discoman

I must let all the Europeans know that their currency the Euro, is artificially over valued. there are countries in Europe with 17 18 percent unemployment,
and many of the Social welfare systems in place are operating at their maximums.There is no way that this "Euro" can be a more valuble currency than the good old American Dollar.Someone,or some country, is manipulating the world financial markets to prop up the Euroover the Dollar.

Svante

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the Euro are $1.54 canadien today.
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AzTeK

Say thanks to your beloved FED. The EU has no interest in such a strong Euro, it only hurts us. Ben Bernanke himself has said that the strong Euro is awesome for the US economy, and thus he is not taking any steps to change it.

BTW please show me the source you found that some EU countries have 17-18% unemployment rate. My source says that Slovakia "leads" by a fair margin with 10.7%. And that's "only" 5-6% above the ideal unemployment rate in a capitalistic system, so eventhough it's of course not perfect, it's far from a tragedy.

On a sidenote - the EU's economy is around 4% "bigger" thatn the US economy, the demand for the Euro is strong from Asian and oil exporting countries since the Dollar has prooven as a very unreliable currency in the past years and if we look at the current state of EU and US economies, I'd say it's fairly clear which one is failing "more" , so eventhough I agree the Euro is probably traded a bit higher than it should be, I would disagree that the disparity is really all that big.

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Slartibartfas

The Euro is overvalued. But look at the economic performance, a stable and strong Euro is nonetheless also justified by fundamental data.

The question who is "manipulating" the exchange rate is easy to answer. Its the US FED. It knows that the ECB has to fear stagflation and can't lower its interested much at all without risking substantial inflation. Nonetheless it lowered the US interest rates dramatically in the attempt to reboost the own economy. It obviously accepts sacrificing the dollar for that.

As it seems however, the US economy is already on the way into recession, so the reboost will not take place. Well, maybe they will at least succeed in making the landing not so hard.


PS:
17 to 18 percent unemployment? In which Euro country do you see that? The unemployment in the EU-27 was 6,9% in 2007. In the Euro region it was recognizably below those 6,9%

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"Every country gets the cuisine it deserves"

Common insult examples and how to avoid them

jaro

Who would want to keep $s? It's a very unstable currency. Right now 1$ is worth roughly 15.7 Czech crowns, while 10 years ago it was more than double of that. $ has lost more than 100% of its value since Bush took over. What makes me angry is that Americans often sell their products at the same price in EU as in US, even though in EU they should be much cheaper. Of course I don't buy such products as its a rip off.
US economy is also a heaven of speculative capital - its not uncommon for US economy to show strong growth in 1Q and then no growth in 2Q. This is not common in EU, there is more stability, although the growth is low.

Štatistický úrad SR :: Evidovaná nezamestnanos� v roku 2007 shows the figure of registered unemployment of 8% in 12/2007. Real unemployment is about 10%, since some unemployed are not registered and do not receive any benefits. Its a no big deal, it used to be 20%.

I think $ will slowly continue to fall, inflation to rise as usage of $s decline and price of oil rises.

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No loyalty towards the EU.

In Russia is freedom of speech. In America is also freedom after speech. -- Yakov Smirnoff

discoman

There are countries in the European union with %15 and %17 unemployment!, how can their currency be so valuable with such high rates of unemployment?East Germany has a very high rate of unemployment.

Slartibartfas

Proof!

Tell us exactly which member state of the EU. You won't find a single one, you may be able to dig up some regions within states that experience a bad unemployment, but in the overall average the thriving regions of the same country outweigh them.

East Germany is not a country, its not even a political entity of any sort (not even within Germany). The unemployment rate of Germany is 8.4%. That does not make anyone enthusiastic but its far away from any horror claims.

JKD

yep, and what is the unemployment rate of USA? i'm thinking quite a lot.

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The Way Of The Intercepting Fist

AzTeK

Please, we're on the internet here. It's not that hard to find.
List of countries by unemployment rate - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

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Dr House

5.1% (4.6% in August). The highest state unemployment rate is 7.5% in Michigan (compared with the 8% EU average), long-term unemployment is 0.4%, compared to 4.1% in France, 5.6% in Germany and 2.2% in Spain. Highest local unemployment rate is 25%, compared to over 40% in France.

-Dr House