I am as ignorant to the exchange rate as I am of the interest rate on my credit card. In both circumstances ignorance has been bliss; I shop online, ignoring the fact that the AUD to the Pound is 2:1 and I make cash transfers from my credit card, ignoring the fact that there is 20% interest. Absurdly, the only way I manage to comprehend finance jibberish is via cheeseburgers. When I was backpacking, cheeseburgers were a staple food in my diet. They were so delicious, somewhat nutritious, and importantly convenient and cheap. As a cheeseburger enthusiast and ex-McDonald's employee I was conscious of the differences in cheeseburgers from Paris to Buenos Aires to Tokyo- especially in their price difference. My somewhat unused left brain got to thinking about how such prices differences were indicative of perhaps, that country's economic climate and currency strength. In that light bulb moment, for me, a McDonald's cheeseburger became more than a patty between two buns and more so a universal symbol for food prices. As much as I was proud of myself for somewhat grappling the idea of purchasing power parity, the correlation seemed a bit amateurish. BUT ALAS! I was happy to see The Economist, an immensely credible and legit journal, collate a Big Mac Index.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Mac_Index
