It is at times like these that a global currency seems like a good idea. If politicians, economists and businesses could harness and put to better use the collective agonising over exchanges rates, the planet would surely benefit. That is the belief of those such as Nobel laureate Robert Mundell, who reckons we have a far inferior international monetary system today than we did a century ago under the gold standard.
But what should mere investors make of it all? A sensible approach is to take a few steps back. Doing so would show, for example, that the euro is hardly in the crisis everyone suggests. A rate of 1.34 to the dollar has been visited half a dozen times since 2008 as well as the year before that and even for a brief spell in 2004. In fact, all of the major currency pairs are trading within historical ranges.
The trouble is those ranges are wide. While fun for currency traders, such swings in exchange rates can have big economic repercussions. The last thing the US needed in mid-2008 was for the dollar to appreciate by one-fifth against the euro. Ditto for China, which stopped the gradual appreciation of the renminbi against the dollar in July 2008 but still could not prevent exports plummeting. Indeed, with the dollar strengthening again this year, China may well wonder why it should not depreciate the renminbi rather than heed calls for the opposite.