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Originally Posted by 1andrew1
We don't - this is something entirely new unfortunately.
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It's really not something 'entirely new' at all.
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Andrew Goodwin of Oxford Economics has looked at the annual data, with them both converted to US dollars for convenience, for The Independent and he says UK GDP in 2015 was $2.85 trillion and French GDP was $2.42 trillion.
“That’s a difference of almost 18 per cent” Mr Goodwin says “so while they may have very briefly crossed this morning when sterling reached its 31-year low (though I’m not sure they actually did), sterling’s subsequent rally means it certainly won’t be the case now. And that’s before we get onto whether converting at market exchange rates is an appropriate thing to do!”
He adds: “Market exchange rates are far too volatile and a lot of the time any changes in the rankings merely reflect FX movements rather than a genuine change in the relative performance of the economies.”
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http://www.independent.co.uk/news/bu...-a7101361.html
Currency rates can fluctuate wildly and quickly for all sorts of reasons* and nobody is claiming that these movements aren't important or potentially damaging but they do result in GDP league table changes and they often have little to do with the fundamentals of the economies in question. The French economy hasn't been transformed over night any more than ours has and the next hit of really bad news from the EU will see the Euro fall.
* Remember George Soros and the ERM crisis?
---------- Post added at 11:09 ---------- Previous post was at 10:53 ----------
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Originally Posted by Ramrod
"in the context of the treaties"......and we still got bugger all. Nuff said......
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Yup!
Bugger all movement was possible and even the very real threat of one of the EU's largest economies and net contributors leaving, didn't force a rethink. That sums up the EU nicely for me too.
I'd always thought the EU has long been engaged in kicking a can down the road but IIRC George Soros is on record as saying it's more like kicking a ball up a hill...