The Euro
I’m a bit concerned about the Euro. One of the big news stories of last year was the collapse of Argentina’s economy, followed by the collapse of Argentina’s government. One of the main reasons their economy went down the tubes is that they decided to peg the value of the peso to the value of the dollar, rather than letting its value float on the open market. I’m not enough of an economist to understand the fine nuances of the implications of such a policy, but I do know that closing off one valve in a system (the ability for the value of a country’s currency to fluctuate) simply applies more pressure to other parts. Thus, Argentina’s difficulties.

Anyway, now a bunch of European countries all have a common currency. Despite all of the semi-disastrous austerity programs followed leading up to the introduction of the Euro, the economies of say Portugal and Germany just don’t have a whole lot in common. However, they are bound by a common currency now. Will some of the poorer countries in Europe run into problems like Argentina’s if their economies can’t keep pace with the larger industrial economies? Just qualifying for the Euro forced those countries to make lots of sacrifices and compromises, what sort of pressure will actually using the Euro put on them?