If Poland were in the Eurozone...

Many Europeans, especially the Germans, have claimed (and rightly so, I think!) that the Euro has increased prices on all, not just on imported, goods/services! Lots of middle-aged to older Germans with whom I've spoken of late, actually prefer a return to the D-Mark.

@Lyszko: not only the Germans but everybody in the Euro zone complains about high prices and most want to get out of the bs. The good thing is that it is probably the beginning of the end since a failure. It was a good thing for businesses but not for the small guy.

Precisely, and therefore it's not a level playing field. After all, without the "little guy" to be "taken", there would be no "big guy" to take him, would there?

No, it's a symbiotic relationship, I'm afraid: the average citizen needs the businessman as much as vice-versa. Remember the sign outside shop and store windows during depressionary times: "Customers wanted, no experience necessary!":-)

Reminds me of the old (but very true) quip; If you owe the bank 1,000 PLN and you default, you are in trouble; but if you owe the bank 10 bn PLN and you default, it is the bank that is in trouble..

We too used to quip, "What's the National Bank of Poland"? It's where they give YOU $10,000.00 and you give THEM a new toaster:-0

Do you know why?

People claimed that the Euro increased prices because they (wrongly) counted 1 Euro = 2DM. It's actually 1.95something - so they were losing 0.05DM on every Euro that they thought they had. The same problem existed in France, where it was traditional to tip 10FF to Parisen waiters. People then started tipping 1 Euro instead - which was only 6.5something Francs.

The evidence has shown that the price increases were pretty much statistically insignificant - and later conversions to the Euro such as the Estonian Kroon and the Slovak Koruna kept dual pricing for a while afterwards to discourage any attempt at profiteering.

If you understand economics, have a look here - ijcb.org/journal/ijcb07q4a1.pdf- it shows that the actual Italian inflation (which was perceived to be astronomical) was within 0.5% of the official rate, or within the margin of error for the statistics in question.

Is was there when the Euro was introduced. What actually happened was that some companies started to switch their prices from DM to EUR on a 1:1 basis, even though they were legally obliged to use the correct exchange rate of 2:1 (DM/EUR). Over night, a beer didn't cost DM 2,- anymore, but EUR 2,- for example. Same happened with dry cleaners, hairdressers, grocery stores and countless other products and services. It was a major rip-off, and the German government simply pretended that it didn't happen.

I was travelling between Spain and Germany during the changeover, both countries were complaining of the price increases when adopting the Euro, some 15% increases which were never mentioned in the MSM.

What with the enduring income differentials between, say, Poland on average and Sweden for instance, I'm tempted to paraphrase the late G.B. Shaw's quip about England and America, that at present Germany and Greece, just to mention an example, are two countries separated by the same currency:-)