€

Greggy

€h

star gazer

The euro helped to solidify our celtic boom. Without us joining the single currency there would have been a substantial number of foreign companies who would have had reservations about investing here. Right now the strenth of the euro is holding down our inflation rate which would otherwise be quite high, with the high price of oil in dollar terms and the reducing effect of cheaper biritish imports.

gurramok

With the euro, the central bank could not put interest rates up.
It was a factor which did not help house prices one iota.

Right now the strenth of the euro is holding down our inflation rate which would otherwise be quite high

The euro did damage to the inflation rate when it was weak for a very long time.
Inflation since 1999 bar the last couple months has been consistently in the 4-7% bracket !
Market forces dictated the strength of the euro, its out of our hands

Meh

Originally posted by gurramok
The euro did damage to the inflation rate when it was weak for a very long time.
Inflation since 1999 bar the last couple months has been consistently in the 4-7% bracket !

If you're going to blame that on the €, how do you explain the low inflation rates in the rest of the eurozone?

swiss

Moving this to Business/Economy/Finance.

Greggy, I would appreciate it if you didn't start threads on such a cryptic note. €, tbh.

You cannot pin down inflation rates to one factor such as the relative strength of a currency. Historically, devaluing the currency has had the effect of increasing exports and decreasing imports, but because those imports are that much more expensive, and because your money is effectively worth less, inflation normally ensues as a result.

A strong currency, while keeping inflation under control serves to reduce exports. Several years ago, when the Irish pound hit parity with the pound Sterling, Irish exporters had a nightmare trying to export material. However, the main issue people would have with this is that this is now outside of our control, and it has been mentioned several times that politically dominant countries within the EU can set the single currency to a rate that suits them - as opposed to us.

My €0.02, in any case.

mike65

The € RULES! At the current rate of appriciation against the dollar I'll be able to buy Texas with whats in my current account!

Mike.

Captain Trips

Might cause an ECB rate drop next year as Germany is still struggling and the high rates make export exchange rates act almost like the rates have been going up.

It's odd that Ireland is no longer trying to by a little fish in a very big pond. Overall, the euro will probably protect against a sudden about turn and house drop and chaos if we were on our own. 4 million people of what 300 million. What's good for EU is good for Ireland.

No matter what people bitch, that whole economic crash thing I don't think it ever realy hit. Not if Cafe En Seine is still packed at the weekends and people are happy to pay over a fiver a pint.

Victor

Originally posted by gurramok
The euro did damage to the inflation rate when it was weak for a very long time.
Inflation since 1999 bar the last couple months has been consistently in the 4-7% bracket ! Market forces dictated the strength of the euro, its out of our hands

The problem was the Punt, the Guilder and the Peseta joined too weak, relative in particular against the Deutschmark, primarily due to German arrogance about the past strength of the DM. The Punt was appreciated by ~3%, when it should have been closer to 10%. This led to Irish products being artificially cheap and led to the hyper demand in 2000-2001. As demand greatly exceed supply, prices rose at an inordinate rate.