Euros coming off fast against the usd and chf, any news?

This is a problem in Eastern Europe, mostly (Hungary, most notably).
And, from a macro-economic point of view, ignoring the obvious personal tragedies, it's a huge problem for the banks involved (mainly Austrian banks, AFAIK).

not just east europe, french and irish borrowers too

You don't need to be in EU to adopt the Euro as a currency, Montenegro as an example.

probably normal volatility given the EU summit etc.

This is a really good perspective, basically it was normal to pay 20-30% of income on accomodation. Now it's nothing like that. (Ireland had a similar pre-euro reality, lower salaries but really low accomodation costs, now no longer the case).

I wonder what percentage chance there will not be a euro as we know it in 12 months

Only to become reality if the finance-industry does not care about the economy. Which of course in recent months was obviously the case.

At present the real value of the Euro is about CHF 1.30, so that a rate of above CHF 1.25 would reflect reality

less than 2%, as none of the Euro-countries could afford to launch a new currency, AND because the Euro as such in the end will be stronger organisation-wise then before, as the EU-leaders now could see the weaknesses of the system.

Here is an interview in Blick with a Federal Councillor
http://www.blick.ch/news/politik/war...ndesrat-177173

You can use Google translate to read it if need be.

Quite why those leaders could not see the weakness or the entire stupidity of the euro. How on earth could it ever work?

entire stupidity of the Euro ? The Euro as such is alright. However, the successors of Valéry Giscard d'Estaing and Helmut Schmidt neglected to take care of the security-precautions the two men had in mind. There was no sufficient emergency-reserve ready when the Greece-crisis erupted. The system showed its weaknesses.

Agree
Take an example of the various eurozone countries & assume they had not joined the euro. Then they would all have own currencies & their individual exchange values would depend on all the different pluses & minuses within that country.

Now why would joining the eurozone change those intrinisic individual exchange values.
Answer is it does not; the eurozone only works when the weak countries are helped by the strong countries. Problem we now have is the weak countries are a lot weaker than people planned for.

But how could 1 currency with 1 interest rate possibly work over such a diverse range of countries?
Greece is hardly a match for Germany, it's got to end in tears, it's just when!

not a "match" for Germany, but a real problem for Germany

I still advocate Switzerland purchasing the Kanton Kreta. this would solve a good part of the problems of Greece and bring the CHF down to a sensible level ! And Switzerland would finally have a "Freier Blick auf's Mittelmeer"

The traffic language on Kreta would remain ----- German

"planned for" - indeed.

But the key thing was that politicians decreed that everyone should ignore the europhant in the corner. The Maastricht convergence criteria were political, not economic, and were thus ignored in 1998 to ensure the eurozone's creation, regardless of the underlying reality.

1999 until meltdown can be summarised in one simple chart:

Attachment 29919

Great idea, finally the Swiss Navy would have a home port!

it further raises today

Hopefully it keeps climbing - still get paid in Euro

i for one am loving this. i pay my exwife in USD and am watching that hurt less and less every month.

i just went on a holiday on the west coast and paid off the whole thing at once. woot!