A few Notes along the way

The research has been very lucrative this week, so much to read!!

One goal I had this week was to find sources and example of "currency unions" similar to the Euro and the EU. I found several actually, some of those examples are as follows:

1. Switzerland and the Swiss Franc, also included in this union is Liechtenstein

2. Russia and the Russian Ruble, included is South Ossetia and Abkhazia

3. New Zealand Dollar also includes Cook Islands, Niue, Pitcairn Islands

There are several other examples of currency unions that are currently in operation. One thing I noticed in common with all the examples is there's usually a large country with a large economy that is basically the "boss" of the union and smaller countries participate for reasons of keeping exchange rates stable so those smaller countries can easily do trade with the larger "mother ship." However one common theme amount these unions is that the smaller countries, in almost all the examples, are VERY small countries with populations of usually less than two million citizens and very nominal national production/GDP.

This was a strong theme in finding the big challenge with the Euro, the other unions are in essence helping the the smaller countries, while the Euro is trying to hold developed, highly populated countries under one umbrella. The European Union is full of countries with populations exceeding tens of millions, with GDP numbers exceeding a trillion dollars and debt in excess of 100% of the individual countries GDP.

The Euro/EU is truly one of a kind in examples, I will cite the sources in the next post. Great information.