As editor of an international trade magazine, I travel extensively around the world -- particularly to Europe, where I make several trips per year. Most recently, I traveled to Italy for Carraramarmotec and to visit some stoneworking operations. But there was something distinctively different about this latest trip, and it became noticeable before I even boarded the plane. When I went to exchange my U.S. dollars for Euros, I was astounded to see that handing over $200 U.S. netted me no better than 145 Euros. Of course, the exchange rate at the airport (and the inflated commission) is not representative of actual business trading, but it was a huge difference than what I was used to seeing. Speaking in terms of sheer necessities, this meant that a meal costing 20 Euros was no longer a $20 meal, but more in the neighborhood of $27.
Over the course of my writing over the past few months, I was obviously aware that the dollar was sliding in comparison to the Euro, but when you feel it in your own wallet, I suppose you notice it a bit more. In the interest of this column (written in mid-June 2003), I looked on the Internet to see what the "official" exchange rates were (as opposed to the "airport" exchange rates). As of this writing, the dollar had just declined 1% more against the Euro on June 13 alone -- reaching a rate of $1.1877 for 1 Euro. This is a little more than half a cent below May's record rate of $1.1932 for 1 Euro, but it is still a huge difference than even a few months ago. For comparison purposes, the posted exchange rate during the Marmomacc exhibition in October of 2002 was $0.9869 for 1 Euro -- over 20% more favorable than the current rate.