libby Posted December 30, 2008 Share Posted December 30, 2008 Following my comments two weeks that there will be parity between the UK pound and the Euro. On Sky News 5 minutes ago @ 15.30 hrs, the Pound appears to be moving in that direction. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hallii Posted December 30, 2008 Share Posted December 30, 2008 I bet the spinning for entry into the Euro will start anytime now, parity on entry will give the UK business community a very competitive edge. Both the export markets and the tourist industry (UK) will be rubbing their hands in glee. Never mind the likes of us, we go abroad and spend our money so do not need to be considered. Geoff Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
David Dwight Posted December 30, 2008 Share Posted December 30, 2008 A friend has bought euro's this am, E250 = £255 Its going to be an expesive 2 months in Spain! David Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
spospe Posted December 30, 2008 Share Posted December 30, 2008 I too mourn the exchange rate and curse that the UK is not in the euro zone, but I will be going to France / Spain etc as usual. Is anyone on this forum not going abroad because of the increased cost? At what exchange rate will you decide to holiday in the UK? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
eljay Posted December 30, 2008 Share Posted December 30, 2008 When I enquired, the best deal I could get this morning was £0.9927 =€1 and this was on an appreciable sum. I think the UK is being talked down into the state it is in by the "doom and gloom" merchants. J Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Keith T Posted December 30, 2008 Share Posted December 30, 2008 Hopefully it may recover from its present dibolical rate, although I said during the summer,I thought it would be politically engineered to parity by summer 2009. However, those of you who have been travelling to the Continent for some time may remember that back in 1995 the French Franc was about 7.5 to the £1, down from around 10, but it recovered after a while. The reason I remember this, is that it was the first year we travelled extensively across Europe (about 7 months)and all the major currencies which we then required were about 20% more expensive!!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest JudgeMental Posted December 31, 2008 Share Posted December 31, 2008 spospe - 2008-12-30 4:21 PM I too mourn the exchange rate and curse that the UK is not in the euro zone, but I will be going to France / Spain etc as usual. Is anyone on this forum not going abroad because of the increased cost? At what exchange rate will you decide to holiday in the UK? we will carry on for now....especially with main summer break, as life would be intolerable without at least a month of decent weather. A colleague just returned from a (non motorhome) holiday in southern Spain, never again he said as he could have got an all inclusive 5* deal in Cuba/Dominican republic for the same money. More and more will start to think like this I believe. We had a miserable :-D Christmas here for the first time in 8 years, so money saved there will help pay for some breaks this year...But its going to get a lot worse economically and crime will increase proportionally before things begin to improve if ever. Blame the carping little Englanders for this mess, we could have gone into one of the strongest currency's in the world at a rate approx 1.70 - 1.50 Instead we are on the verge of bankruptcy*-) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bill Ord Posted December 31, 2008 Share Posted December 31, 2008 Hi, Southern Spain will get a miss this year and I'll spend extra time in France. I'll still go to mainland Europe as the alternative of staying in U.K. just doesn't tick my box for all kinds of reasons. Spain was already getting very expensive if staying on campsites and there is a dearth of GOOD campsites there at moderate prices. Who knows what the future holds? It seems to me that the natural rate rate for £/Franc was 1:10 or 1 Euro for £0.70, this held for decades with blips every now and again when our economy took a hit. Things have taken a dramatic turn for the worse and I fear we'll all have to get used to being the poor relations for the foreseeable future. It is the future of the whole British motorhome industry that may be in the balance as a great deal of the components come from Europe and only the labour content is priced in £'s so with so little of our motorhome industry exporting to Europe I fear for their future. Bill Ord Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rapido-lass Posted December 31, 2008 Share Posted December 31, 2008 We still hope to travel abroad this year, but due to my present employment situation, it will be down to whether we can afford a holiday rather than where the holiday is, therefore, the £ /euro exchange rate won't be the reason for the decision. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lesandy247 Posted December 31, 2008 Share Posted December 31, 2008 Once the Bank of England suggests that Base Rate isn't going to drop any lower, the pound will start to strengthen again. Also, when Europe own up to being in as much of a mess as UK, the Euro will start dropping in value, as the £ and US $ already have. We are off to Switzerland in March, 1.5 francs to the £ at the moment compared to 2.2 francs 12 months ago - ouch! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vernon B Posted January 1, 2009 Share Posted January 1, 2009 lesandy247 - 2008-12-31 1:05 PM Once the Bank of England suggests that Base Rate isn't going to drop any lower, the pound will start to strengthen again. Also, when Europe own up to being in as much of a mess as UK, the Euro will start dropping in value, as the £ and US $ already have. I’m not so sure we can depend on that. The truth is the demise of the £ is down to the UK's poor competitiveness. 50 years ago, when I first went to France as a school boy, we were getting 16 Francs to the £, in the 80's about 12 francs and in the 90s 10 francs. Today's parity with the euro means we are getting the equivalent of 6.5 francs – we have a trend line here more compelling than global warming. Since the decline of our manufacturing industry the word "productivity" has conveniently gone out of fashion but it applies equally to the service industries, and certainly the public sector. Next time you're in France, Germany or Spain just take a look at how many people it takes to run a typical supermarket, a filling station, a bank, or even the A&E department of a hospital. Count them up and you'll find we need at least one and a half people, and more like 2, for every one they employ over there. As a nation we've put "job creation" before "productivity". As a result our relatively poor productivity levels are why the £ continues to slide and why the price of things in our service sector are regarded as a rip off - companies don't make more profit here they just p** more away on wages. As to whether folks can afford to continue going abroad will depend upon personal circumstances. At first sight the numbers are daunting and there's no escaping the fact that in 2009 the "euro" content of motorhoming abroad might cost 50% more than a year ago. Some people have indicated that they can take that on the chin; others will have to compromise; and some might have to pack it in. But remember things could be a lot worse. Unlike many of our contemporaries we haven't burnt our bridges by selling up in the UK and shipping out to the euro-zone where we’re having to live on a much lower UK based income. Not only that we all know, but may be reluctant to admit, that £ for £ (or even euro for euro) our type of continental excursions still represent the best value on the planet – (OK ignoring the cost of buying the ‘van in the first place – but hey that’s water under the bridge now!) A happy, safe, and healthy 2009 to all V Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Patricia Posted January 1, 2009 Share Posted January 1, 2009 [ Not only that we all know, but may be reluctant to admit, that £ for £ (or even euro for euro) our type of continental excursions still represent the best value on the planet – (OK ignoring the cost of buying the ‘van in the first place – but hey that’s water under the bridge now!) A happy, safe, and healthy 2009 to all V I am not sure I agree with this statement. I usually travel to France in my motorhome and then spend a large amount of the time in a house i.e. relatively few campsite and fuel charges. However, I am always amazed (not sure why as I have been doing this for many years!) how much the trip costs overall. Even for two people, and at the good old rates, it adds up to more than a package holiday would have cost. Admittedly that would have been for a shorter stay, and certainly not to my taste, but for a lone traveller particularly it comes to a lot of money. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
derek500 Posted January 1, 2009 Share Posted January 1, 2009 Vernon B - 2009-01-01 5:45 PM But remember things could be a lot worse. Unlike many of our contemporaries we haven't burnt our bridges by selling up in the UK and shipping out to the euro-zone where we’re having to live on a much lower UK based income. We're quite lucky. When we moved to Spain in 2003, we brought about half our capital with us and exchanged it at about 1.47. We don't take any money out of the UK, so we're still in effect working on the 2003 rate. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
trickydicky Posted January 1, 2009 Share Posted January 1, 2009 we are so lucky as well. when we made a bit of money in tenerife we banked some of it there just so we had a spanish bank account,to save keep changing into euros.i'm so glad we've still got a bit left, hoping it will last until things get better.and we got 1.52 to the pound. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Philman Posted January 1, 2009 Share Posted January 1, 2009 I have just been looking back over my records of financial transactions since the Euro was introduced. In Jan 02 it varied from 1.6 to 1.58. It dropped to 1.5 mid year and then went back to 1.53. From 2003 through to 2007 it dropped from 1.5 to 1.4. ; In 2008 it started around 1.3 and by October it had dropped to 1.2. The last couple of months it dropped to 1:1 for a short period andi s now only just above parity. This looks a bit like a devaluation of the pound. Phil. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
libby Posted January 1, 2009 Author Share Posted January 1, 2009 That's devaluation by the backdoor without frightening the inhabitants ! All organised by those in powere no doubt. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BGD Posted January 1, 2009 Share Posted January 1, 2009 lesandy247 - 2008-12-31 1:05 PM Once the Bank of England suggests that Base Rate isn't going to drop any lower, the pound will start to strengthen again. Also, when Europe own up to being in as much of a mess as UK, the Euro will start dropping in value, as the £ and US $ already have. We are off to Switzerland in March, 1.5 francs to the £ at the moment compared to 2.2 francs 12 months ago - ouch! Soz - but I don't see any evidence to support This view. For two reasons: 1. It is not only a function of what the Bank of England sets their base-rate at. In reality the commerical banks, and other lending/borrowing institutions negoatiate or ste theur rates depending on their own criteria, and views on the state of the market. As an eaxample, there is no business or private borrower who is getting the Bank-of-Englnad rate now. It's also a function of what other EU countries set their base rates at, and what their commercial and retail banks set theirs at....and they have no allegiance to the financially busted British Government, they are commercial insitutions, making profits for their shareholders. From memory, Banco Santander (Spanish) is now the 3rd largest bank in the UK (having bought Alliance & Leicester, Abbey etc), but isn't UK owned. It is a Spanish plc. 2. The mess in the Eurozone countries isn't nearly as bad as the mess in the UK. For at least two key reasons: The forst is that their levels of National debt are MILES lower than the national debt in the UK. National debt (Government borrowing) can ONLY be repaid by taxation (on individuals and businesses). The UK Government has now racked up over a trillion (a million million) pounds of borrowing debt, and is even now increasing that level of borrowing at an even faster rate. Almost all of that borrowing has been spent on non-wealth-creating things, like more public sector workers, more regulation, etc. So the UK has spent the money, far more of it than its been earning, on projects that won't earn it any more in the future, and yet the payback on that borrowing will have to be shouldered in large part by whatever businesses are left in the years to come. The second (and this has been referred to in a post above) is the poor productivity of employees in the UK compared to most of the rest of those countries in the Eurozone. Not in absolute output terms, but because there are relatively fewer employees in the UK in wealth creating private sector employment, and relatively more in public sector service and non-job employment. And also because the total cost of employing someone in the UK (wages, national insurance, holidays, pension, sick pay, health and safety porovisions, staff canteen, uniforms, maternity pay, paternity pay, etc etc etc) means that their output per-pound of cost is lower than in other countries. Bluntly, Britain plc is paying itself too much for the value of goods and services it is generating, and too many people (now over 40% of ALL the employees in Britain) don't generate any added-value because they are employed by the Government, by Quangos, by County Councils, rather than by wealth creating businesses...but those businesses and their employees have to fund them, and Govenmnet borrowing, as well as funding themselves. And at the same time, those businesses are competing for sales with others from elsewhere in the Eurozone, and elsewhere in the world, which haven't got the burden of such high taxes, such massive regulation, such high labour and social costs, and whose employees are more productive per unit of cost. The more that international businesses see this disparity, the more and the faster they continue to be inclined to invest in, or transfer to, other Eurozone countries instead of the UK. Ask yourself a question. If you had a couple of hundred million ot invest in a new international business in the EU, would you honestly now set it up and try to run it in Britain, as opposed to (say) Germany, Spain, Italy et al...? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
libby Posted January 2, 2009 Author Share Posted January 2, 2009 Nearly there !!!!!!!!!!! Euro 1.04 to the GBP .96p Regardless of what many may think it is the way forward and has always been my view. And was no doubt planned by the monetry system years ago. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BGD Posted January 2, 2009 Share Posted January 2, 2009 libby - 2009-01-02 1:16 PM Nearly there !!!!!!!!!!! Euro 1.04 to the GBP .96p Regardless of what many may think it is the way forward and has always been my view. And was no doubt planned by the monetry system years ago. Nope. Wasn't planned at all, by any European Government or financial institution. Shifts in the relative valuations of traded currencies are the overall result of billions of totally unconnected individual and coroporate decisions every hour of every single day. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
libby Posted January 2, 2009 Author Share Posted January 2, 2009 But surely the UK government must have had an inkling that at some time they would have to conform to the rest of Europe and would be looking for an excuse, which this appears to be. To be part of a union must be better than being an individual, unless the individual has enormous strength and can dictate. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Patricia Posted January 2, 2009 Share Posted January 2, 2009 Although I worked in finance at one point in my life, I am afraid I don't understand much of what is being discussed recently. However, it seems to me that it would be a stupid time to change currencies when the pound is so low; we should have perhaps considered it more when the rate was 1.50 or better still 1.70. Also I read an article today which said that the Mediterranean countries, Portugal, Italy, Greece and Spain, are in dire trouble and will sooner or later pull out of the eurozone and return to their original currencies so that they can regulate their own banking systems i.e. interest rates etc. Whether this is true or a rumour by a euro-sceptic I don't know but I do know that each time we devalue, which is what in reality we are doing, it has been under a socialist government. In any case the eurozone is suffering high inflation anyway. Has anyone else looked at the published increases in campsite fees this year in Spain never mind the added problem of the fall in the pound. I should think all the aires will be overflowing! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Basil Posted January 3, 2009 Share Posted January 3, 2009 Patricia - 2009-01-02 8:09 PM ........ but I do know that each time we devalue, which is what in reality we are doing, it has been under a socialist government. Strange that I never realised that Nigel Lawson was a Socialist! Hmmm! See http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1989/jul/06/devaluation Very interesting reply in the fourth paragraph from the said Mr Lawson too, strange how short memories people have. Bas Edit typo. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BrianR Posted January 4, 2009 Share Posted January 4, 2009 Patricia - 2009-01-02 8:09 PM However, it seems to me that it would be a stupid time to change currencies when the pound is so low; we should have perhaps considered it more when the rate was 1.50 or better still 1.70. This would only be true if the rate at which we were to enter the Euro were the then current market rate. The reality is that it the rate would be decided upon by the Europeen Central Bank and the politicians of the Eurozone. One thing you can be certain of is that it would be a rate that would favour them and be bad for the UK. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brian Kirby Posted January 4, 2009 Share Posted January 4, 2009 BrianR - 2009-01-04 2:58 PM Patricia - 2009-01-02 8:09 PM However, it seems to me that it would be a stupid time to change currencies when the pound is so low; we should have perhaps considered it more when the rate was 1.50 or better still 1.70. This would only be true if the rate at which we were to enter the Euro were the then current market rate. The reality is that it the rate would be decided upon by the Europeen Central Bank and the politicians of the Eurozone. One thing you can be certain of is that it would be a rate that would favour them and be bad for the UK. 1.6+ would have been a bad rate for the UK, because it would have made most of our surviving industry even more uncompetitive. I seem to remember the view at the time was around 1.3 would be about right. That may now be 1.25, but less is not going to be popular with the other Europeans for long. It gives us too great a cost advantage into their markets. As to whether they would seek to skew the rate to our disadvantage, why? If they disadvantage us economically, we become a weaker market for their goods. If they advantage us economically, we become too competitive in their markets. The objective, logically, has to be somewhere in the middle, so that all sides have the chance to win. We have been lectured for years about how the Europeans keep getting their economics wrong, whereas we supposedly get our right. Notwithstanding, it is their currency, and industry, that seem to thrive, while ours declines. Nearly all our industry is foreign owned, ditto our public utilities, ditto some of our train operators, ditto a lot of our banks, and most of our car production. How can all these unsuccessful countries keep producing companies that are slowly turning the UK into a cash cow for them, while our highly successful economy just carries on selling off bits of the country's infrastructure? It does look awfully like the once great family selling off its silver to repair the roof! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Curly Posted January 5, 2009 Share Posted January 5, 2009 Hi all off to Potugal Wednesday so did the business and exchanged to Euros. I got 1.984E to the £, yes I jest not I actually had this exchange rate but let me explain before, as you all get up off the floor, and call me a bl.........dy liar. I was quoted 1.03E to the £ which was reasonable compared to the last few days when it hit 1 for 1 but get this, dont ask why they could not give an answer, but for another £2.52 I had another 5E getting on this small amount 1.984E to the £, I know it doesnt make sense to me either but there we have it. *-) *-) :-> :-> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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