Greece just closed its banks, ATMs, etc. Things were awful, and they've been on the seeming brink of financial collapse for *years*. Some very fascinating history, which ends with this:
8. The truth is, Greece never belonged in the European’s single-currency experiment to begin with but they were too small and inconsequential to say no to. The statistics they submitted were largely fudged and Northern Europe willfully overlooked the country’s well-known culture of black market economics and rampant tax evasion. It was the late 1990’s – optimism was the pervasive sentiment around the globe, ushered in by the hedonist-in-chief in the White House. The Euro Zone even looked the other way when Goldman Sachs enabled the interest-rate swaps and so forth that cooked Greece’s books to the point where they were qualified for inclusion. “F*** it, let ’em in,” said a cigarette-smoking Parisian bureaucrat sometime between his first and second lunch break that day.
9. There are no countries in the modern world that have defaulted on their loans more often than Greece, save for Honduras and Ecuador. Look it up. The fact that history is repeating for the umpteenth time should not cause you to lose your s***. Not that this is going to be a good thing. It’s going to hurt some people. But probably not hurt the world. Greece’s creditors played for time since the latest crisis began five years ago and used that time to minimize the impact of what they all probably expected from day one. When Mario Draghi gave his famous “whatever it takes” speech, he meant whatever it takes to protect the European Union – not whatever it takes to keep Greece in it. Mark Dow makes this case – that a Grexit will be the best thing for both Greece and for the EU in his new post, Greece: It’s Time and It’s Going to Be Okay. Maybe he’s right. Read it and cool off.
Bottom line – Greece has given the world many beautiful and important things and its cultural heritage is among high points in the history of humanity. But finance just isn’t its strong suit. Fortunately for the world, we’ve had time to prepare and the Greek economy is about the size of the economy of Atlanta, Georgia. Contagion is a real risk, but probably not the risk it was when this all began. More to the point, contagion is always a risk, not just when the newspapers begin talking about it.
And besides, it’s not like nobody saw this coming, given the history.