• h3ron@lemmy.zip
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    17
    ·
    9 hours ago

    Some arguments I heard when we switched 15y ago:

    • without euro you can print money to devaluate your own currency to devaluate your debt at the expense of people’s savings and rampant inflation. Frankly I’m happy politicians lost the ability to do that.
    • sellers may take the opportunity to bump up all their prices, which was actually true in my country. Of course the blame is on the sellers, not the currency.
    • cultural and historic identity associated with the currency
    • Phoenixz@lemmy.ca
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      2
      ·
      2 hours ago

      Oh yeah, in the Netherlands they switches from the gulden to euro, which was about 2.1 gulden, and a whole bunch of stores thought it okay to just change the gulden symbol for a euro symbol, and call it a day. Prices went up like crazy, but largely due to stores just trying to rob people blind hoping nobody would notice

    • ramble81@lemmy.zip
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      1
      ·
      edit-2
      4 hours ago

      The second point is kind of true. I remember when Germany switched from the DM to the EUR, prices almost doubled overnight because they just swapped the currency symbol without paying attention to the exchange rate.

      • CosmoNova@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        1
        ·
        4 hours ago

        This was true for some goods but not most. Grocery stores would list both currencies for a year and people from Poland are still crossing the border to buy groceries so it can‘t be that expensive.

    • Jiral@lemmy.org
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      3
      ·
      8 hours ago

      The first argument had been even voiced by German Fiscal chauvinists opposed to the Euro. It really is just the analogy to loose the access to pain killers. Yes that can be a downside but even greater is the downside of muting the pain indteax of treating the issue causing the pain. Devaluation is commonly leading to a lack of structural refogms, because it makes the symptoms go away, fora while.