Hi all. This is my first post, although I've been reading these forums for a few months now. I'm no ecomonist, but everything I've read seems more than plausible and I'm more than a little worried that all my savings are going to be worth nothing within a few years, what with inflation being more than the government say and sterling going down in value. I'm wondering if its worth moving my savings to another currency... maybe to euros? And my parents, who are thinking of retiring to the continent in the next few years, would it be worth them changing their savings now, before they are worth nothing there?

I am thinking along the same lines as I will be buying into France for the second time shortly. I am finding it dificult to put the money in euro's and get a decent interest on it. I get a good interest at my B.S. which offsets the drop in value of the pound to the Euro.
The only thing I am going to buy for when I live in Blair land is a caravanette. Bought in France so no road tax required lol.
Brown wont make it into number 10 next time so changes will come.
Started new year celebrations a couple of hours ago so sorry about any spelling mistakes.
Happy new Year chaps.

I'm thinking about sticking some holiday money into euros too. I know you can just do it through opening a euro account with you own bank. mine pays around 3% so not much good! Does anyone have any brighter ideas? Also it seems you can't withdraw cash from it when in Euroland so it has to go via sterling anyway, unless you send some money to a friend with a european bank account who can then give you the euros in cash when you get there. Am I missing something??

Nationwide international pays decent interest on euro accounts.

The pound was very strong after the end of WWII I believe due to the fact it was allied to the $US and the $US was the only hard currency. Later the US made its deal with Saudi Arabia whereby oil was priced in $US. This made the dollar a petro currency and the pound came along for the ride as well. The pound became a petro in its own right after the North Sea came on line. Now the US is losing its grip as a petro currency and it's plummeting, the pound too will dive because it is no longer a petro currency. The Russian rouple is rising, it's a big oil exporter, the Aussie dollar is rising, it's an oil and commodity exporter. Whoever controls the last of the oil in the future will have a strong currency, as it has been said, "he who controls the oil will rule his fellow man in an economic sense." The massive monetary inflation by the BOE and the FED due to the housing debacle is the obvious cause of the current collapse in the currencies but the oil factor will, in the long term, reduce these currencies to much lower ratings than in previous decades I believe.

I'm out here in Australia where the currency is very strong but I wouldn't keep more than a bare minimum of my savings in it, or any currency now days. Since 1970 all the worlds currencies have become feit, backed by nothing, and there is no guarantee that this experiment will not end in tears. My money goes into hard assets, precious metals, things I know will be there in 10, 20, 30 years time. Too much money has just vanished from the worlds markets of late, too many promises, too many defaults.





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