So here’s a depressing picture:
This is the value of the dollar vs. the euro since 1999, the last time I was in Europe. The currency was actually still in francs at the time — 6 to the dollar — but I’m not quite sure how to accurately account for that comparison of currency across time. Right now, the current exchange rate is 1 dollar to 0.64 euros (I got the full set of data from FXHistory.)
It’s interesting to note a relative spike after September 11th, 2001, and a gradual 30% drop since November, 2002, when the value of the euro most recently exceeded that of the dollar. For reference, Enron collapsed in late 2001, and the invasion of Iraq took place in March 2003. One could probably correlate something between the two, but I’ll leave the complaints about Central Banking and currency to Zack, who for the record claims we’re due for a collapse to bullion-backed currency any day now.
As far I see it, there are two things I can read from this graph:
Number one, this is the worst time in my life to travel to Europe.
Number two, I’m not going to look at any more currency charts.
March 15th, 2008 at 9:15 am
And yet, market indicators such as the DJIA show largely the inverse of this graph… it seems when the market goes up, Euros become more valuable.
The real truth of the matter is that currency/money markets are a complete scam - they’re really not an indicator of anything except global sentiment about a particular country. The rest of the world doesn’t like the U.S., so the USD goes down. I suppose one might argue that an aggregated currency used by 15 countries is pretty stable. Even so, we’re still the 2nd biggest economy in the world ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(nominal) ) behind the entire E.U. (27 countries) aggregated together.