http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1415592/posts
"Euro dives on Italian call to quit currency"
Reuters -UK ^ | Friday June 3rd, 2005 | Naomi Tajitsu
Posted on 06/03/2005 12:41:25 AM PDT by M. Espinola
ARTICLE SNIPPET: "TOKYO (Reuters) - The euro suddenly spiked lower on Friday after an Italian minister said that Italy should quit the single currency and revert back to the lira."
Faltering support for the Euro is going to anger the Muslims. They've been pushing hard to shift the preferred currency for oil transactions from the US Dollar to the Euro.
On my recent trip to Italy (March 2005), I noticed just how expensive goods and services have become under the Euro. At that time, the Euro was equivalent to 1.31 USD. Food prices seemed exorbitant compared to the same offerings in the US. The prices were high in Euros, thus were 31%+ higher when purchased with US Dollars and the bank commission to trade Euros for Dollars. I don't know how Italians tolerate those kind of prices.