January 28, 2019 — In Europe, twenty years ago this month, 11 long-standing national currencies disappeared and were replaced by the new single currency, the euro. Since then, the euro has had its successes and failures.
The euro’s first 20 years
Tag Archives: ECB
Does the Dollar Need Another Plaza?
(3/23/2015) We are at the 30th anniversary of the 1985 Plaza Accord. It was the most dramatic intervention in the foreign exchange market since Nixon originally floated the US currency. At the end of February 1985 the dollar reached dizzying heights, which remain a record to this day. Then it began a long depreciation, encouraged by a shift in policy under the new Treasury Secretary, James Baker, and pushed down by G-5 foreign exchange intervention. People remember only the September 1985 meeting at the Plaza Hotel in New York City that ratified the policy shift; so celebrations of the 30th anniversary will wait until this coming fall.
Why Are So Many Commodity Prices Down in the US… Yet Up in Europe?
Oil prices plummeted 43% during the course of 2014 – good news for oil-importing countries, but bad news for Russia, Nigeria, Venezuela, and other oil exporters. Some attribute the price drop to the US shale-energy boom. Others cite OPEC’s failure to agree on supply restrictions.
But that is not the whole story. The price of iron ore is down, too. So are gold, silver, and platinum prices. And the same is true of sugar, cotton, and soybean prices. In fact, most dollar commodity prices have fallen since the beginning of the year. Though a host of sector-specific factors affect the price of each commodity, the fact that the downswing is so broadly shared – as is often the case with big price swings – suggests that macroeconomic factors are at work.