Euro Out of Line

"I don't give a damn about a greenback dollar, I spend it fast as I can." -- Old American folk song.

   A dollar's a dollar, whether you spend it in Manhattan, NY, or in Manhattan, KS. It may go further -- that is, get you more stuff -- in Kansas than in New York City, but it's still a dollar, recognized and accepted as "legal tender for all debts, public and private." (That's what it says on each bill. You could look it up.) And it's issued by a single, federal government.
   That's not the case in Europe, where each of the 17 nations that use the euro as a common currency issues its own version of the bill. Supposedly, a euro made in one country is equal to a euro made in another. But the euro issued in Cyprus is not always accepted by folks in other euro zone member states. Reason: A bailout program for banks in Cyprus put strict controls on money there.
   In effect, Cypriot euros can't leave the country. It's like earning a salary in Philadelphia and not being able to spend it in New Jersey. That was, in fact, the case in the early years of the American republic, until a stronger federal government garnered the ability to issue money.
   So with some members of the European Union in trouble, and their economies about to collapse, will the quarantine of the Cypriot euro be the domino that takes down the grand plan? It seems likely, fulfilling suspicions that have been lurking on the sidelines for months.
   Or at least, Cyprus will zone out of the euro and try to survive with its own currency.