Presidential Debate

well, drac, under other indicators we’re doing worse than the traditional measure.

measuring purhasing power parity, we’re 27th, lower than India.

our productivity is very sluggish, , semi-literacy is a result of a poor educational system, innumeracy affects part of our middle classes even, and with financial services our strongest sector, we will head for big trouble if a hard brexit occurs. The pound will rise again, likely, but depending on how brexit is negotiated it is likely to fall further in a permanant manner. We do not look like a world-beating economy on our own.

It depends on whether we remain part of the Customs Union, after leaving the Single Market. Nissan has frozen investment in Sunderland until that has been decided.

If the EU parliament rejects any deal, the Britain could very well find its economy severely damaged. You’re whistling in the wind if you think otherwise.

I notice that rat Farage has supported Trump’s comments about sexual assault. Apparently it’s the sort of thing blokes say in pubs. In his pub, anyway.

Pete,
so you’ve not been asleep. You are interested in public affairs.

But read the article you quoted more carefully.

It says that the purchasing power parity is a more accurate way of looking at the economy. I have just checked this out with Wednesday’s FT, and under these measurements Britian is the 9th largest economy, not the 5th. It comes behind China, the US, Japan, Germany, Russia, Brazil, and Indonesia. It does come ahead (slightly) of France, which is 10th.

IMF estimates of the size of the UK economy in 2016 put it at £1932 bn, with France at 2228bn euros, putting the UK ahead as long as the pund exchanges at 1.153 euros. Sterling last week dropped to 1.14 euros.

But this last measure is not satisfactory, as you note, It;’s the purchasing pwoer parity standard whihc is the most effective – and we are worse under that one.

I sai this, but was working from memory and put the UK at 27th. my memory was defective. Britiain is 27th, but on a comparable measure of gdp; Quatar and Luxemburg take the two top spots.

But the most reliable indicator is PPP, as The Independent quoted by you states; here we are 9th. And heading downward unless these negotiations go well.

Well the olympics highlighted how rich Brazil really is. They will trade with us we aren’t about to become a 3rd world country and the American president won’t affect me on jot (barring a nuclear war of course)

It is, Pete.

But it takes years to work out such a deal, and politics is taking a lead.

The UK wants sovereignty, and it wants in particular to control immigration. It’s prepared to take the economic punches to get it.

The EU want to maintain its existence and avoid unravelling – and it’s prepared to take the economic punches to get it.

They can take more pubnches than we can. The UK exports 44% of its good to the EU; the EU exports only 16% of its good to the UK. You can’t just swap trading patterns just like that (to quote Tommy Cooper). It takes a while, and there’s no certainty that the eventual deal won’t be worse. Some would argue it will deffo be worse.

That’s why we need to stay in the Customs Union, even if we leave the Single market (and I doon’t like leaving the Single market at all), at least until a viable trading situation is worked out.

We didn’t vote to make ourselves poorer, maybe permanently poorer. let’s make sure we’re not damaged permanently. I write as someone who wants to get back in the EU and hopes one day we will, but I also write a s a realist who realises that once we’re out it may prove impossible to get back in, and is worried for the standard of living of the people here in the UK as a result.