The plan to bounce us into the Euro gathers pace!

eeja

bandraoi wrote: »

At the moment, with bailouts in the billions, there are huge sums of non-money appearing, disappearing and jumping around in the markets. The volatility out there is incredible. It's already sunk one country - Iceland, and more may follow.

The biggest currencies are the most stable. The one's not so affected by an extra several billion moving here or there because it's only a fraction of the trade that takes place in them daily.

Sterling as a relatively small currency is vulnerable.

REPLY
Untrue untrue ...the miniscule Thai baht is one of the strongest currencies in Asia being currently even stronger than the mighty Singapore dollar.
Its not always size that counts but don't say that to the wife !!
Thai reserves $100 Billion
Singapore reserves $150 Billion
UK reserves $50 Billion

Olipro

eeja wrote: »

REPLY
Untrue untrue ...the miniscule Thai baht is one of the strongest currencies in Asia being currently even stronger than the mighty Singapore dollar.
Its not always size that counts but don't say that to the wife !!
Thai reserves $100 Billion
Singapore reserves $150 Billion
UK reserves $50 Billion

Yes, but you must remember, the currency is Fiat; meaning that the true value of it is (no, I'm not going to say imaginary) based on the goods and services it can be exchanged for (if you stop to imagine the gold standard values currency against the gold it can be exchanged for, so Fiat currency converts that valuation into the goods and services you can exchange it for) - and if you hadn't noticed, the GDP per Capita of Singapore is fairly sizable, therefore to compare the Singapore Dollar to the Baht is a joke.

eeja

Olipro wrote: »

Yes, but you must remember, the currency is Fiat; meaning that the true value of it is (no, I'm not going to say imaginary) based on the goods and services it can be exchanged for (if you stop to imagine the gold standard values currency against the gold it can be exchanged for, so Fiat currency converts that valuation into the goods and services you can exchange it for) - and if you hadn't noticed, the GDP per Capita of Singapore is fairly sizable, therefore to compare the Singapore Dollar to the Baht is a joke.

For a UK resident it is a joke ...sure !
But in the context of Asean countries Singapore and Thailand are and always have been competitors since the days of King Chulalongkorn .
Remember who Taksin (Ex Man City in case you forgot) sold his business
to ? the Singapore government ! And guess where the railway through Malaya to Bangkok started, built by the British in the early 1900's. Yes you've got it Singapore !
Anyway all these points are off the subject which was an assertion that small countries cannot have strong currencies and that of course is TOTALLY incorrect ( Mention of Singapore was purely illustrative of yet another small country whose currency is very strong .

richardlionheart

Out of interest,
If we had joined the Euro in the first round back in 1999 ?

Would we now be in a better state fiance/banking wise at the moment.?
i mean would we of have to had adhered to more stringent euro FSA type rules?
or just been pretty much independant still and still of ended up here.?

For example the likes of say Northern rock would of been able to lend
to home buyers across the euro zone , would they have been under the similar
restraints of euro banks such as Santander ( where the max they could lend out in total was no more than 50% of its deposits ..need this varifing )

it just feels typical that now UK plc, is viewed with caution due to our enormous housing bubble, and it will have to be lanced before the good old pound
will be sound again.

as it looks now Holidays abroad for the Brits value wise appear
to be Goa , days of cheap holidays abroad are over ..for the time being

thanks for the interesting topic
Rich

gozomark

simpywimpy wrote: »

I'm about to lose £1000 on a transfer to euros I should have made last week. Can anyone tell me if I'm better off waiting a few weeks to see if it goes back up a little? I was quoted 1.16 today but would be happier at 1.20

no-one can tell you - we can guess, but thats all it would be

Incisor

richardlionheart wrote: »

Out of interest,
If we had joined the Euro in the first round back in 1999 ?

... it just feels typical that now UK plc, is viewed with caution due to our enormous housing bubble, and it will have to be lanced before the good old pound
will be sound again.

Good question. For most of my life [over 50 yrs] the pound has been limping between crises, caused by governments letting it rise too high and not controlling it downwards. Whereas the Germans always acted to stop their currency going too high and had many years of low inflation and stability as the reward. You might argue that they have lost some of that through being in the Euro, but for us in the UK, the Euro would be a step in the direction of German style stability. Personally I would put that benefit ahead of the patriotic appeal of having our own bumbling currency.

eeja

bandraoi wrote: »

Indeed, I've often wondered why these "we must have the queens head on our currency" people, don't take a certain satisfaction from the realisation that the Germans and French will also have the queens head on their currency.

Did you know that the BOE only put the Queen's head on currency in the 1960's starting with the ten bob note ?. Prior to that these notes had no queen or king on them. The first time the royal head appeared on currency was in 1914 when Treasury notes were brought out to replace our gold coins and George V appeared on them.. These were withdrawn in 1928 when BOE notes replaced them WITHOUT THE KINGS HEAD. .

purch

FACT: There are many, many people in the public sector covertly scheming for England to be subsumed into the Eurocrats super-state, many of them entryists whose only loyalty is to the secretive Common Purpose. You won't hear about this in the controlled media, for example Peston is one of the Common Purpose nomenklatura

Any proof of this "FACT" ?

purch

Personally I would put that benefit ahead of the patriotic appeal of having our own bumbling currency

It has been the case over the last 40 years, Sterling has required an Interest rate premium over it's competitors, just to retain any semblance of stability.

gozomark

purch wrote: »

It has been the case over the last 40 years, Sterling has required an Interest rate premium over it's competitors, just to retain any semblance of stability.

interesting point - I wonder if its true - have UK interest rates in real terms been on average higher than its competitors over say the last 30 years ? I don't know the answer