
Britain has abandoned its claim to be the world's fifth largest economy - socalnate1
http://money.cnn.com/2017/11/22/news/economy/uk-france-biggest-economies-in-the-world/index.html
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krona
Since the IMF is measuring in Dollar terms, Britain became the 6th largest
economy the day after Brexit, solely as a result of the devaluation of GBP.

And apparently, this is news.

~~~
hirsin
Does the currency they measure in impact anything? Every currency is
correlated - they could measure in Swiss francs or yen and the result would
still be the same I assume, otherwise there's arbitrage to be had.

~~~
hardlianotion
Yes. GBP underwent a slippage across the board immediately following the
referendum and has not recovered since. Todays news likely to be more about
the timing at which these official comparisons are made.

~~~
SamReidHughes
But we'd still get the same result if we measured in GBP. The ordering is a
consequence of measuring with any currency, and choosing to measure GDP.

~~~
hardlianotion
Yes, I was being careless and only read the question I was interested in.

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CptFribble
Wait, you mean building bigger barriers to international trade can cause your
economy to slow down? Who could have predicted this??

~~~
88
Worth noting the EU doesn’t have free trade agreements with any of the three
largest economies (US, China, Japan) and in theory, Britain would be free to
enter into such agreements after leaving the EU.

~~~
celticninja
Negotiating a fair free trade deal is harder for a smaller market who every
one knows are in need of a trade deal.

~~~
nanomoose
On the contrary, the opportunity to access the UK market has much enthusiasm.

~~~
IkmoIkmo
> On the contrary, the opportunity to access the UK market has much
> enthusiasm.

You're implying that's some kind of great news. I'd say, real estate investors
have lots of enthusiasm for sellers threatened with foreclosure. You can frame
it as positively as you want but at the end of the day the UK's position at
the negotiation table is simply weaker, and it's no surprise everyone suddenly
wants to talk.

~~~
jopsen
> I'd say, real estate investors have lots of enthusiasm for sellers
> threatened with foreclosure.

Nice, hehe :)

While that's definitely nice... there is the possibility that making a
disadvantages agreement with the US, China, Canada, etc. is better in the long
term.

It took years for the EU and Canada to reach an agreement. If one of them was
in a less advantages position maybe it could be done faster... And maybe speed
is more important than conditions of the agreement, who really knows?

EDIT: okay, the brits perhaps ought to know what disadvantages trade
agreements can do... given their past experience making them with their
colonies :)

I note that the brexit'ers probably didn't want disadvantages trade agreements
:)

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whack
The real story is the one no one has been talking about. The US has been the
world's largest economy for the past 100-150 years. In another ~10 years, that
will no longer be the case. Every year that passes afterwards, the US is going
to fall further and further behind China, until it eventually gets lapped some
time in the mid-21st century. It's going to be "interesting" to see what
happens then.

[http://fortune.com/2017/02/09/study-china-will-overtake-
the-...](http://fortune.com/2017/02/09/study-china-will-overtake-the-u-s-as-
worlds-largest-economy-before-2030/)

[https://www.quora.com/Economic-History-At-what-point-did-
the...](https://www.quora.com/Economic-History-At-what-point-did-the-US-
become-the-biggest-economy-in-the-world)

~~~
forapurpose
The other real story, though a few years old now, is the reduction of the
individual European powers from world leaders to second-tier powers.

The rise of China has made the first tier out of reach to countries with only
60-80 million people (such as the UK, France, and Germany). If the European
powers combined - somehow, who knows how - then they would have the weight to
be global powers and have more influence to move global affairs in directions
the Europeans desire. With only 60 million people, the UK is destined to be a
bit player.

One wonders why a neighboring second tier Eurasian power would want to disrupt
European integration and the resulting arrival of a superpower on their
doorstep. Stand together, or hang separately.

~~~
hardlianotion
Who is the superpower in this scenario? What is the analogy to hanging, in
this instance? Is not being part of a superpower a necessarily bad thing? If
so, why?

~~~
jopsen
GP is refering to Russia.

Whether a superpower we can debate, but they still have massive influence.

> Is not being part of a superpower a necessarily bad thing? So long as you
> have NATO for defense and EU for free trade, then yeah, what is the
> difference?

~~~
geezerjay
Layers. NATO is a layer, one based on hard power. EU membership is another
layer, one based on soft power.

With regards to power, no one is best served by losing power. If you lose
power you will be unable to defend your best interests. If that's a good thing
or a bad thing?

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trynumber9
What is going on with Europe's GDP in general? Comparing the IMF figures from
2008 to 2017 it seems France, Germany, and the United Kingdom have all had
economic contraction while the U.S. grew 33%.

~~~
xbzbanna
During the great recession, Europe decided to do austerity instead of
Keynesian stimulus. Just like the textbooks say, this has led to weak growth
and deflation.

~~~
monk_e_boy
Austerity in the UK is extreme and it doesn't seem to have helped much. It
seems to be a convenient way for the Tories to auction off more of the public
services because 'they are too expensive'...

~~~
hardlianotion
Auction off? I am unaware of this. Perhaps that is not what you meant. Can you
clarify or show where this happened?

~~~
netsharc
Somehow they privatize things saying the market can offer a better deal than a
government funded institute, when this happens the government-employed people
are fired and then only some of them get hired by the private company. Savings
at a cost of worse service, because fuck the taxpayers.

[https://www.opendemocracy.net/shinealight/kiri-
kankhwende/uk...](https://www.opendemocracy.net/shinealight/kiri-
kankhwende/uk-outsourcing-alan-white-serco-G4S)

[https://www.theguardian.com/business/2013/jul/29/serco-
bigge...](https://www.theguardian.com/business/2013/jul/29/serco-biggest-
company-never-heard-of)

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aportnoy
Had humans had 6 fingers on each hand, this news would not exist.

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blibble
the UK and France swap positions at regular intervals, which the article even
states:

> This year will be the first time since 2013 that France has topped the U.K.
> in the ranking, according to the IMF.

~~~
gerdesj
To be honest I thought the UK was still third in the EU economy top N (behind
FR and DE). UKoGBnNI and FR have vied for the same position for quite a while
now.

Another interpretation is that we have equally successful economies based on
one, rather archaic but generally agreed on, measure.

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partycoder
The UK was the first country to go through the Industrial revolution and for a
while they had a huge advantage over other countries.

But other countries eventually caught up to their industrialization.
Eventually, the UK did no longer have an advantage in terms of productivity.
So around WW2, Churchill transferred substantial knowledge to the US through
the Tizard mission, so the US supplemented UK production.

After that, came the Suez crisis, which is when the UK stopped being a
superpower.

The UK still has some of the best research universities in the world, but the
role as London as trade hub is in decline.

The UK might do well in the future, and will continue to be relevant, but the
best days are gone.

~~~
hardlianotion
London in decline as trade hb? Where is the evidence for that?

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gpvos
"Crashes out of"? They went from 5th to 6th place. When seeing a phrase like
that, I would've expected a sudden drop to at least the 10th place or so.

~~~
sctb
Thanks, we've just updated the headline to the subtitle.

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celticninja
This was initially titled "Britain crashes out of the top 5 world economies"

It made me think of the end of The Italian Job where the bus was hanging over
a cliff edge. Seems like a fitting analogy.

