Word: euros
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...example, A Dolce & Gabanna woman's watch marked down on Amazon.com France to 192.72 euros - or $300 - is hardly a bargain compared to the same watch on Amazon's U.S. site selling for $225. Why should dollar-spenders even think of shopping Europe? On the other side, the profits European companies make on dollar sales are shrunken by the time they get converted back to euros. For the euro-zone economy with a projected growth rate of only around 2% in 2008, the upshot is a major pinch on export revenues threatening to stunt growth even more...
That discomfort is especially great on companies and countries that have been slow to reform their economies - such as France and Italy, whose considerable price tags for cars, trains, airplanes, luxury goods and food products have become absolutely daunting once they've traversed the euro-dollar exchange. In places like the Netherlands, Germany, and Austria - where enormous pressure on salaries and production costs have made goods and companies more competitive in recent years - the rise of the euro has been less catastrophic, though only in relative terms. Whereas Germany has watched the plummeting dollar eat at its healthy trade surplus...
...Federal Reserve has in the past months. That move would not only make it easier for companies and consumers to access credit, but also decrease the higher yields investors are seeking when they pull their money out of the U.S. economy, and park it in euro-zone markets...
French officials have gone so far to suggest they'd invoke an article of the treaty the euro was founded upon allowing national governments to impose policy regarding currency exchange on the ECB. True to form, ECB president - Frenchman Jean-Claude Trichet - remains singularly unimpressed by the pressure from politicians. In an interview with the weekly Le Point Thursday, Trichet admitted being "worried by the excessive exchange rate movements". But he reiterated his inflation-fighting position that "we'll take the necessary decisions to insure price stability in the medium-term [which] is what our mandate is" - and not cave...
...decline of the dollar as a boon to U.S. industry. But with investors continuing to bail on U.S. securities and monetary markets Thursday, the question now is whether American intervention alone can turn things around - or whether European politicians and central bankers must also pile on to the euro and help get their creation back in its cage...