Just returned from adam dollar versus euro bad news. Talking to many Dutch residents none of them like the euro for many reasons. They say the guilder may return . Long shot but keep your fingers crossed. Hope is what we all look forward to.

I would love to see a return of the Guilder. It seemed to go from 50 guilders for S&F, which was approx £16, to 50 Euro over night. A 100 % increase !! OK maybe not over night, LOL, but in a short period of time.

Hi,
I prefer to keep to the Euro. Living in Europe, it is great, no need to change when you travel. Guilder will never return for sure. The complain for all the European people is that the € indeed leaded to an increase of all the prices (a few %). The ones who ask 50€ for F&S were asking 100 Guilder not 50 Guilder.
Clostro

You make a very valid point. A lot of them were indeed charging 100 Guilders, but there were a lot that was charging 50 Guilders, and they never went to 25 Euro after the conversion. Some went to 30 Euro, but the majority took the oppertunity to go to 50 Euro like the rest. That being said, 50 Euro is still a good deal :)
I am probably looking back at it all through rose coloured spectacles, but it seems that each country lost some of it's identity when they went to the Euro. Agreed that one currency makes it easier for a tourist moving from country to country.
Nostalgia is definitely not what it used to be LOL.

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As an interesting observation from many trips to Europe over the past, I have noticed that after the initial increases due to the Euro, most prices have stabilized (as Fiets mentioned).. The cost of good's in Holland have stayed very level and eventually will dampen the over inflated Euro and make things more affordable. Housing is quite outrageous (IMO),,, the prices for homes in and around Amsterdam have definitely sky rocketed,,,good for the owners but will test the up and coming wave of young Dutch. Very few people are actually "Owner/Occupants".

If you think its bad in Amsterdam,, go take a trip to Vienna or Paris !

All very valid points but what it all boils down to is supply and demand. Time will tell and so of our future.

One last thing. After reading quite a few European Business Journals while training back and forth between Germany and Holland it became quite apparrent that the Guilder was below value relative to the German Currency and since they were closely tied together thru various European Central Banks (mainly in Frankfurt) it was very difficult to inflate the Guilder. Once the Euro took hold it corrected within 6 months and has inflated due to "Force Majur" (Forces of Nature)

Now,, I laugh to myself when I order a beer in my local bars for 25% less than the cost in similar local establishments in Europe.

In Buenos Aires an excellent leather jacket goes for $100. For $200 you can get a world class leather jacket. For $10 you can get a steak dinner including a full bottle of (Chilean or Argentine) wine. You can buy an hour's internet access for less than $1. The women are beautiful, prostitution is legal, and there is no street crime in the magnificent downtown centro, which is full of restaurants (the best beef in the world), bars, shopping, and nightlife. They call Buenos Aires the "Paris of South America" and you would swear to God you were some place in Europe if you didn't know any better. The place is much more European than Latin American. My flight from Lax cost $458 round-trip on Travelocity. Over the last several years they've had something like 300% inflation and so where once their peso was equal to the dollar it is now three to one in the dollar's favor. People down there tend to be well-dressed, polite and sophisticated. Most of the population looks Italian or Spanish but there are redheads and a bevy of blue-eyed Spanish speaking blonds. Strongly recommended.

BA is my next destination, along with a side trip to Rio. BTW,, what time of year did you get such a low fare and when did you book? What a combo,, latin women with a European lifestyle.

Flew out Mother's Day night ( the night after the Kentucky Derby). Six hours from LAX to Panama City, then seven more hours to Buenos Aires (on Copa Airlines). Booked in April. Room was $59 a night at Dazzler Hotel near Recoleta area. Cheapest way to go may be to rent a furnished apartment for $250 a week. Remember the seasons are reversed and they are entering their (mild) winter months now.

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Re: the exchange rate...the reaction was there, it was just already priced in. The Euro has been dropping for some time now in anticipation.

There is room for further fall however...it all depends on how Europe deals politically with this bump in the road. Future events will tell.

If it wasn't serious it would be funny. France more or less initiates the EU, more or less writes the EU constitution....and then votes it down. Will the Dutch provide the coup de grâce?

Here's one person's take on what does, and doesn't, drive exchange rates, and where the dollar may be heading.

http://www.morganstanley.com/GEFdata/di ... ml#anchor0

Thanks for the interesting and hopeful (from an American perspective) article. The only problem with the analysis is that it ignores the American politcal situation. Things are going wrong on a bunch of fronts for the adminsitration and the Republican party in general. From Iraq to the beginning of a public (and Republican) reaction to the dominant role the evangelical right has been playing (witness the overwhelming congressional support for an expansion of stem cell research) there is a sense that the right's high water mark may have been reached. With a congressional election next year the government may not want to allow the dollar to fall. Bush and his cohorts believe that the weak dollar helps the US economy. These folks are ideologues who never let the facts stand in the way of their perception of reality. I could really envision the US selling dollars on the world market to keep its value low in relation to the euro. I hope I'm wrong and I readily admit that anything I say about the President is affected by my unbridled dislike for the man and everything he stands for.