Easy Money

Somebody was commenting the other week that Accountants are the cleverest people around, they've taken the very basic human skill of adding and subtracting and made a career out of it. Well I'd like to add anybody who works on the Forex markets to that small group after my experience this week.

Knowing that I'd only be some twenty minutes from Denmark during my stay in Germany I thought I'd take the opportunity of popping over the dotted line on the map, spending some Krone and then nipping back. Unfortunately at 9 a.m on the morning I visited it Padborg only had one bakery and one supermarket to offer and as I had already eaten I returned to Germany with my 400 Dk (£50) intact.

Now the sensible thing to have done would have been to change the currency to Euros whilst on holiday but I didn't think of that, after all holidays should be a break from sensible thinking, instead I changed it back at Sainsburys in the UK and my 400 Dk that had cost me £50 eleven days earlier was now worth only £42. I had suffered a 15% reduction in the value of my currency on exchange!

As an aside it was interesting to hear the thoughts over the weekend about amending the cross border regulations due to the influx of people from North Africa being waved through Italy with all the rights of EU citizens. Travelling across various borders between Holland, Germany, Denmark, Belgium and France it's noticeable that in many cases the old customs buildings still exist as do the areas of no mans land between the various countries and I really do miss the old passport stamp.