I feel like writing, but I don’t quite have the inspiration or attention span to focus on fiction and/or poetry, so instead I’m just going to ramble. I keep being fascinated by Wordpress’s Post-a-Day topics, even though I don’t have the discipline to actually do them. So I’m going to ramble based on some of these topics.
First up: The Euro.
Well, more accurately, the EU. The topic as given by Wordpress is “What is the future of the Euro? With all the trouble in Greece, Spain and Italy, do you think the currency will survive? Do you understand why there are multiple currencies in the world? Do you wonder why there isn’t just one kind of currency? Do you think your nation’s money is better looking, or worse, than other nations?”
I’m just going to adapt that to my general feelings on the EU, touching on the monetary issues even though I don’t quite have the expertise to completely understand it all.
First of all, sometimes I have heard the EU referred to as “The United States of Europe”, mostly in a derogatory way. This frustrates me no end, and not because I am from the US. No, it’s because that’s inaccurate. The EU is not like the US is now. It’s so much more like the US was under the Articles of Confederation.
Under the Articles of Confederation, the states were much more like independent countries. They had much more control over both their internal and external policies, and could opt in or opt out of the “national” demands. The national government had a bit of control over defense, but not the range of responsibilities that the current federal government has. In the same way, Brussels has certain responsibilites, but the member states can opt in or opt out of some things. And the Euro is probably the best example of this. If the EU were like the current US, the Euro would be used across the region, Brussels would have the responsibility for minting and regulation, and when one member state went bankrupt, it wouldn’t completely demolish the overall economy. California was bankrupt a few years ago, but the US didn’t completely implode. (*note: this is one of those areas where I don’t have details or expertise to back up my statements - just the vague impressions that I’ve gotten from headlines*)
But, just from living in the UK, I do know that the EU doesn’t have the same control or influence over its member states that the US has over its. At the moment, it’s an alliance, not even close to a nation - more like NATO than the US. I don’t know if it will survive in its current form - the Articles of Confederation didn’t - and certainly the Euro problems at the moment are shaking things up.
I think the Euro will survive, at least within the Schengen group (and, yes, I know that there are a few countries in Schengen that aren’t on the Euro yet). I think the convenience of not having to convert money, for both individuals and corporations, will outweigh any drawbacks or pride issues involved with switching currencies. It only makes sense for a region with no (or almost no) border checks to have the same currency. If you’re taking the bureaucratic hassles out of international travel through a region, take them all out.
The problem with the Euro, as with all currency, is that it’s an intermediary in a barter system, and based almost entirely on trust. We trust that our little pieces of metal and bits of fabric-paper will be accepted in place of actual goods or services. And when we travel, we are assured that our historically relevant bits of fabric-paper can be translated into somewhere else’s historically relevant bits of fabric-paper. And the reason that a global single currency won’t work in the foreseeable future is because of that trust aspect. There are plenty of places in the world right now where there is no trust - not just places like Greece, which is publicly melting down, but places like Egypt where the government is in transition, or North Korea, which doesn’t trust anybody. Until there is global economic trust, there will be no global currency.
The last bit of the WordPress prompt is about currency appearance, something I am also a bit fascinated with at the moment. First, US currency is ridiculously boring. It’s a bit better now that they’ve added colours to some of the bills, but overall it’s one of the most monotonous currencies I’ve seen. I kind of can’t believe that in a country with so much emphasis on disabled rights and access and all - there are Braille instructions on drive-through ATMs - the paper currency is still all one size.
Second, I work in retail, so I handle money almost every day. Every once in a while someone hands over a Scottish note - and once even a note from Northern Ireland - and I can’t resist looking at it, over and over again. I wonder so many things about currency - who the figures are, mostly, and why they were chosen for specific denominations. Whenever I travel, I study the money. Euros can be fun sometimes because, although its a single pan-European currency, the coins are marked with specific countries’ designs, so it can become a collecting mania. Same with quarters in the US, and the newest designs of coins in the UK with the partial shields.
Third, money can be an important cultural touchstone. When I was teaching, I always did at least one class about the currency of the US and the UK (and Canada, when I could find pictures). There are linguistic nuances to money - buck, quid, etc. - cultural differences with prices and taxes, and also just appearance differences. By going through currencies with my students (and the associated cultural things), I hope I made them a bit more prepared for experiences in those countries, so that they don’t just hold out their hands saying “Your money baffles me,” spend twenty minutes ranting about why a little kiosk won’t take their traveller’s checks, or expect to pay with a $20.00 for something marked at $19.99 in the US.
First up: The Euro.
Well, more accurately, the EU. The topic as given by Wordpress is “What is the future of the Euro? With all the trouble in Greece, Spain and Italy, do you think the currency will survive? Do you understand why there are multiple currencies in the world? Do you wonder why there isn’t just one kind of currency? Do you think your nation’s money is better looking, or worse, than other nations?”
I’m just going to adapt that to my general feelings on the EU, touching on the monetary issues even though I don’t quite have the expertise to completely understand it all.
First of all, sometimes I have heard the EU referred to as “The United States of Europe”, mostly in a derogatory way. This frustrates me no end, and not because I am from the US. No, it’s because that’s inaccurate. The EU is not like the US is now. It’s so much more like the US was under the Articles of Confederation.
Under the Articles of Confederation, the states were much more like independent countries. They had much more control over both their internal and external policies, and could opt in or opt out of the “national” demands. The national government had a bit of control over defense, but not the range of responsibilities that the current federal government has. In the same way, Brussels has certain responsibilites, but the member states can opt in or opt out of some things. And the Euro is probably the best example of this. If the EU were like the current US, the Euro would be used across the region, Brussels would have the responsibility for minting and regulation, and when one member state went bankrupt, it wouldn’t completely demolish the overall economy. California was bankrupt a few years ago, but the US didn’t completely implode. (*note: this is one of those areas where I don’t have details or expertise to back up my statements - just the vague impressions that I’ve gotten from headlines*)
But, just from living in the UK, I do know that the EU doesn’t have the same control or influence over its member states that the US has over its. At the moment, it’s an alliance, not even close to a nation - more like NATO than the US. I don’t know if it will survive in its current form - the Articles of Confederation didn’t - and certainly the Euro problems at the moment are shaking things up.
I think the Euro will survive, at least within the Schengen group (and, yes, I know that there are a few countries in Schengen that aren’t on the Euro yet). I think the convenience of not having to convert money, for both individuals and corporations, will outweigh any drawbacks or pride issues involved with switching currencies. It only makes sense for a region with no (or almost no) border checks to have the same currency. If you’re taking the bureaucratic hassles out of international travel through a region, take them all out.
The problem with the Euro, as with all currency, is that it’s an intermediary in a barter system, and based almost entirely on trust. We trust that our little pieces of metal and bits of fabric-paper will be accepted in place of actual goods or services. And when we travel, we are assured that our historically relevant bits of fabric-paper can be translated into somewhere else’s historically relevant bits of fabric-paper. And the reason that a global single currency won’t work in the foreseeable future is because of that trust aspect. There are plenty of places in the world right now where there is no trust - not just places like Greece, which is publicly melting down, but places like Egypt where the government is in transition, or North Korea, which doesn’t trust anybody. Until there is global economic trust, there will be no global currency.
The last bit of the WordPress prompt is about currency appearance, something I am also a bit fascinated with at the moment. First, US currency is ridiculously boring. It’s a bit better now that they’ve added colours to some of the bills, but overall it’s one of the most monotonous currencies I’ve seen. I kind of can’t believe that in a country with so much emphasis on disabled rights and access and all - there are Braille instructions on drive-through ATMs - the paper currency is still all one size.
Second, I work in retail, so I handle money almost every day. Every once in a while someone hands over a Scottish note - and once even a note from Northern Ireland - and I can’t resist looking at it, over and over again. I wonder so many things about currency - who the figures are, mostly, and why they were chosen for specific denominations. Whenever I travel, I study the money. Euros can be fun sometimes because, although its a single pan-European currency, the coins are marked with specific countries’ designs, so it can become a collecting mania. Same with quarters in the US, and the newest designs of coins in the UK with the partial shields.
Third, money can be an important cultural touchstone. When I was teaching, I always did at least one class about the currency of the US and the UK (and Canada, when I could find pictures). There are linguistic nuances to money - buck, quid, etc. - cultural differences with prices and taxes, and also just appearance differences. By going through currencies with my students (and the associated cultural things), I hope I made them a bit more prepared for experiences in those countries, so that they don’t just hold out their hands saying “Your money baffles me,” spend twenty minutes ranting about why a little kiosk won’t take their traveller’s checks, or expect to pay with a $20.00 for something marked at $19.99 in the US.
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