Auf Wiedersehen Griechenland

By closing its banks, Greece may be admitting that they are no longer solvent. If so, then the ECB can no longer offer support and may even insist on all the €89 billion it has lent Greek banks through the "emergency liquidity assistance" mechanism be repaid.

Even if Greece votes on 5 July to remain in the euro zone, Greeks must accept that there will no longer be 'business as usual'. Successive governments of the Hellenic Republic have either been unwilling to exercise leadership on economic reforms or have misrepresented the nation's accounts so as to secure entry into the euro zone.

It's time to end the rot in Athens or to drain the rivers of cash flowing from Berlin, Frankfurt and Paris. Both can't continue.

After the crisis of 2010, many in Greece and beyond hoped the nation would do what needs to be done to place it on a better financial footing. To put it mildly, their hopes went unfulfilled.

In 2013, the Secretary-General of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development visited Athens to report on progress since 2010. The publication makes for very gloomy reading.

While the report mentions that in the last 3 years Greece "has made impressive headway in cutting its fiscal and external imbalances and implementing structural reforms to raise labour market flexibility and improve labour competitiveness", such comments are drowned in the seas of criticism that include references to:

• "More [work] needs to be done";
• The OECD identified 555 problematic regulations and 329 provisions;
• The improvement in Greece's business climate is largely nominal";
• The World Economic Forum's Global Competitiveness Report, ranks Greece – in the wastefulness of government spending measurement - at 140th out of 148 countries;
• On the burdens of government regulation, 144th;
• Efficiency of the judicial system, 138th;
• The effects of taxation on investment, 142nd;
• A lack of competition in virtually every professional services field; and
• Public-sector unions not only oppose reform, but also are strongholds of waste and corruption.

The OECD goes on and on. Ploughing new depths of depression with the turning of every page.

Franco-German fantasies of Greece willingly reforming its economy sufficiently to meet euro zone standards and repaying its loans are less likely to bear fruit than wishful thinking of Da'esh surrendering the quest for an Islamic Caliphate stretching from Morocco to Mindanao.

The Troika must come to grips with the reality not only of Greece but also of all of its financially unfit Club Med member states. And make the necessary preparations.

If not, then the words of Jeremiah 5:21 (King James version) will prove once again most prophetic:

"Hear now this, O foolish people, and without understanding; which have eyes, and see not; which have ears, and hear not"