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Is the Euro the New Dollar?

time.com — The euro turns ten on Jan. 1, a milestone for one of the most powerful symbols of European identity. It's a remarkable achievement for a currency whose only global rival is the U.S. dollar. European Commission President José Manuel Barroso credits the euro for delivering lower inflation, "To put it simply, the euro works."

Who dugg this? Made popular Jan 2, 2009

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  • k3rfuffl3, on 01/02/2009, -8/+82A lot of comments so far go to show how retarded patriotism makes people.
  • MichaelVG, on 01/01/2009, -7/+65Without the euro, Belgium and other countries who had a big impact from the financial crisis would have been bankrupt. The euro was released JIT.
  • chicagojack, on 01/01/2009, -51/+86no
  • ousthouse, on 01/02/2009, -9/+37Look fellow Americans, I know we like to complain about our country (we have many reasons to), but moving towards one world currency is a very bad idea.
  • jeremymccurdy, on 01/02/2009, -0/+27I know, it costs 40 rupees for a goddamn deku shield! Highway robbery!
  • throop77, on 01/01/2009, -5/+29$30 trillion of wealth gone from stocks, $20 trillion of wealth gone from housing values (and climbing fast), credit drying up as banks fail, people getting pay cuts and being laid off... not inflation -- deflation.
  • neumulct, on 01/02/2009, -3/+25When Asian banks adopt the euro en masse, I'll look into it
  • mightycbu, on 01/02/2009, -0/+21Central European Bank already exists
  • GianDoe, on 01/02/2009, -4/+24fight fire with fire. open his account everyday, bury, bury, bury, bury...

    takes a few minutes and might not change anything, but if we don't it's definitely not going to change anything.
  • hypografik, on 01/02/2009, -0/+19Canadian dollars varied from approx. 0.62 to 1.02 compared to the US Dollars in the past 10+ years. Currently standing at .81 at the moment. You obviously had too much of these drinks.
  • 3Den, on 01/02/2009, -0/+19Doing so involves giving up local control over currency supply and centralizing monetary and economic policy.

    The reason countries have different currencies isn't arbitrary.

  • lethaldave, on 01/02/2009, -1/+17The UK won't be giving up the Pound as easily as the article seems to indicate...

    "A BBC poll has found that 71% of people would vote against Britain joining the euro if it were put to a referendum."

    http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7806936.stm
  • NoLibertarians, on 01/01/2009, -21/+37The Dollar works as well, it's not going anywhere !
  • Thinbev, on 01/02/2009, -4/+19I wish I could print pieces of paper and use them as money... It must be nice.

    One thing for sure is our politicians love paper money because they can create it out of thin air to pay for wars and their excessive government programs.
  • tgc1, on 01/02/2009, -7/+22Add religion to that retarding of people.
  • inactive, on 01/02/2009, -5/+19MrBuriedMan
  • anonypanda, on 01/02/2009, -6/+20The dollar's value is artificially high relative to everything else because oil is still traded in dollars mostly meaning there is always a base level of demand for the currency no matter what.
  • GianDoe, on 01/02/2009, -4/+18If you want news from only one source you can check out every other news organization. The purpose of Digg is to explore what many people from different points of view find interesting. Homogenizing it with one person's point of view seems to be the callous jerk move (albeit egotistical), it ruins it for everyone else.
  • highorbit, on 01/02/2009, -6/+19The problem with the Euro is the "PIGS" - Portugal, Italy, Greece and Spain. Those countries have unsustainable debt to GDP ratios and cannot fund their governments because the European monetary system limits them from running outside set deficit limits.

    I predict that by end 2009, one of those countries will start issuing bonds in local currency again - eg. Italy issuing a Lira bond. That will spell the beginning of the Euro's problems.

    You can't have a harmonized currency without a harmonized political system. The Irish bailing out their banks first showed us what happens (money flooded out of England into Irish banks), and the ECB was caught with their pants down. Same with Germany. The Euro needs to succeed, but it's certainly not yet the world's reserve currency.
  • jeremymccurdy, on 01/02/2009, -4/+17There's not going to be a ***** amero currency. It's goddamn conspiracy theory.
  • masamunecyrus, on 01/02/2009, -1/+14This article would have been more... punctual if it had been written before the current monetary crisis. Before the crisis, the Euro was reaching new highs every day! Right now, however, people are questioning whether or not the Euro will even last for another ten years with the pace that it is tanking. The USD has been hit HARD, but the Euro has been hit just as hard. Take a look at how much the Euro plummeted towards the US Dollar since August:
    http://finance.yahoo.com/echarts?s=USDEUR=X#range= ...

    The Euro had a lot of momentum going up to the current financial crisis, but this crisis has shown just how important the USD still is and how confidence in a currency can quickly shift during uncertain times. Similarly to the predictions of China replacing the US, it's simply exaggeration. If the Euro is to overtake the USD, like China, it still has a long way to go.
  • redfan, on 01/02/2009, -2/+14Well except that the dollar has increased in value against the euro over the past year.

    But don't let "math" get in the way of your posts.
  • inactive, on 01/01/2009, -15/+27The euro is overvalued relative to the dollar, just like a lot of other currencies are.
  • Thue, on 01/02/2009, -2/+14The article claims that Denmark will hold a referendum about joining the Euro in march. I don't know where they got that from; it is simply not true.
  • EarlOfLade, on 01/02/2009, -2/+14* sigh *

    The gold nuts are out in full force. The whole gold idea is such a silly and stupid idea, but that doesn't seem to penetrate the brains of you gold nuts. Not a single one of you have any clue about what a gold based economy would mean and what a disaster it would be but when you are blinded by ideology and refuse to face reality, life is simple.

  • Hrodrik, on 01/02/2009, -13/+24Yeah, It's much better.
  • hartley, on 01/02/2009, -0/+11yeah.. and we'll all be speaking esperanto as well...
  • inactive, on 01/02/2009, -1/+12It's not as simple as that.
  • AgmLauncher, on 01/02/2009, -1/+111. English is THE only official language of the US. It's not like Canada where both English and French are official and often paired together. If you speak English, you can go anywhere in the US and understand people, read signs, buy things, and get an education. You can't do that anywhere near as easily by going from one country to another in Europe.

    Everyone underestimates the power of language barriers in keeping people and cultures divided.

    2. The states in the US don't control economic policy. That is the job of the Federal Reserve, which is a central entity.

    3. All banks in the US must obey federal laws, not state-specific laws. That's very different from how Germany manages its banks as compared to say, the Netherlands (not sure if either of those countries use the Euro, just using it as an example).

    The states are absolutely not as independent from one another as the different countries of Europe are.
  • Aeaus, on 01/01/2009, -1/+11These days? When it's at it's highest in a period of years?
  • enantiodromia, on 01/02/2009, -5/+15alarmist crap
  • AaronS2000, on 01/01/2009, -1/+11http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sacagawea_dollar
  • lordmetroid, on 01/02/2009, -2/+12Money does not equal wealth. Wealth are the products, money are merely a value measurement of the wealth. The wealth hasn't changed(the houses and products still exists), merely the scale for mesuring the value of the wealth in exchanges has changed.
  • inactive, on 01/02/2009, -7/+17Britain looks on with envy as the Euro rises, the Pound falls. Swallow your pride & join an important element of european integration you conservative bastards
  • trolleyfan, on 01/02/2009, -0/+10No - but's been confiscated by governments all the time...which is pretty much (from your standpoint, anyway) the same thing.
  • Super6, on 01/02/2009, -10/+20The Euro is strange because you can't control the currency for your own country. It removes economic decision making from the people and increases power distance. The closer you are to your currency the better off you are. That's one of the reasons gold is so good, each individual has control.
  • glinsvad, on 01/01/2009, -2/+11More that a quarter of the globally allocated foreign exchange reserves are claimed in euros. For U.S. dollars it's just below two thirds. Basically, this hasn't changed in the last two years, cf. COFER (3rd fiscal quarter, '08 vs. '06), though the foreign exchange reserves have been beefed up by 40% since then. I don't think the euro is going to overthrow the U.S. dollar anytime soon.
  • inactive, on 01/02/2009, -2/+11We need competing currencies. Imagine if we only had the Euro and it began to tank. Where would you go to? Gold, silver, land, hard assets? That's not such a bad thing. Maybe we need to tank all of the fiat money in order to get into something more tangible. Next thing you know they'll be talking about using only digital money. That would be pretty messed up.
  • inactive, on 01/02/2009, -1/+9Because the world criminals are a GREAT predictor of future trends. Just like how cocaine has been adopted as currency, right?
  • inactive, on 01/02/2009, -1/+9Why do you speak like yoda?
  • LowHz, on 01/02/2009, -2/+10No. Buried him. And you too.
  • Goodanswer, on 01/02/2009, -1/+9Intelligent reply, put forth, he has.


    google the term Fiat money and youll see the US dollar. The Euro is based on the same principles.
  • Lynxpro, on 01/02/2009, -2/+10Perhaps, but how much of the euro's success is actually attributed to a strong Euroland [the term for all the nation states that use the euro] economy? The EU's economy has not been as successful as the US even after the adoption of the euro. What was it...three years ago when Tony Blair and other leaders were trying to pass EU reforms that would make the EU the easiest place to start a new business? Yeah, that didn't turn out well.

    Seems to me that much of the euro's "success" has to do with a desire by many international investors to have a second currency equal to the US dollar as a means of hedging long term bets [excuse me, investments]. I also seem to recall the time when the euro sank to about 86 US cents and that was two years after it debuted at $1.26 US per euro.

    If Europeans used automobiles - and thus used as much oil - as the US did, the euro would already have tanked. But thanks to Europe's dense urban population coupled with excellent mass transit and high taxes on gasoline/petrol and diesel, that pretty much shields a good portion of the European economy from energy speculators who have driven the US economy into the current recession and economic unease.

    You know, critics said Margaret Thatcher was crazy when she suggested that the European currency simply be a parallel virtual credit currency, yet that idea would work without damaging the member nation states abilities to fluctuate their own internal interest rates to fit their economy's needs. And yet that suggestion drove her from her office. Funny how members of the Council on Foreign Relations started suggesting last year of the need for an international private/parallel currency [but based upon the gold standard] which would pretty much mimic Thatcher's proposals for what would later become the euro.
  • HalsMyPal, on 01/02/2009, -0/+8its because of those damn Kokiri kids not taken care of the damn forest! i think the Hyrulian government should subsidize the deku industry to bring the cost down. then maybe, maybe, i will continue on and beat Dudongo's cavern but i dont want to have to keep buying the damn things every time they burn!

    if only i could use my hyrulian shield instead.......
  • ryan83189, on 01/02/2009, -0/+7A great way to put a few zeros after your currency.
  • inactive, on 01/02/2009, -0/+7Me thinks the lads been watching Zeitgeist
  • trolleyfan, on 01/02/2009, -5/+12There simply isn't enough gold to go around without it's price being inflated hugely.
  • chaoswings, on 01/02/2009, -0/+7"Whenever the ***** really hits the American fan."

    Have you read the news lately?
  • glhf, on 01/02/2009, -0/+7Um. The US is very diverse. Never question the corruptibility of people.
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