Third, and most important, the impact of the euro crisis on the currency will be positive regardless of the outcome.  If, on the one hand, the euro-member countries finally get their acts together and implement effective reforms that make the current currency area function effectively, the euro is bound to appreciate.  If, on the other hand, the efforts to save the euro fail and the more troubled countries drop out of the currency union, the smaller euro area that would emerge would contain Europe’s more robust economies and it would more closely resemble a stable optimum currency area.  The improved fundamentals and superior structure of a smaller, fitter euro area would, if anything, drive up the value of the euro vis-à-vis the dollar.

For investors, the euro-dollar exchange rate amounts to a one-way bet.  Despite the political Sturm und Drang that has pummeled the single currency over the past three years, the value of the euro, like the Titanic’s Molly Brown, is unsinkable.