The Euro

Picture of bills with US bill by Therlin · 2002-01-01 06:12 · Score: 5, Interesting

I was able to get a hold of a couple Euros and I took a picture with the only bill I had at home at the moment (a $2 bill)

Picture of a 5 Euro bill, 10 Euro bill, 1 Euro coin

They are pretty cool looking.

Re:Picture of bills with US bill by snake_dad · 2002-01-01 06:53 · Score: 4, Interesting

Hmm... overnight? That hurt, you flaming [fill in the blank]! :-)

I really, really hope for you that your country never switches currencies. These past 2 years, and especially the last couple of months have been hell, putting a lot of effort in adapting some real old software packages to a different currency, converting millions of records to the new values, dealing with rounding errors, and trying to find out where critical errors may come up.

The economy will not be affected very much imho, but for us IT people it has not been fun.

btw, you were right. That did it indeed :-)

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Re:Picture of bills with US bill by dgroskind · 2002-01-01 10:02 · Score: 3, Interesting

They pegged their currency to the U.S. dollar - in all practical terms that means they adopted the U.S. dollar. But the U.S. dollar kept gaining value as the American economy grew, so that Argentinian exports became too expensive and the economy suffered.
Ecuador adopted the U.S. dollar as its national currency in March, 2000, and now, according to the Economist, "Ecuador is now Latin America's fastest-growing economy, its GDP set to expand by over 5% this year. Much of the social unrest of recent years has died down."
When a country can't control its own monetary policy, it is more likely a symptom of a serious problem, not a cause.

Are we becoming like star trek? by alen · 2002-01-01 06:24 · Score: 3, Interesting

First we have international trade and monetary agreements like nafta, european union, european common market and the upcoming north and south america trade zone. How far away are we from a one world federal union? Europe is already moving to a common legislature and and some common agencies like approving corporate mergers.

I think in the next 20 years as trade zones evolve we will see the union of trade zones until there is true free world trade. Then in our lifetimes we may see the start of a common world government.

Different versions of the Euro... by wavecentral · 2002-01-01 06:26 · Score: 3, Interesting

Interestingly enough, each member of the EU has a series of euro coins for their own countries. Sort of like how the US has produced quarters for different states. It's quite nice and still perserves the autonomy.

Also, an interesting note, is that the EU states will still need to produce their own stamps but put them in the EURO currency pricing, which will be nice for collectors and more autonomy.

FYI, I was over in Germany for three weeks and spoke to a couple of folks about how they viewed the EURO. Alot of the older folks were worried about how non-assest items will be valued. For example, appraisals. Something that use to be appraised for 5.500 DM, will it be assessed at 2,811 EUROS come a couple months down the road?

Re:One simple reason why it won't work: by Lemmy+Caution · 2002-01-01 06:34 · Score: 5, Interesting

What are you talking about? What restrictions on moving and working in other European countries are you refering to?

One of the advantages that Europe has is that language and culture maintain national entities in such a way as to resist the "winner take all" scenario, in which all the educated professionals move to a tiny handful of economic supercenters. Economic growth can be distributed geographically more in Europe, but it has nothing to do with any restrictions on travel.

One of the ironies of economic popular wisdom in the 90's is apparent by the fact that Brazil, with its protectionist policies, is doing reasonably well, while Argentina, which did almost everything the IMF and the US banking establishment told it to it, is about to go toes-up. The Argentine disaster could spell the end of WTO-styled globalism far more than the protests of Seattle etc. ever could

Issues with the euro in day-to-day life by Xouba · 2002-01-01 06:42 · Score: 5, Interesting

Well, being one of the 300 million affected, I just thought that I could karma whore a little and get an "informative" mod by telling you (the non-european or non-affected-even-if-european people) a few issues that arise in real life with this change :-) Let's hope not to be another of a million messages about this O:-)

First, I suppose that you don't really imagine what this change means for every Joe European's day-to-day life. In Spain, 1 euro is 166.386 pesetas. There's a few rough equivalences, like 6 euro = 1000 pesetas, but anyway it's quite tricky to know, for example, how many euros are 135 pesetas, or how many pesetas are 4.27 euros. And many people (me, at least) need to know that equivalences in the first days, to make an idea about what you are paying.
Given this difficulties, every government has tried its best to inform every citizen about the equivalences, how to use the euro ... and has made available a kind of "calculators" that consist in a little plastic piece that shows euros and their equivalences in the local currency, to be used by everyone. They're pretty cool, if someone is able to take a photo of any and post it, please do :-)
The devil is in the details, as they say, and in this case the devil is in the rounding. As I said, 6 euros are roughly 1000 pesetas. But that's not exact: 6.01 is more precise. This doesn't mean anything in "cheap" things, but if you're going to buy a car ... There's a lot of concern about the way that commerces are going to apply rounding, as many think that they're going to raise prices to make them more "euro-compliant".
Most of the prices were already both in euros and local currency since months ago, so everyone could make an idea about what prices were going to be like in euros (a cinema ticket is about 4 euros in "spectator's day", for example). But anyway, in my personal experience, nobody looked at the prices in euros, so the impact of this measure is, for me, doubtful :-) Anyway, bussiness have to work in euros from now on, and most of them were already prepared when year's end came.
There's no 25 cents coin. Someone tell me why, because I don't understand it. Specially since a coffe here is about 125 pesetas, which is roughly 0.75 euro. We've got 2 and 20 cents coins, but anyway, I don't know why there're no 25 cents coins.
As someone already said, the coins are pretty cool :-) A few of them are in two colors, and have a face with a local design and the other with a common european one.
There's more, but I don't recall anything specially interesting now, so let's hope that another one with a better english and memory can say something more fulfilling ;-)

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Coming from a store owner... by snellac · 2002-01-01 06:43 · Score: 3, Interesting

I own a chain of stores here in London, and after several meetings with lower management, we have decided to not accept the Euro currency in favor of the pound from foreigners. We came to this conclusion for several reasons, which make both economic and political sense for a store dealing mainly in jewlery such as ourselves.

The Euro costs us £0.50 to exchange for every transaction made. That's right, the banks charge us to convert our money back into pounds! They don't charge at the consumer level, just merchant to merchant, so we mandate consumers do this on their own, or pay via another means.
The new anti-counterfeit measures contained in the Euro. This may seem like a good thing, but the larger Euro demoniations contain coils electromagnetically charged to a certain serial number. This can thus be tracked, and as much as consumers are worried about their privacy, merchants are worried about ours in respect to competitors.
The attitude here in London is mostly anti-Euro, as Brits object to this new prospect of a continental government. We've been independent for this long, and under no means do we want to be governed by someone higher than the Parliament
The conversion rates fluctuate constantly. What's to say that one day, we charge 500 for a gold ring, and then going to the bank to exchange it, it's then worth 90% of that? That's lost money to us. We can't afford to be dealing in currency fluctuations. Both the pound and the US Dollar are stable enough to be dealing with, but I won't put my corporation's trust into the Euro.

Businesses like mine are doing the same thing. I can't find a single business here in London Square willing to redeem Euros for face value. So, when you come to London, be sure to bring your plastic, or redeem it for pounds.

-snellac

Re:Coming from a store owner... by Sanity · 2002-01-01 07:02 · Score: 5, Interesting

The new anti-counterfeit measures contained in the Euro. This may seem like a good thing, but the larger Euro demoniations contain coils electromagnetically charged to a certain serial number. This can thus be tracked, and as much as consumers are worried about their privacy, merchants are worried about ours in respect to competitors.
Er no they don't, didn't you see the article here just a few days ago about how they were considering doing this, but didn't expect to see it before 2006?
The attitude here in London is mostly anti-Euro, as Brits object to this new prospect of a continental government.
Speak for yourself, there are many in the UK who are pro-Euro.
We've been independent for this long, and under no means do we want to be governed by someone higher than the Parliament
Such as, um, the WTO? Or perhaps the US government who seems to be making the decisions about how the UK uses its military these days?
This is such a short sighted view point. Only through cooperation can European countries have a say in world affairs, the UK, a country of about 60 million people, will be ignored in the face of trading blocks of 300 million people and upwards.
Sooner or later, the UK will come crawling into the Euro with its tail between its legs, and feeling rather stupid.
Re:Coming from a store owner... by tdrury · 2002-01-01 07:24 · Score: 3, Interesting

With regards to tracking the serial number:

The only way I can see someone tracking you via a Euro is this: you go to an ATM to withdraw money. The bank knows you and can read the Euro as it is dispensed. You spend the bill. Assuming the merchant deposits all cash to their bank, the bank could resolve the bill from the merchant to the bill dispensed from the ATM assuming it is the same bank or banks share info. This is only likely for large denominations since smaller ones may be tendered as change. Once changed hands, any tracking data is bogus unless the merchant themselves are tracking the euros coming in and going out.

Every US bill has a serial number too, just not magnetically encoded. It would be quite easy to build a box that scans in US bills and reads the serial number. I believe cash is still the best anonymous tender. Magnetic encoding doesn't change anything.

Just food for thought.

-tim
Re:Coming from a store owner... by Menthos · 2002-01-01 12:50 · Score: 3, Interesting

Sweden is not in Euroland either, but most major, country-wide shops have already announced that they will accept payment in Euro, mostly as a service to customers (after all they want to attract all customers, also foreign ones).
They are not likely to list prices in Euro however, since the SEK<->EUR exchange rate is not fixated and the list prices would have to be changed almost every day, which of course would be impractical. But payment in the converted Euro amount will be entirely OK. A lot of smaller shops are expected to follow this policy, used by the bigger ones, and allow payment in Euro.

--
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Cash machine problems by Jacco+de+Leeuw · 2002-01-01 06:54 · Score: 4, Interesting

I tried three cash machines this morning (there were queues, people are enthousiastic apparently) and one of them had an error. I don't know whether it was out of bills or there was some bigger problem.

Then I tried the recharging stations for the (chipcard based) debit card called "Chipknip" (similar to Proton in Belgium and Geldkarte in Germany). Two out of three malfunctioning.
Now, these chipcards are not used very much by the general public. But the thing is, banks have promoted it a lot lately, because it would make the transition easier. The banks should have done a better job if they are really serious about this.

Also, I have a device which I can use to recharge my chipcard at home. I connect it to a phone line and then it makes a connection with the bank.
I noticed that from now on I can recharge it with 25 euro as a minimum. Previously the minimum was about 10 euro. I wished they had maintained that minimum amount.

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Re:Cash movements by Joe+Decker · 2002-01-01 07:53 · Score: 5, Interesting

I'd guess that in a few years you'd have a pretty even distribution (actually one based on the relative proportion of coins produced by each country.), perhaps some bit of "more coins of my own country" still visible left in the distribution.

I can provide some data from a loosely analogous situation in the United States. US bills are printed at 12 locations in the US, and are originally distributed to banks based on which of the 12 districts that bank is located in.

I'm part of a fun projectthat involves tracking the motion of US currency. I live near (60 miles from) San Francisco--here are the locations the bills I've marked come from, and their relative proportion.

San Francisco 776 32.0%
Kansas City 323 13.3%
New York 205 8.5%
Dallas 187 7.7%
Minneapolis 182 7.5%
Chicago 146 6.0%
Atlanta 133 5.5%
St. Louis 129 5.3%
Cleveland 99 4.1%
Boston 97 4.0%
Richmond 82 3.4%
Philadelphia 63 2.6%

Now, while the banks print out different numbers of bills and such, it's pretty clear that the San Francisco printed bills dominate my sample.

This analogy is unlike the situation with Euro coins for at least one reason--the lifetime of bills is much shorter than the lifetime of coins. Bills tend to last a year or two in circulation, coins for a decade or more. So, as time goes on, I'd expect mixing to be a much larger effect for coins in the EU than it is for bills in the US...

--
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Re:Simple question.. by Zeinfeld · 2002-01-01 11:11 · Score: 4, Interesting

Initially I thought this was a good way of looking at it, but now I think you're not quite right. The Conservatives won the 1992 election simply because the Labour government of the time (Socialist, blatantly Left Wing) was unpalatable to the majority of the electorate..

Actually the election was far more finely balanced. The Tories benefitted from an unexpectedly high turnout which was largely due to the weather, it was the first fine day of spring. The margin was very narrow, less than 2000 votes in 20 seats. In fact had the 50 seats with the smallest majorities gone 50:50 to Tory/Labour then Labour would have won narrowly.

The voter perception of Labour policy was largely fuelled by the Murdoch press. What Major offered was a Conservative government minus Thatcher. The mistake the Labour party had made was that by daemonising Thatcher they allowed the Tories to get re-elected simply by putting a new face at the helm. The Labour policy changes from 1992 through 1997 were of presentaion, not substance.

The major change was not in the Labour party but in the Conservatives. Racked with open internal warfare few of the cabinet made any attempt to conceal their contempt for their party leader. The numerous corruption scandals, starting with sex and ending with peculation and perjury erased any remaining vesigest of respect for the party.

The main similarity between 1992 and 2000 is the extent to which a viciously partisan press tipped the balance in favour of the right. Bush was consistently praised despite his obvious deficiencies while every opportunity was taken to attack Gore. So Bush got a bye for lying about driving while drunk while Gore was called a liar for mistakenly saying he visited Texas with the head of FEMA when it was the deputy head, he having visited 19 other states with the head one might think it an innocent mistake. The list goes on.

The relevance to the Euro is that but for the campaign against it in the Murdoch press it is unlikely that UK opposition would be anything like as great.

We will see if the end result is the same, before 9/11 that looked very likely. The ecconomy was in recession, the administration had lost control of the Senate due to crass political judgement, the California energy crisis caused by blatant market manipulation by Bush's texas cronies at Enron. Of course the hil Bush now needs to climb is that the press loves nothing better than making history repeat. So just as the Clinton years were spent trying to repeat Watergate, the press will now be trying to tie Bush II to the script of Bush I.

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Re:Advantages of a single currency (or not!) by rcs1000 · 2002-01-01 11:34 · Score: 3, Interesting

Yes. Labour (labor) is much more mobile in the US than in Europe.

And Yes, that does mean 'asymetrical shocks' can be more easily absorbed than in Europe.

But that does not mean an Indiana steelworker can easily become a networking expert. (Or, in the current environment, the opposite.)

Even inside countries, people are surprisingly unlikely to move. How else can you explain the persistently high unemployment rates in some parts of the US? The statistics tell a story: very few people change 'region' in the US during their lifetime. And an even smaller proportion change for economic, as opposed to life-style, family or educational reasons.

And at the 'high end' of the emplyment spectrum - by which I mean skilled professionals - locational mobility is increasingly becoming the rule rather than the exception. Find the major investment bank in London where 'brits' make up the majority of senior positions.

I am uncovinced by cultural arguments: I know many Scottish nationalists working in London; many opposed to further European integration find themselves working on computing contracts in Brussels, Frankfurt or Paris.

I could well be wrong, but the evidence does not yet point clearly to either (a) labour mobility being *that* important or (b) people being *much* more unwilling to move - at least temptoraily - around Europe than around the US.

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--- My dad's political betting

Re:Advantages of a single currency (or not!) by mpe · 2002-01-01 21:04 · Score: 3, Interesting

Despite the different economic areas in America, there are far more similarities between them than differences: a common language and culture, common systems of government and political parties (Reps, Dems, Libs, Greens) and common legal structures (the US court system and relatively uniform state court systems.) Mobility comes in where a person loses his/her job as a dot-commer in San Fran, and moves to Seattle/Atlanta/NY/Chicago to do something else there. You don't see quite as much mobility in Europe, because there is a stronger identification with nation (France, Germany, etc.) than with continent. In America, you don't have people who identify themselves primarily as Michiganders (stupid name, I know) or Californians or Ohioans, but as Americans. (With the exception, maybe, of Texans.)

The difference is that European nations have existed for a long time, in some form or other. Whereas the states of the USA are mainly creations for their own sake. Most of the borders between US states are simply lines drawn on a map with no reference to geographical features in the area. Very few of the US states have ever been nation states.
I'm not convinced about the common language and culture. In the West and South West of the US the echo of the Hispanic empire is quite apparent. Also there are plenty of distinct ethnic groups, who are often refered to as X-Americans where X is some other part of the world. However there is still the lack of identity with specific US states.

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