Is it possible here in America to open up a savings account that's held in Euros?

LOL.  Just. Damn.

My cuntry sucks ass.

search "offshore banking".

Anything to do with this?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/6295136.stm

But yeah. Fuck. I really regret having my money in US$ right now.

Opening offshore accounts is easy. Just remember to declare the interest on your tax return, and submit form TD F 90-22.1 to the US Department of the Treasury each year.

You are in the US right?

You should be able to open up a Euro account in the US. I can open a dollar/euro one here...

NZ central bank raised their rate to 8% the other week.  Makes me want to open a savings account there...

Having an account in Europe might be a good thing if you frequently travel there -- you can time deposits into the account to take advantage of lulls in the exchange rate, and not pay the 3% foreign currency charge each.and.every.time you make a purchase with your US card.

But yeah, you need to let the feds know about it.  Even the Swiss banks now will report on their US customers (but Luxembourg banks supposedly will not).

hey, what about opening a canadian account instead?  our dollar is up to 95.65 cents per canadian dollar now.  it was 65 cents only three years ago.  imagine if you'd put your money in canadian money back then?

I've not seen anything available ~inside~ the US. I suspect that I will combine opening 1+ accounts in combination with a trip overseas.

Of course opening an account in Europe isn't a bad idea - makes it easier to get your funds when Bush suspends elections next year and we all head east (I'm thinking Prague, especially since it seems fundamentalists have their eye on teh Netherlands)

>especially since it seems fundamentalists have their
>eye on teh Netherlands

WTF? The Dutch are liberal enough to make even me blush.

The Dutch *were* liberal. But the conservatives have been gaining a lot of ground recently.

Even so.

Our fundamentalist Christians in the Government don't want to abolish our abortion and euthanasia laws.

Our foreign policy is unfortunately a braindead cooperation with the USA.

And there is an uneasy tension between Dutch liberalism and Muslim conservative moralism.

I think if the US dollar plummets... the world is still fuct.

It may not be that way forever, but I would not go pulling out your mutual funds (or even your retirement accounts) on the possability that the US will fuck up any more than most other economies, which are and have been teetering on the edge for as long as we (and our parents, their parents, etc.) have been around.

HSBC offers them but they have a $50,000 minimum balance (to avoid monthly fees).

The point is to have some escape funds in a place where the fascist (soon to be) dictators cannot reach them. Those petty dictators-for-life [1] will most likely allow/permit/cause the dollar to crash [2], so dollar denominated escape funds will be the difference between gaining sanctuary somewhere else and being sent back to be shot on the tarmac [3]. Having a couple thousand bucks stashed away in euro denominated savings accounts would be one way to accomplish such an effect.

Notes:
1 - I fully expect them to stage some atrocity shortly before the 2008 (s)elections requiring them to be cancelled "for the duration of the emergency". Combine that with their anti-abortion platform, and "dictator for life" becomes a surrealistic title.
2 - I believe their goal is to turn the US into a northern form of Mexico, where there is a small group of billionaires that lord it over the tens of millions of starving peasants. Take a look at the Forbes list of "the richest people in the world" and count up the number of Mexicans in that list.
3 - This happened to a number of refugees who tried to flee dictatorships that we propped up, like the Phillipines. Others reported seeeing such summary executions when other refugees were sent back to places like El Salvador and Haiti.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benigno_Aquino%2C_Jr.