{quote} Haha what? Is this just intuition or a hunch? Lay the econ theory on me...or political theory. I'm just curious has how you concluded this. Please, take no offense.
But you have to consider who DID join the currency union and what they had to gain from it/what their motivations were, and who didn't join.
As long as the USD is the world reserve currency (or even a major component of it) the US has more to lose than to gain by joining a currency union, because when you own the world's reserve currency you can print a hell of a lot more of it without it affecting you in a negative way than you could otherwise.
Same for the Swiss. Nobody ever invades them because the effort required woudn't justify the resources gained (because of the mountains and the fact that they have a universal draft for males, who then tend to keep possession of their guns in relatively high numbers) , and everybody (of the powers that be) keeps their money there (even though the new US banking laws has started to have some impact on that). People tend to be conservative when it comes to their money. They like where they keep it to be staid, boring, conservative, and well guarded, not subject to political changes or other disruptions. (That's why when you imagine a banker in your mind's eye, he's wearing a suit in an office with marble floors.) So, when being the world's private banker is a major Swiss industry, why should/would they? If they were subject to all this Euroturmoil it'd ruin their image.
