To the Editor:

In his June 29 column, “Greece Over the Brink,” Paul Krugman writes, “Greece should vote ‘no,’ and the Greek government should be ready, if necessary, to leave the euro.”

I am astounded at the ease with which he recommends this at a time when A.T.M.s in Athens are empty, capital controls — with a 60-euro daily withdrawal limit — are in place, lines are forming at gas stations and supermarkets, and pensions are not being paid. And he nonchalantly adds, “Much and perhaps most of the feared chaos from Grexit” — a Greek exit from the euro — “has already happened.”

Really? Perhaps this is how it is seen from New York; it is certainly not how it feels in Athens.

Mr. Krugman, together with a number of other illustrious American economists, looks at Greece as a playground for the austerity versus non-austerity debate. Except that this is not the issue in Greece today.

There were no doubt many faults in the bailout programs that Greece entered into. But what they and successive Greek governments since 2010 achieved, starting with the one in which I served as finance minister under George Papandreou, was to avoid exactly the meltdown we are seeing today.