The most recent growth spurt in Germany was good news for Europe, on the surface, because it showed the German economic engine pulling the euro zone into positive territory for the second quarter of 2010. The suffering southern economies were still in recession by mid-2010, but the euro zone's GDP as a whole grew by 1 percent. Great! So the euro crisis is over, and we can all think about something else, like terrorists, right? No — actually Europe's economic divide, if anything, makes a profound change in the euro more likely. The euro panic last spring focused on an exaggerated vision ... Read More
A Brief History of the Dollar
August 11, 2010 • By • Leave a Comment
This year's derby between the euro and the dollar is nothing but an extension of age-old trade relationships across the Atlantic, and as unstable as the last few years have been, it's astonishing how little has changed, essentially, over the last three or four centuries. We think of the U.S. dollar as a single firm currency and the euro as a rickety new experiment in economic union, but the name "dollar" itself is an echo of an earlier union in Europe. The thaler became a general name for money in the Holy Roman Empire after a successful regional coin called the Joachimsthaler was minted ... Read More
Greatly Exaggerated: Rumors of the Euro’s ‘Collapse’
August 4, 2010 • By • Leave a Comment
The demise of the euro has been rumored for months, and Europe's sovereign-debt crisis ginned up a cloud of speculation this year that the currency would "collapse." This sort of talk has abated since the EU established its so-called bailout fund in May, but observers tend to agree that a trillion dollars in financing bought the euro nothing but time. So the currency's future is still obscure. But "collapse" is a dramatic word. It's also not very specific. What on Earth does it mean? The immediate fear last spring was a partial dismantling of the euro zone. Before the bailout package, it ... Read More
