A closer look
The Euro was not Europe's first attempt to aggressively force different countries to share a wallet. In 1865, France, Belgium, Italy, and Switzerland formed the Latin Monetary Union, agreeing to standardize their gold and silver coins so they could be freely traded across borders. It was a brilliant proto-Euro dream that instantly devolved into chaos. Member states immediately started cheating the system. The Pope famously minted lighter, debased silver coins in the Papal States, dumping them into the union and siphoning out the good gold. The disastrous experiment proved that tying economies together using bimetallic standards is just begging for massive, state-sponsored fraud.
