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.

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE
https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/flexiimages/jacafc5zvs1692883516.jpg

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up
Jeff Spross

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