Greece is bankrupt. From Bloomberg:
Greeks Line Up at Banks and Drain ATMs as Tsipras Calls Vote
Greece’s banks may need an injection of fresh emergency funds to operate Monday as people rushed to pull out money after Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras called a referendum that could decide his country’s fate in the euro.
Two senior Greek retail bank executives said as many as 500 of the country’s more than 7,000 ATMs had run out of cash as of Saturday morning, and that some lenders may not be able to open on Monday unless there was an emergency liquidity injection from the Bank of Greece. An official with Greece’s Capital Markets Commission, the markets’ regulator, also warned that the Athens Stock Exchange may be unable to operate on Monday without a cash injection into the banking system. A Greek central bank spokesman said it was making efforts to supply money.
The European Central Bank’s governing council was expected to hold a conference call on Sunday to review the banks’ liquidity condition, said a Greek official, who asked not to be named in line with policy. The Frankfurt-based central bank said in a twitter post that it’s closely monitoring developments and would review the situation “in due course.”
This is the end-game of living beyond your means. The Greeks were more than happy to have massive handouts from their government - even if they knew somehow that they were unsustainable. They thought that there would always be another bailout.
Time to put the hammer down and say no - live within your means.
What is troubling is that we are headed down the same path - there are some worrying financial signs afoot...