The Empty Threat Of Broken Greek Printing Presses

So, the Greeks having thumpingly rejected the ECB offers of conditional loans (and missed their latest payment deadline), the logical assumption is that Greece will exit the European Union and reboot the drachma. Except, finance minister Yanis Varoufakis says they can't, because they have no printing capacity:

"We don't have the capacity," Yanis Varoufakis told Australian public radio network ABC.

In 2000, the year before Greece joined the eurozone, "one of the things we had to do was get rid of all our printing presses" as part of the bloc's assertion that "this monetary union is irreversible," he said.

"We smashed the printing presses -- we have no printing presses," Varoufakis said.

(Well, actually, make that ex-finance minister.) But in truth, it wouldn't be that hard; private firms in the United States could print the currency, as they did for Lithuania after the Berlin Wall fell. It might be embarrassing, but no more so than being a deadbeat.