don't actually make anything in greece. tom: you could literally just move the ships across the ocean. they have a lot of the management companies in athens or other suburbs. one of the four billio

metcalf. teaches teaches american university, secrecy law. thank you for your time. >> guest: glad to be here. >> fcc chair tom wheeler took questions from house members today on whether the white house instructed the fcc to change direction on the recent open internet vote. here is a look. we heard from 750 750 different expertise, over 140 members of congress the administration both in the form of pres. obama's very public statement on november the 10th and in the form of an tiaa formal submission. here i would like to be clear, there were no secret instructions from the white house. i did not as ceo of an independent agency feel obligated to follow the president's recommendation. but i did feel obligated to treated with the respect that it deserves, just as i have treated with similar respects the input both pro and con from 140 senators and representatives. most significantly, as has been pointed out, we heard from 4 million americans listened and learned throughout this entire process and made our decision based on a tremendous public record. >> see fcc chair tom wheeler again tomorrow when he testifies on the knew open internet rules bef