Some refer to the # symbol as an octothorpe and here is a link with an explanation why [URL=http://www.sigtel.com/tel_tech_octothorpe.html]link[/URL]

I usually think of my height in feet and inches and weight in kilograms. I think of distances in kms. but driving speed in mph since I have driven most of my adult life in the US. So yes I'm all mixed up too. It's what you grow up with. Though most of the time it is 'vale la pena' or worth the pain to switch to metric. At least you don't lose multi-million dollar satellites on the dark side of the moon :razz:

[QUOTE]but on a bigger scale we already have a means to compare prices globally - its called the DOLLAR.[/QUOTE]

Well, that is changing. One of the reasons mentioned that are supposed to have got Bush into invading Iraq - there were a lot of other reasons - but this is a plausible one, is that Saddam was planning to denominate prices for Iraqi oil in Euros. The Euro is a pretty strong currency despite the weakness of the underlying economies. Now, I agree that is bad for exports but it is good for imports. Regardless, the Euro poses a strong challenge to the Dollar's claim as the no. 1 currency in the world. Particularly, I think that once Bush's budget chickens come to roost and if and when continental Euopeans get their economies moving again it will become increasingly apparent that the dollar's future is to be #2.

[QUOTE]In some countries that introduced Euro, rather than improve competition which would reduce prices, people found that prices in shops eg for food INCREASED.[/QUOTE]

I was talking to a Dutch economist and he says that is a more fiction than fact. Yes prices have increased but not by as much as people claim. Overall, inflation figures have been in line with historic trends. Check the figures to be sure.

I also agree that different countries have different laws and different interest rates, labor prices, economic imperatives etc. etc. and having a single Euro makes things tougher. But then you have huge disparities between the economies of Kentucky and California some of which are the same as what you mentioned above but no one says they should have different currencies.

Finally, there is a lot of pain involved in unifying currencies of so many countries and it will take a few years to settle down to a point at which other countries can be admitted. But those people who think that the Euro has been a hindrance not a help, need only look to Ireland. It has done better than the UK while being in the Euro zone. So yes the Euro is a factor but it not entirely clear to me if it has helped or hurt.

Here is an interesting link:

[url]http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/1120013.stm[/url]

It took Britain a 100 years to get moving.....
And now it is being cast as a battle between the Brits and the EU. :rolleyes:

[QUOTE]those people who think that the Euro has been a hindrance not a help, need only look to Ireland. It has done better than the UK while being in the Euro zone. So yes the Euro is a factor but it not entirely clear to me if it has helped or hurt[/QUOTE]


I haven't had time to look at the figures in detail, but much of the Irish economic success occurred before the coming of the Euro. Perhaps the decisive step was Ireland cutting the tie to the £GB in 1979. But you can argue that either way: either Ireland needed the freedom to pursue a line independent of the UK at a time when the two countries economies were behaving differently or Ireland needed to prepare for monetary union with the EU.

[QUOTE]And now it {metrication} is being cast as a battle between the Brits and the EU[/QUOTE]

its an obvious point, but these things are always cast as a battle between plucky Brits and mindless Eurocrats, its lazy journalism.

[QUOTE=Richard Cameron]But you can argue that either way: either Ireland needed the freedom to pursue a line independent of the UK at a time when the two countries economies were behaving differently or Ireland needed to prepare for monetary union with the EU. [/QUOTE]

Precisely my point. It is hard to prove whether the Euro was a hindrance or a help. Maybe the French,German and italian economies have some structural problems that need to be addressed and the Euro is just making them more obvious. They would have to be corrected anyway but the Euro is forcing people to pay attention sooner rather than later. I don't know but I remain unconvinced that the Euro is the problem. As Richard says "lazy journalism."

[QUOTE=Peter Nelson;57035][However world standardisation eg of "." as decimal point should (slightly) reduce costs of software development (to only support one method) and potentially reduce the need to print separate literature targetted for different national audiences.[/QUOTE]It is funny all this asking for standardisation since there is an international organisation : ISO and there is a standard for the decimal sign, list and digit separators.

The standard is ... decimal "," ; list separator ";" and digit separator " ". One can argue about the choice but it is the international agreed upon standard.

As a sidenote it is probably the lack of interest by the Anglo-Saxon countries that allowed to agree on what are basically French standards :-) There is another thread where the data format is discussed and that is YYYY-MM-DDThh:mm:ss,dddd for instance it is now 2007-03-20 13:43:24 where I write this.

Jacob