The Little Book of the Shrinking Dollar: What You Can Do to Protect Your Money Now

But What About the Euro?

Thomas Lapointe, a portfolio manager at Third Avenue, made this crack in his last shareholder letter:

Once upon a time, as the European Union was being contemplated and before England wisely chose to keep its Pound Sterling (and the right to control its own monetary policy), the saying was, “A successful Euro would have German efficiency, Italian cooking, and British humor; while a failure would feature German humor, Italian efficiency, and British food.”

Last time we were writing a book on the dollar, we were actually worried about the competition offered by the euro. It was a big wildcard in our book.

Now, only five years later, the whole experiment is in jeopardy. The differences between the fiscal trajectories of the various Eurozone states are of degree only, not direction. In this game, we’d put our bets that Germany—the last AAA standing—will call the shots. And they could well kick Greece or one of the other paltry PIIGS outta the Union. (The PIIGs being: Portugal, Italy, Ireland, Greece, and Spain).

When our “Daily Reckoning” chief editor Eric Fry took his Farewell Euro tour, he found that plenty of the solid EU nations were ready to stop the bailouts. (Look for the full series on YouTube.) It seems no one in Amsterdam was interested in donating to Eric’s PIIGS-Y bank. In fact, according to the word on the street, the whole euro experiment seems like something you regret, like a hangover. And as one shopkeeper put it: “I like more the guilder.” ...