After the crash/recession of 2000 induced by the confluence of the millennium bug and the attempted introduction of the euro, there will be another hit to worry about, a crash in the value of the dollar when the euro becomes a medium of exchange in 2002.
Now folks on pkt and Doug Henwood have discounted the idea that money is a medium of exchange or that "cash" even matters. Indeed, Doug, following the Wall Street crowd whom he so effectively critiques, calls 90-day T-bills "cash," which are not even part of M2. But, in 2002 we shall be forcibly reminded that cash is M0 and is king.
Currently the dollar is the favored international medium of exchange for cash transactions, as any Russian or Columbian businessperson can tell you, and the last numbers I saw indicated that there were more cash dollars outside the US than in. The euro as a medium of exchange will be introduced in 2002 (despite hassles with the introduction of it into computers as a unit of account). Its highest denomination will be at 500 which will be worth even more than $500. I predict a massive shift towards it as the international medium of exchange for cash transactions and a noticeable jolt to the dollar internationally as all that cash floods home. Barkley Rosser
-- Rosser Jr, John Barkley rosserjb at jmu.edu