Hard currency: in wider circulation than even the dollar, the euro offers members a shelter that more countries are coming to see as alluring

The euro marks its 10th birthday on New Year’s day at a perilous moment in global finance. But if popular culture is any guide to underlying economic reality, the currency of Europe’s monetary union is in good shape. When a corrupt businessman pays his conspirators in Quantum of Solace, the latest James Bond film, he uses euros because, as one of the counterparties notes, “the dollar isn’t what it once was. The cost of war.”