"poor Americans" a threat to European businesses

Hemingway haunt gives discounts to "poor Americans" - Yahoo! News:
""Harry's Bar of Venice, in an effort to make the American victims of subprime loans happier, has decided to give them a special 20 percent discount on all items of the menu during the short term of their recovery.'

When the euro was introduced as the continent's common currency in 2002, a dollar bought about 1.10 euros. Today it gets about 64 euro cents, making prices seem astronomically high for most Americans.

'Since the start of January, we noticed a drop in (American) customers of between five and 10 percent and now that we are in April its looks really frightening,' Arrigo Cipriani, 76, Harry's owner, told Reuters by phone from Venice on Monday.

ENIT, Italy's national tourism board, said in a report this month that the 'strong devaluation of the dollar compared to the European currency and signs of a recession are currently the greatest obstacle to American tourism toward Europe.'"

Enough said ...