I’ve just exchanged some U.S. Dollars for Pounds Sterling at a rate of two dollars to the pound. That is, one United States Dollar is now worth 50 pence.

I know in the past that it used to be worth even less than that. I think the peak may have been about 13 dollars to the pound some time in 1864, but for much of my adult life it’s been somewhere in the 1.5 to 1.75 range.

Most normal people don’t really care about the exchange rates. Unfortunately, however, I’m running a software business from the United Kingdom, and a large proportion of my customers are in the United States. That makes my business extremely sensitive to the exchange rate; the difference in takings caused by exchange rate fluctuations can be literally thousands of pounds. I really can see the difference it’s making to my bottom line… my company has to sell up to 14% more in order to make the same money it was making this time last year!

If things keep going the way they are, we’ll very likely have to increase our U.S. Dollar prices.