A journalist colleague here in Athens tells me that since Syriza got into power, business has never been better.

“I mean, the story starts out as one thing in the morning. Then it’s completely different in the evening. Then totally different the next morning.”

I can certainly testify to that myself. I’ve been in the Greek capital for barely more than 24 hours and already the narrative has tossed and turned more than any regular story does in a week. When I touched down yesterday afternoon, I was told by well-placed sources that the Greek authorities were “definitely” going to make this Friday’s €300m IMF repayment; it was “nailed on”, they added.

This evening government officials are saying they will withhold the payment if there is no deal by Friday or Monday. Yesterday it sounded like Syriza was close to a deal with its creditors on what kind of primary surplus they need to aim for in their budgets in the coming years. Today they seem further away. A few hours ago one eurogroup character said he expected a deal “within hours”; then up cropped another to say he was not optimistic.

Now, some of this is certainly negotiation tactics and brinksmanship. But only so much. The real sense you get when you come here to Athens is one of chaos. Even inside the government, at the highest reaches, many ministers simply do not know what their colleagues are doing. No-one really knows what the plan is, when it comes to negotiations with the European institutions — and the more time you spend here, the more it seems that this is because there is no coherent plan.

Such a mercurial attitude towards economic policymaking can seem charming. However, in practice it has started to grind down on life here.

Since Syriza came into power almost six months ago, they have done almost literally nothing in terms of domestic economic policymaking. Of course this includes the big things: no major reforms; no crackdowns on corruption; no overhauls of taxes; no changes to the pensions or benefits system. But it also goes for the small, essential stuff as well: the transport ministry is no longer signing off new heavy goods driving licences; all investment cash to the regions has been stopped; some parts of the public sector have become so starved of cash that they cannot run: there have been no ferries to Ai Stratis — a small island in the northern Aegean — for the past month and a half.

Almost all policy decisions, major and minor, have been put off — the excuse being that nothing can be done until a deal is reached with the Europeans. This would be fine in a political system with a strong, impartial, efficient civil service like Britain. In Greece, where much of the civil service is politically-appointed and many apparently routine non-political decisions need to get ministerial approval, it is a disaster.

Worse still is the state of the country’s finances — both the public finances and the banking system. There was a rumour going around Athens today that on the final two days of last week, some €800m was withdrawn from Greek bank accounts. People comment about the fact that when you withdraw cash from the ATM you are more likely than not to get crisp new banknotes: the implication being that people simply aren’t putting the cash back into their bank accounts.

This anecdote is backed up by a little statistical nugget. In most countries the amount of cash people keep in the bank is far, far greater than the amount of cash floating around the economy (and when I say floating around, that could mean sitting in your pocket, in a shop cash register or under a mattress). In the UK there is about ten times as much money in instant access bank accounts and current accounts as there is cash circulating in the economy.

In Greece the multiple was always considerably lower: it’s a cash economy with a far bigger black market so by definition there is more money out there. But even so, before the crisis the amount of cash sitting in bank accounts tended to be about double the amount held in cash. But since the crisis this relationship has reversed. Today, there is now €4.1bn more held in cash than held in bank accounts.

No wonder some in the Bundesbank have warned that the Greek banking system is effectively at “five minutes to midnight” ahead of a possible collapse or run. All the more reason why everyone is now beyond impatient for a deal. They cannot put up with this instability, this frozen state and this chaos much longer.