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Comment by pmontra | Hacker News Reader

I was under the impression that the UK didn't have almost any manufacturing industry left, only services. I googled and found that I was wrong http://atlas.media.mit.edu/en/profile/country/gbr/

However the trade balance is negative. A weak pound won't help the industries that import raw material. I won't bet that it's going to be good.

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Yes the trade balance at the moment is negative, which is why we need the £ to fall in value, so we can export more and reduce the trade deficit.

Germany loves the Euro for the same reason, it artificially lowers its exchange rate helping it's exports. With the Deutschmark they would be at a significant disadvantage. Remember they were the "sick man of Europe" prior to joining the Euro.

This is at the expense of countries on the periphery of the EU, Greece, Italy etc. They cannot devalue and complete with Germany. Despite this look how Germany treated Greece when it needed help.

The "Sick man of Europe" in 1970s --and most famously-- was the UK, not Germany (which didn't happen until the 1990s and was attributed to re-unification, not any particular issues with manufacturing)

The original "sick man" was the Ottoman Empire, but pretty everyone has been hit with the title at one point.

I sincerely hope that it will work like that for you. There is a long history of currency devaluations. It can help in the short run but the reasons a country was worse off than the others don't go away. Your hypothesis is that the cause is an artificially inflated pound. Some Euro countries have an artificially inflated currency, or Germany and others an artificially deflated one. Those weaker countries are paying for it with higher interest rates on their bonds. We could argue forever if they are masochistic or strong armed into the Euro or if this is really in their best interest. In the case of the UK, what I see from outside is that many people wanted to buy into the UK. See the trajectory of the prices of the houses in London or the number of startups. That naturally inflates a currency. Now the UK is less attractive and the pound lost value. I think that pre Brexit and post Brexit levels of the pound did reflect the actual value of the country in those two moments in time. Don't you?

Germany was a large exporter with a strong currency and it is a strong exporter with a weaker currency. Germnay actuelly prefers a stronger currency. You can see that from DM times. Germany never tried to devalue the DM, just the opposite.

Germany was 'sick' because it had huge problems after the reunification with 1/4 of its people now living in a formerly communist country, whose economy collapsed. This cost a trillion Euro over the years and the east is still behind.

If your idea to be competitive is just to devalue your currency, then you are lost anyway.

Greece wanted to be in the Eurozone. They need to adjust their policy as a member.

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