>Also, an older Italian gentleman I spoke to once told me that after their switch to Euros, their prices shot up but wages didn't. Curious how true this is and

>Also, an older Italian gentleman I spoke to once told me that after their switch to Euros, their prices shot up but wages didn't. Curious how true this is and if the same could happen in Croatia. On the euro-conversion day, 1 EUR = 1,936.27 ITLira = 1 Deutschmark (at the time). So, prices went up ie a L1,000 coffee became €1 - it doubled, because a) it was easy and b) people just couldn't be bothered. Businesses had no problem, being bothered, of course - wood from Germany that used to cost DM1,000, now cost €1,000 in Italy when it should have been 1,000/1,936.27 = 516 Euro....but it didn't. I knew a guy that was building a house and it was cheaper to purchase a lot of things from Germany (even with the exchange rates, paperwork etc), and boy did they get burned. Equally, an Italian company they originally called had also doubled their prices, so it would have cost twice as much again to purchase locally. Italy was just the victim of a series of rounding errors, except when it came to wages, as they didn't double. To me, it's just like shopping in the states. A dollar is a dollar, but state, local, county etc taxes sure make it far more interesting than it should be.