Reuters: USA no longer world’s biggest economy

2008-03-18

Richard Moore

http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSL1491971920080314

Weak dollar costs U.S. economy its No. 1 spot
Fri Mar 14, 2008 5:17pm EDT

PARIS (Reuters) - The U.S. economy lost the title 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)

© Reuters 2007. All rights reserved.

Reuters journalists are subject to the Reuters Editorial Handbook which requires
fair presentation and disclosure of relevant interests.
-- 

--------------------------------------------------------
newslog archives: 
http://cyberjournal.org/show_archives/?lists=newslog

How We the People can change the world
http://www.governourselves.org/

Escaping the Matrix: http://escapingthematrix.org/

The Phoenix Project
http://www.wakingthephoenix.org/

The Post-Bush Regime: A Prognosis
http://globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=7693

Community Democracy Framework: 
http://cyberjournal.org/DemocracyFramework.html

cyberjournal: http://cyberjournal.org

Moderator: •••@••.•••  (comments welcome)