[Zankou]

Neither of those posts made any sense to me. The exchange value of all of these currencies is floating. It's not propped up by some artificial hedge. You can already buy oil with Euros, or any other currency. I swear it. Yes, the price is denominated in dollars, but that doesn't mean it's paid in dollars, and the price simply fluctuates if the dollar loses value. Go try it. Similarly, if the Euro split, it doesn't mean that it is overvalued and therefore vulnerable to currency arbitrage. It would just split at the prevailing exchange rate. The only thing that would happen is that there would be a de-coupling of the regional currencies going forward from that point. The German currency bloc would probably be better as a hedge against inflation, but its exchange value will reflect a price premium for that expectation.