One Weird Trick To Help Greece
Summary
Instead of deciding whether to accept the creditors’ offer himself, Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras put the decision to a referendum, or public vote, to be held this Sunday. As news of the negotiations sputtering out reached the general population, the country saw a run on the banks, which resulted in the implementation of capital controls, currently allowing Greeks to withdraw €60 a day at ATMs and placing a limit on any foreign transactions, even for something as mundane as payments for iCloud. And even if it were, that wouldn’t solve the debt problem, as there’s an even bigger payment looming down the road: Greece owes 340 billion € in total, more money than Apple’s cash on hand. Even though the money raised in the new campaign would be comparatively modest, it could go to Zerofund’s efforts, in addition to non-profit organizations like Desmos, who are on the ground in Greece making sure people who have lost everything have the basic necessities of life like food and shelter. While Amazon Web Services is a bit higher on Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, Papadopoulous says that they’ve had 30 applicants for the payment relief program so far, and is already helping 10 startups weather the crisis.