Either prices are rising or they are not. If they are not rising enough to push up inlfation, then it can hardly be said that everyone's bread and water is facing a price hike. Or for every product that prices are rising, there are some where prices are falling. Either way, whoever wrote the above statement is an idiot.
I agree! Only the New York Times would believe that Europeans who ordinarily work with three or more national currencies in the course of a single day would have trouble dealing with the new Euro.
The people at the New York Times believe a lot of strange things you know. Some of them may well be true, but who knows if it's printed in the Times.