The ECB Takes A Hard Line

... and the Greeks have drained their ATMs. The Greek government has shut down the banking system, too. Looks like I was wrong on this one. The ECB will go out for lattes after they whack the Greeks. I still don't know if they've decided to let the Greeks leave, though. After this, it seems like the decision has already been made by the Greek people who are trying to get their money out of the country as fast as possible.



Meanwhile, some Greeks are not getting the hint that the government is kaput.

On Athens’s rainy streets late Sunday, many ATMs had already been emptied. Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras’s announcement that he would call a referendum on the economic terms that Greece’s creditors want for fresh aid sent many Greeks scurrying to bank machines over the weekend to grab what remaining cash they could.

“How can something like this happen without prior warning?” asked Angeliki Psarianou, a 67-year-old retired public servant, who stood in the drizzle after arriving too late at one empty ATM in the Greek capital. “I want Tsipras to tell me how I am going to make it through the week with €10 in my bag with rent coming up. It has never been as bad as this.”

Angeliki, dude, Tsipras has nothing. You might as well talk to the empty ATM.