The Euro: Boon or Bane?

cocodrilo · Joined: 12 Apr 2004 Posts: 494 Location: Western Japan

As most people who have televisions know, back in January of 1999, 11 countries agreed to have one common currency, thus birth of the euro. At that time the following countries decided to give up their drachma, lira, etc for the euro; Germany , France, Italy, Spain, the Netherlands, Belgium, Austria, Portugal, Finland, Ireland and Luxembourg. Following suit exactly two years later was Greece.

There has been a lot said about the euro when it first came out- that it was confusing(heck, in the USA when they enlarge the presidents' faces on the bills people freak out!), difficult to calculate and hard to recognize the different denominations. Now, since the euro has been in practical use for some time now, we are hearing reports of the new currency "damaging" the livliehoods of some of the euro-using countries- in Italy, that the price of meals at restaurants has "almost doubled", in Germany that "prices have gone up"(with their unemployment rate I could see why this would irk some people) and in Greece, "prices have gone up substantially, yet our salaries have remained the same as before".

From the tourist standpoint, it is convenient to have a single currency, and one does not lose money one would when having to convert when hopping from country to country, not that I'm planning to do much shopping in Luxembourg, thank you.

I have a chest (literally, a chest!) of coins- half of which are drachmas, lira, schillings, francs, etc, having figured I'd go back there again soon.

I have noticed, generally speaking, that prices HAVE gone up, 20-30% compared with pre-euro times, but I figure inflation happens as well.

For those of you who have used the euro, what do you think of it?
Has it been a boon or bane?