{"id":408,"date":"2007-07-10T23:16:09","date_gmt":"2007-07-11T03:16:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blacknell.net\/dynamic\/2007\/07\/10\/e-2x\/"},"modified":"2007-07-10T23:16:09","modified_gmt":"2007-07-11T03:16:09","slug":"e-2x","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blacknell.net\/dynamic\/2007\/07\/10\/e-2x\/","title":{"rendered":"\u00e2\u201a\u00ac > $ + \u00c2\u00a3 2x > $ = !?!?!?!?!"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I had a practical interest in the international currency exchanges at an early age.\u00c2\u00a0 When I was 10, my allowance came in US dollars, but the all the places I wanted to spend it at only accepted <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/German_mark\">Deutsche Marks<\/a>.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 I had discovered that my one US dollar would get me much more in my hometown village of <a href=\"http:\/\/www.eichenzell.de\/\">Eichenzell<\/a> than it would get me at the US dollar store at the base exchange at <a href=\"http:\/\/www.eaglehorse.org\/pictures\/11thacr_close01.jpg\">Downs Barracks<\/a> in Fulda.\u00c2\u00a0 That was the start of an understanding that would lead me to the thrills of the black market rates of the <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/East_German_mark\">East German Marks<\/a> when we went to Berlin, the generous exchange rate with Venezuelan Bolivars in the late 90s, and the joys of cheap Euro-denominated vacations in 2001.<\/p>\n<p>But everything comes at a price, no?\u00c2\u00a0 I had an inkling this was coming, as my last trip back to England was pretty expensive.\u00c2\u00a0 But I wasn&#8217;t entirely prepared for <a href=\"http:\/\/www.bloomberg.com\/apps\/news?pid=20601087&amp;sid=aiUy7rgEk09I&amp;refer=home\">this<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>The euro rose to an all-time high against the yen and traded near a record versus the dollar on prospects the European Central Bank will signal plans to raise its benchmark interest rate at least once more this year.<\/p>\n<p>[ . . . ]<\/p>\n<p>The pound was near a 26-year high against the dollar on speculation the Bank of England will raise rates today.<\/p>\n<p>[The Euro] was at <strong>$1.3614 against the dollar<\/strong> from $1.3613 yesterday and an all-time high $1.3681 reached on April 27.<\/p>\n<p>[ . . . ]<\/p>\n<p>The pound traded at <strong>$2.0152 after touching $2.0207 <\/strong>yesterday, the most since June 1981.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>If you&#8217;re an American reading this, and don&#8217;t know why this matters to you, let me help &#8211; it means that it looks like you&#8217;re living on a soon to be third world currency.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I had a practical interest in the international currency exchanges at an early age.\u00c2\u00a0 When I was 10, my allowance came in US dollars, but the all the places I wanted to spend it at only accepted Deutsche Marks.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 I had discovered that my one US dollar would get me much more in my hometown [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"activitypub_content_warning":"","activitypub_content_visibility":"","activitypub_max_image_attachments":4,"activitypub_interaction_policy_quote":"anyone","activitypub_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[13,3,12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-408","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-eu","category-society","category-uk"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blacknell.net\/dynamic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/408","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blacknell.net\/dynamic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blacknell.net\/dynamic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blacknell.net\/dynamic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blacknell.net\/dynamic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=408"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blacknell.net\/dynamic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/408\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blacknell.net\/dynamic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=408"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blacknell.net\/dynamic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=408"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blacknell.net\/dynamic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=408"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}