Stability

Berlin, September 2017

Extreme fluidity is one of the things that make finance such a complex world. Well, change is a quintessential quality of the mere idea of investment, the very property that allows value to be created. The price goes up, you win. It goes down, you lose. A very mundane way to experience these fluctuations, even if you’re not a trader, consists in travelling in countries that don’t use your currency. Sometimes, even between the day of your arrival and the one of your return, the worth of the money you bought has changed. It’s generally more striking if you happen to come back a few years after your first trip. Ah, the nostalgia of the price of these sneakers you bought in Brooklyn in 2007. Look at them now, almost as expensive as in France. This assertion is all but a simple matter, though. It goes with a lot of calculation, every price tag requiring a long pause for the homo œconomicus who lives deep inside of you to get back to the surface.
What a relief when you stumble upon a vending machine that offers you a way to stabilize things by displaying a fixed conversion rate between dollars and euros. At least for this Coke, you’ll be freed from financial markets fluctuations, and you’re sure that if you come back, the can will still have the same worth. Well, at least, it seems so.