What the popularity of German brothels can teach us about the perils of a strong U.S. dollar

Lessons in who wins and who loses when a country's currency goes up or down

Super dollar.
(Image credit: (Jerry Hoare/Illustration Works/Corbis))

A funny thing is happening on the Swiss-German border.

Swiss customers are streaming into German brothels, according to Business Insider, driven by a recent spike in the value of the franc, Switzerland’s currency. That spike didn’t quite bring the franc into equivalent value with the euro — the currency used in Germany and much of the rest of the Continent — but it did make goods and services priced in euros about 20 percent cheaper compared to the franc. People who earn their wages in francs can now get a lot more bang (ahem) for their buck across the border.

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Jeff Spross

Jeff Spross was the economics and business correspondent at TheWeek.com. He was previously a reporter at ThinkProgress.