I lived in Europe on and off for about ten years from the fifties to the seventies, in Italy, Switzerland, Germany and the U.K.
I've visited numerous times since.
I was in Italy just before and just after the introduction of the Euro. It seemed to me a crazy idea at the time. Every Italian I spoke to when the Lira was swapped for the Euro, said that equivalent prices had jumped sharply. I found this true just by buying groceries; tomatoes and lemons in Amalfi: much pricier than they'd been in Lire.
The Euro has always felt wrong to me.
And Greece has shown how being tied to the euro has hobbled their chances of devaluing or interest-tweaking their way out of trouble.
Here is Joseph Stiglitz a Nobel Laureate, who has been a consistent critic of the Euro. It looks like he's right. (It's behind a firewall, but googling "Stiglitz Euro" gets many similar articles)
But then we have arrogant bureaucrats like Jean-Claude Juncker who would rather think about how to punish those who want to leave the EU, than consider what might be wrong with the Euro and the EU project.
Bottom line: I think (no, I don't think, I know) I want to be out of any euro-denominated assets.
I've visited numerous times since.
I was in Italy just before and just after the introduction of the Euro. It seemed to me a crazy idea at the time. Every Italian I spoke to when the Lira was swapped for the Euro, said that equivalent prices had jumped sharply. I found this true just by buying groceries; tomatoes and lemons in Amalfi: much pricier than they'd been in Lire.
The Euro has always felt wrong to me.
And Greece has shown how being tied to the euro has hobbled their chances of devaluing or interest-tweaking their way out of trouble.
Here is Joseph Stiglitz a Nobel Laureate, who has been a consistent critic of the Euro. It looks like he's right. (It's behind a firewall, but googling "Stiglitz Euro" gets many similar articles)
But then we have arrogant bureaucrats like Jean-Claude Juncker who would rather think about how to punish those who want to leave the EU, than consider what might be wrong with the Euro and the EU project.
Bottom line: I think (no, I don't think, I know) I want to be out of any euro-denominated assets.
