The Real World isn't Like Football

Often newspapers and regular folk like you or I will talk about the economic growth of the UK relative to Europe, the US, Asia, etc., as if it's some big World Cup of economic growth - the UK has to do well (make the quarter finals say).

But of course, it doesn't work quite like that. If other economies are not growing, then they will not be buying our goods so much, and so our demand will rise less, and hence our economy will grow less. This is the premise for the rather gloomy article in the Guardian, noting that European growth levels are lower than the UK, and will hold the UK's recovery back.

This is the flip side to the article I referred to earlier from the BBC, reporting that the OECD thinks the UK's growth will be faster than most G7 countries in the latter part of 2010. If others aren't growing, they aren't confident and aren't buying our goods. Much better if they're growing about the same kind of rate that we are. Faster if they like buying our goods!