On the polls - last I saw the yes camp was mid 40s and the no camp low 30s - a large yes majority - but nothing like as big as 6 months ago.

This is a detail I actually had missed Nick, but then this is an illustration not only of lacunae in my knowledge, but also, and more importantly, of the complex and tangled mess which is our institutional structure. Given the delicate nature of currency markets, you need one institution, and one only, for handling day to day policy. I would stick with the ECB for this, and let national politicians, on behalf of their national governments voice opinions and lobby.

Institutionally it is really messy, having one and the same person holding the presidents chair and shouting out opinions about currency.

At the same time, the way he did it, in the middle of the biggest euro crisis since the currency came into exitence is inexcuseable from my point of view, doubly so if he could be thought to be speaking with some authority on euro matters.

Possibly both these things are true Phil, but the point is this isn’t his job, he should leave that to the ECB under our system, this was for Trichet last Thursday - in the US it is the US Treasury and John Snow who has this role - and secondly, we are in the midst of an institutional crisis, which has contaminated itself into an identity crisis for the currency itself, and so this is not the moment for a ‘cool and calm discussion’.

Obviously this is a topic they could talk about when they meet for the summit.

“notional value of an ECU”

Obviously the values between the two currencies will fluctuate, so there is no ‘true worth’, but if one economy is growing at 3.5% and the other one at 1.5%, then the former currency should tend to appreciate against the latter.

As the basic act of accepting a currency as a means of payment is an action of human choice, it seems to me that you cannot expect currency to be not fundamentally dependending on oppinion.

Yet, there are more or less tangible fundamentals. If production falters and the money supply stays constant, there’ll be inflation.

Well to go more on topic, I remember seeing a chart of ECU values in Dollars since its definition, and the starting point suggested to me that it was defined as a currency basket that was worth 1 $ per ECU. However during most of the time the notional value of an ECU was consistently greater. IIRC when the Euro was instaured, exchange rate was 1.16 $ per ?.

DSW

Great to see you back online :).

And on form as usual. I’m in Cerdanyonla at a software company these days. Let’s meet up for a drink sometime.

Twenty years ago thousands of nuclear war heads were held ready to be launched at short notice partially based on a difference in point of view on how to organise society, country and economy.