There is a backlash against the the euro now, but I think it will be temporary. A survey claims that 80% of the people in The Netherlands would like to revert to the guilder. If the euro should fail we would have no other option but to adopt the US dollar. A return to our own old money is out of the question. They claim that the euro has been used to increase prices and that they go through their money too fast. However, we do have inflation and government charges like energy prices and certain taxes always go up on the first of January. I have witnessed one blatant abuse of the euro, when outlets on the railway stations increased the price of drink and food substantially not last January but in July last year, and the new euro prices were hard amounts. For 0.6 L of coke bought there, I can buy 2 L of the same stuff in a supermarket! I also think that a lot of people use euros as if they are guilders, which is catastrophic for their financial wellbeing. We adopted the euro overnight, and as the old coin will never return, people will have to adjust. I thank God that we did not adopt the euro the way changes are attempted in the USA. The old currency and the euro would run side by side for how long? I think at least for two generations. Two generations or more of confusion and abuse. No, in such cases I prefer our 'undemocratic' ways. Have it done with and get on with our lives. As we adopted SI in 1978 using the American method of changing things, the stupid 'metric' horsepower and other outdated units like the calorie and the kcal/h are still alive and kicking. After 24 years! And a lot of this can be blamed on marketeers and commercial interests, who simply did not use SI units in their ads, preventing people from getting used to them. They used the eternal excuse that people did not understand the new units. Strange that computer screens are sold here using the inch, a 'new' unit as well. Suddenly the question of people understanding this 'new' unit was not heard anymore. This is about Pat Naughtin's third category: traders and the like, who boycott any change for the better and who corrupt and subvert existing correct ways of measuring by introducing 'new', but undisirable measuring units.
Han Historian of Dutch Metrication, Nijmegen, The Netherlands ----- Original Message ----- From: "kilopascal" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: "U.S. Metric Association" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Friday, 2002-04-05 01:12 Subject: [USMA:19232] Re: let's go OFF line with the OFF topics messages! > 2002-04-04 > > On a parallel note, I'm sure some of you have heard that the US Mint has announced it has suspended production of the Sacagewea Dollar coin. The news release said it was due to lack of interest by the public. Even though there was more interest in the Sacagewea than in the SBA Dollar, the demand is too small to warrant continuing production. The mint also stated that if there is further interest, they may resume production next year. > I'm sure we all felt it would come to this. As long as we have a government that can't properly plan and implement the introduction of a simple coin to replace the dollar bill, how can we expect the government to lead us into SI? It doesn't take a rocket scientist to realise that in order to get the "new" accepted, you have to take away the "old". The coin would have been totally accepted and the paper dollar forgotten by now, if the paper dollar had been removed from circulation, just like the way Europe removed the old currencies in order to make way for the Euro. > > If we want to see America metric, we need to do more than just expose the people to metric. We have to rid the country of the old measures at the same time. Or else, the population will cling to the old units. We do this by government laws that require only metric measuring devices be made and certified. As long as pound scales and inch rulers abound and continue to be made, FFU will never be replaced by SI, even if every product is labelled solely in SI. John
