—Gillian White

12:32 p.m.

Stocks in Europe were calmer earlier today on the news that Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras might reach a last minute bailout deal with Greece’s creditors. Things took a turn before the markets closed as no deal has been reached yet. The Stoxx Europe 600 Index dropped 1.26 percent at close, the FTSE 100 closed down 1.5 percent, with losses in Germany’s Dax index and France’s Cac 40 as well.

U.S. stocks were up earlier today as well, rebounding from yesterday’s selloff. Though at the moment, it looks like the Dow and S&P have erased much of the gains from this morning—likely on the news that a deal might not be reached tonight.

—Bourree Lam

12:13 p.m.

William Antholis, the former director of international economic affairs on the White House National Security Council, writes in Fortune about his experience with the politics and politicians behind the current crisis and reflects on the most important aspect of the debt debacle—how it impacts the people of Greece.

This year the crisis came home directly. The look of real frustration and fear in the faces of hotel clerks, cab drivers, restaurant owners, and politicians remind us that modern, industrial societies can experience true depression. ... There is still a chance that they can pull a rabbit out of the hat. But for the first time in the last five years, I’m not optimistic.

You can read the entire essay here.

—Gillian White

11:54 a.m.

Greece’s finance minister Yanis Varoufakis is mobbed by reporters as he leaves his office in Athens on motorbike to meet with Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras at Maximos Mansion.

(Daniel Ochoa de Olza / AP Photos)

Greece is several hours from the midnight default deadline, and euro zone finance ministers are set to review Tsipras’ new bailout proposal using European Stability Mechanism loans in an hour.

—Bourree Lam

11:37 a.m.

Deutsche Welle notes that Nobel prize-winning economists are divided on whether or not Greek voters should accept the deal they’re being asked to vote on in Sunday’s “Greferendum.” Joseph Stiglitz and Paul Krugman are in the “no” camp.

Here’s Stiglitz, who scolds Greece’s creditors in The Guardian for the “abysmal” economics behind the last bailout, and warns that the current proposals will “inevitably result in a deeper downturn”:

I can think of no depression, ever, that has been so deliberate and had such catastrophic consequences: Greece’s rate of youth unemployment, for example, now exceeds 60%. It is startling that the troika has refused to accept responsibility for any of this or admit how bad its forecasts and models have been. But what is even more surprising is that Europe’s leaders have not even learned. The troika is still demanding that Greece achieve a primary budget surplus (excluding interest payments) of 3.5% of GDP by 2018. .... [A] no vote would at least open the possibility that Greece, with its strong democratic tradition, might grasp its destiny in its own hands. Greeks might gain the opportunity to shape a future that, though perhaps not as prosperous as the past, is far more hopeful than the unconscionable torture of the present. I know how I would vote.

Here’s Krugman, doubling down on the Greece-related portmanteaus in a blog post titled “Grisis:”

I would vote no, for two reasons. First, much as the prospect of euro exit frightens everyone—me included—the troika is now effectively demanding that the policy regime of the past five years be continued indefinitely. Where is the hope in that? Maybe, just maybe, the willingness to leave will inspire a rethink, although probably not. But even so, devaluation couldn’t create that much more chaos than already exists, and would pave the way for eventual recovery, just as it has in many other times and places. Greece is not that different. Second, the political implications of a yes vote would be deeply troubling. The troika clearly did a reverse Corleone—they made Tsipras an offer he can’t accept, and presumably did this knowingly. So the ultimatum was, in effect, a move to replace the Greek government. And even if you don’t like Syriza, that has to be disturbing for anyone who believes in European ideals.

Christopher Pissarides, another Nobel-winner who was one of Stiglitz’s co-authors in a Financial Times letter to the editor urging debt relief for Greece in exchange for reforms, said Greece should vote yes:

The only thing that could get us moving in a good direction is a Yes vote and a strong government to sit there and renegotiate some parts of the program. I know the suggestions have been withdrawn by the European institutions, but I am sure if there is a Yes vote, especially if there is a good majority, they would come back to the negotiating table and negotiate something on the debt, negotiate some immediate policy needed now to get us into a reform program and move forward from there. I can't see how a No vote would help anything at all now. I would vote Yes and I would encourage everyone that I can to vote Yes, because a No vote would be a complete dead end which would lead eventually to a Grexit.

FT’s Martin Wolf, is “a-pox-on-both-their-houses” noncommittal:

In making my decision, I would bemoan both the idiotic leftism of my own government and the self-righteousness of the rest of the euro zone. Nobody comes out of this saga with credit. The Syriza government has failed to put forward a credible program of reform that might solve the multiple problems of the Greek economy and polity. It has instead made populist gestures. It is, in brief, a dreadful government produced by desperate times. Yet the euro zone, too, deserves substantial blame for the outcome. One would never guess from its rhetoric that Germany was a serial defaulter in the 20th century. Moreover, there is no democracy, including the UK, whose politics would survive such a huge depression unscathed. Remember, when Germany last suffered a depression of this magnitude, Hitler came to power. Yes, Syriza is the outcome of infantile and irresponsible Greek politics. But it is also the result of blunders committed by the creditors since 2010 and, above all, insistence on bailing out Greece’s foolish private creditors at the expense of the Greek people.

As for what Greek voters themselves are facing, the text of the referendum itself, which my colleagues posted below, is confusing. It refers to “the plan of agreement” submitted June 25, 2015—which, given Greece’s apparent new offer, and the imminent threat of Greece not paying the IMF by today’s deadline, may not even still be on offer by the time Greeks are expected to cast ballots on Sunday. (Though, who knows, the referendum itself might be called off.) As the BBC notes, “there is still a question over when and how voters will be presented with those documents, and whether world-class economists will be on hand at polling stations to explain them.”