A lot of people have grand theories of how their government is hurting them by things like this. Most of it is just bunk because it just swaps ends. For examp

A lot of people have grand theories of how their government is hurting them by things like this. Most of it is just bunk because it just swaps ends. For example: a strong Euro makes European exports expensive. However, a strong Euro makes it cheap to import things. So, VW has a hard time exporting Jettas, but they have an easy time importing the parts they need to make Jettas. It's also one of those situations where that increased demand for Euros would eventually need to be spent. Lots of foreigners put their money in Euros raising the price of Euros, but eventually they'll want to spend it and if their buying power is higher in the US or other non-Eurozone places, they'll dump the Euros for that currency which lessens the demand for Euros. Economics tends toward equilibriums. Lots of things push it out of equilibrium, but not over the long-term. The one thing that higher interest rates tend to do is discourage investment. The profits of non-financial firms doesn't depend on interest rates and I think it's safe to assume that the average firm sees about 10% growth per annum. So, if you (as an investor) can get a guaranteed 6% from a bank or a potentially risky 10% in stocks, stocks look less attractive than when your bank is giving you 2% interest. The reward for the risk of stocks diminishes as interest rates are higher. Likewise, on the loan end, higher interest rates make it less attractive for businesses (or individuals) to borrow money to start a company or buy a house since it diminishes their potential profit and makes it riskier that they will even achieve a profit since their costs are higher. That's not to say raising interest rates is a bad thing in all cases - in fact, during boom times you want to do that in order to manage the economic growth. But when faced with an economic crisis, it's good to get the money flowing more freely (by having lower interest rates).