Is the Euro already dead?

(The euro) (...) no longer meets most of the criteria of a working form of money. There is an important point in that for investors. It is right now — while the currency no longer lives but still staggers on like a zombie — that the euro is wreaking most havoc on the countries of Europe.Of course the euro still looks like a currency. There are notes and coins, and you can still go into a shop in Hamburg, or a café in Naples, and get stuff in return, even if there might be a certain amount of grumbling. There is a central bank, although it doesn’t appear to have much idea what its job is. And there are payment systems and foreign exchange markets that work as if the euro were a viable part of the global capital markets.  

And yet if you think about it a little harder, the euro is not a currency in every sense of the word. A currency is only partly about notes and coins. It is also about being a universally accepted medium of exchange, a store of value over time, and a way of facilitating trade over long distances. That was why money evolved. And the euro doesn’t really meet those criteria any more.

Read the whole piece here: Marketwatch