"Greece would be taking a stupendous gamble by missing its IMF payments"

The UK Telegraph have this today: "Greece would be taking a stupendous gamble by missing its IMF payments"

"Stupendous" isn't the "stup" word I would have used, but still, an excellent summary piece. Its ungated and well worth a read.

Here is where we are at:

• Greece has a €448m IMF loan repayment that is due on April 9
• The latest is that late on Sunday night, Christine Lagarde, the head of the International Monetary Fund, said that Yanis Varoufakis, the Greek finance minister, had assured her the IMF would get its money back.

Should Greece fail to cough up on Thursday, the country will still have another 30 days grace in which to pay the arrears before it is technically in default

The group of countries that have made late payments to the IMF - including Somalia, Sudan and Zimbabwe - do not constitute a very prestigious club. The markets are unlikely to look favourably on Greece joining their number. The longer it takes the creditor nations to blink, the bigger the hit to Greece's reputation and the larger the hole it will be in.

The Telegraph goes on (bolding mine):

... a failure to pay the IMF ... The potential ramifications oscillate between the benign and the cataclysmic depending on the exact sequence of events and how the markets react - one of life's great imponderables at the best of times. One thing is clear: the Greek government would be taking an absolutely staggering risk.