The euro is the currency adopted by some countries in Europe since 2002. The symbol that represents the euro was developed by the European Commission and it is inspired in the letter epsilon of the Greek alphabet. They have chosen that symbol as a reference to the initial of Europe and the other two parallel lines mean the stability in the euro zone. The official international abbreviation for the euro is EUR and has been registered at the International Organization of Normalization (ISO).
In July 2002, the euro exceeded for the first time the exchange rate with the American dollar, since then it has been in a similar situation. In Dicember 2006, the euro took the place of the dollar as the most used currency for cash payments, during that month around 614.000 million of euros were circulating in the world, while dollars were about 588.000 millions in euros.
There are also some states that help the use of the euro, as they don’t agree with the politics of the United States in issues as economy or international diplomacy, and that in many cases, does not mean having a pro-european position, but an antiAmerican. Iraq for example, before being attacked by the United States, exchanged its dollars to euros. Some social sectors saw in this exchange one of the reasons why Bush intervened Iraq to recover dollar and avoid the Organization of Crude Exporters Countries change its currency to euro, as if that happened the consecuences could be very bad for the United States.

More that thirty years ago, Nixon decided not to have any more the convertible currency Dollar-Gold and made the dollar has no standard to support it. Since then, the dollar became a paper with no support.
Since the appearance of the euro, in the year 2002, it hasn’t stopped gaining ground, the increase of the value of the euro in front of the actual dollar is indicating that the cost of life is even higher in Europe. Actually the power of the actual dollar is based on the militar power and on the ability of the United Stated of issueing reference currency to any international transaction.
The actual dollar has been devaluated in the last years regarding to other international foreign currencies. American authorities saw what could happen to the dollar in 2001, after the attack to the Twin Towers when the war against the Middle East started. In 2003 Jeffrey Frankel (Economist and professor of the Harvard University, and ex adviser of the ex president Bill Clinton), foreseeing what could happen to the actual dollar decided to fix the weak dollar to the crude value.
Basically the proposal was to fix foreign currencies, in this case to the actual dollar with some product (exports), or crude materials in this case crude. This proposal is not very different to what happened in 1944 when Bretton Woods arrangement established the Gold Standard, until August 15th 1971, date on which the dollar began to float free.
If they carry out the idea of Jeffrey Frankel, they would give the actual dollar a support more than enought for the American currency to become appreciated as the crude price will continue raising in these last years.

The dollar situation varies according to the country in which it is, there are some nation in Latinamerica that have some favorable conditions to speculate with the exchange rate.
In February 2003 there was set an exchange control at the foreign currencies market and the price of the dollar went to 1.600 bolivares, and a year later became 1.920, and in 2005 it turned up to be 2.150 bolivares per dollar.
Venezuela has at the moment two markets where you can sell and buy dollars, but of course one is more profitable than the other. One is the official market that since 2005 keeps the exchange rate anchored to 2150 bolivares per dollar, and the other is the parallel or spot market where the dollar quotes from 5000 to 5500 bolivares.
This situation has offered excellent possibilities for those that can speculate with the value of the American currency. The business consists in buying dollars at the official market and resell them at the spot market.
The popularity of the spot market is the product of the strict legislation of Venezuela, that has provoked this to have more force. Actually every person or company that needs dollars must go to the Foreign Currencies Administrtion Commission (CADIVI), and this is thorny procedure. Many companies and people have had to go to the spot foreign currencies market to obtain dollars or euros and keep safe.
Banks have done great business with the double dollar quotation, as they buy public debt bonds with the official quotation and they resell them with the value of the dollar from the spot market, these make profits grow.
As it can be seen, the revolution from Venezuela has made possible many business from the power that the crude offers and the income of dollars that there are in the country because of the crude exports.