I actually saw this coming a few months ago, from an intersting bit in the business press, but here it is official:
Source article at yahoo.com (orig Reuters)
PARIS (Reuters) - The U.S. economy lost the le of "world's biggest" to the euro zone this week as the value of the dollar slumped in currency markets.
Taking the gross domestic product of both economies in 2007, the combined GDP of the 15 countries which use the euro overtook that of the United States when the European currency surged to a record high of more than $1.56 per euro.
"The curious outcome of breaching this latest milestone is that the size of the euro zone's annual output has now exceeded that of the U.S.," the economics department of Goldman Sachs, the Wall Street investment bank, said in a note to clients.
Taking official estimates of 2007 GDP -- $13,843,800 billion for the United States and 8,847,889.1 billion euros for the euro zone -- the economy of the latter passed the United States once converted into dollars, shortly after the euro topped $1.56.
The dollar sank to $1.5688 per euro late in European trading hours on Friday, at which rate the euro zone's 2007 GDP equates to $13,880,568.4 billion.
The 2007 GDP estimates are as published by the U.S. Commerce Department's Bureau of Economic Analysis and provided to Reuters on request for the euro zone by Eurostat, the European Union's statistics office.
(Writing by Brian Love; editing by Stephen Nisbet)
The REAL funny thing for conservadrones in the US, is that they LOOOVE to talk about how socialist europe means lower standards of living and the big figure used for this are the mean income figures.
"Look", they say, "if you lived in Europe, you would on average only be earning X, below the US level of Y."
I wonder what the current exchange rate has done to that statement.
Purchasing power reigns supreme.
The purchasing power of the 1 euro coin in my jar at home got bigger over the last year or so, heh.
I present this bit merely because people don't normally think about these things.
I am not trying to say "EU rules, US sucks", as I am sure some conservatives here will try and pretend.
That the EU is growing faster than the US, and likely will going into the future, if only because of the admission of a few more member states, is something to consider.
Think about what that means for manufacturers and others.
US standards in terms of things like fire safety and a whole host of other things have led simply because if you want to sell in the US market, it is better to have a US version first then modify it to sell in the EU.
That changes once people realize that the common EU market is larger.
This seachange in at udes and business calculations will have profound effects in the coming decades.
I say:
Think of it what you will, but deal with the reality.
Maybe we will finally get around to getting rid of the ty system of weights and measures we have now and go metric.
Well, , it took 15 countries to do it!
We will bounce back.
Depends on where you are in the EU. The western european countries, in which the movement towards socialism is newer, are carrying the EU economy. 2/3rd of the GDP comes from less than 1/5th of the countries.
Socialism means less fluctuations. They won't have huge gains or huge losses like we do in the US. A slight change here can send our economy surging, or plummeting.
The bigger concern about the EU is unemployment. They've improved recently, but in many EU member states unemployment is close to twice what the US's is, and many people think the US's is high. The one's with the lowest unemployment are countries that have crappy standards of living (aka cheaper labor).
EU should enjoy it while it lasts. It'll likely only last a year or two at most.
I was going to panic about the weak dollar, but apparently it's been weaker before.
It has.
Erin Burnett is hot.
Show soome evidence your statement is correct.
Consider this. We are sitting at about 300 million people. The EU has almost 500 million. They finally passed us...
What does that tell you about their standard of living?
I'd say it roughly puts us at 60% better per person average.
If you like giving half of your income away move to Europe.
dumb s.
USA = one country.
EU=12938402348102398443324 counties.
Who cares?
Seriously . . .
Apparently, RandomGuy.
Well, the premise of his point was that socialism provided for a higher quality of life over capitalism. It doesn't matter how many countries were involved. He simply made the mistake of looking at a gross number without seeing how it works out per person. I'll bet one of those propaganda sites provided the data, and he became a willing lemming among their liberal ranks to repeat the propaganda.Apparently, RandomGuy.
....and in one quick sentence, you proved your perceived lack of reading comprehension.
Better to be thought a fool....
I can't speak for RG, he does a well enough job of that on his own anyway, but I hardly think his point was that 'socialist' Europethe premise of his point was that socialism provided for a higher quality of life over capitalism.has a higher 'quality of life', whatever the that means, than those in the U.S....
Really?
Please explain. I must need some teaching in reading comprehension. Random directly address the European social system, connecting it to the GDP. I showed the total doesn't matter, but the average per person. Simple math. More people per dollar equal less dollars per person.
What did I do wrong? If it is not lower, then it is equal or higher, right? How can it not be lower when there are so many more people?
Please... I'm waiting to see you comprehend this more than I.
So, an entire CONTINENT has a larger economy than the US?
Ok.
I can't speak for RG, he does a well enough job of that on his own anyway, but I hardly think his point was that 'socialist' Europe
obvioulsy cutting and pasting does not boost reading comprehension.
man liberals are their own worst enemy.
Actually, I didn't really say anything good/bad about socialism, nor did I really say that socialism makes for better standards of living.
What I did say is that I find it amusing that simple currency fluctuations will take some wind out of the "look at their average earnings compared to ours" arguments.
I always find it amusing when people get their worldviews challenged. it even happens to me on occasion.
Yahoo financial news. Via Reuters.
Total commie propaganda.
It was an interesting sniglet of news, nothing more.
As I have said repeatedly, I find it simply to be a "gee whiz" bit, and not really something that says one is good/bad or better/worse than the other.
Over the coming years, it will have a profound effect on a lot of things that aren't clear now, but for now it is what it is.
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