The "Almighty" Dollar

Canadians will already be well aware of this. For the past 7 years the Canadian dollar has been slowly creeping "up" to par with the US dollar. Stores in Vancouver that deal with tourists have been accepting US dollars at par for some time now. As of last February all of the larger banks stopped giving exchange on US coin. As of today the buy rate for US currency, for the first time since the early 1970's, is less than $1 CAD. At first blush you might think the Canadian dollar was doing well, but...

...compare both the US dollar and the Canadian dollar to the Euro and it a whole different story. These graphs only go back four years, but the trend is the same. The Euro was introduced in 2000 at a value exactly equal to $1 US. The value of the Canadian dollar vs. the Euro/USD at the time was about 70% of that. Over the past 7 years the Canadian dollar has been pretty steady against the Euro,  at 70% ±5% the Euro's value. Meanwhile the US dollar has been steadily declining in relative value.

There is a lot more to be said on this, but I don't think I want to go there. I'm just shaking my head and rolling my eyes...