You could hear the "hon hon hon" drifting across the Channel...

@nitrokitty You bloody frog!

@nitrokitty You know Polandball?

This is a good thing, There is too much fiat-money ("quantitive easing" = invented money, = inflation) sloshing around the world and the the £ needed devaluing and Brexit was an abrupt and unusual way of doing it, but Hey! It works.
We have a trade surplus with the EU and devaluing the Pound Sterling 's actually good for business.

@Danelaw We don't have a trade surplus with the EU though, we have a trade defecit: https://www.theguardian.com/business/2016/may/10/uk-trade-deficit-hits-new-record-of-24bn-pounds-eu-referendum-brexit
As indeed with the rest of the world as a whole: http://www.tradingeconomics.com/united-kingdom/balance-of-trade
The pound falling is not great for business as a whole at the moment.

@Heilkaiba Actually, that strikes me as all the more reason Britain could use a devalued pound. It's when you have a trade deficit that it would really help to devalue. The Greeks found that out the really, really hard way (and are still finding it out).

@Danelaw - by this point, pretty much everyone's money is invented. It's just a very convenient lie to continue to tell ourselves.

I reaaaaaaally want another referendum! Please please please stop Brexit - the EU means so much to me (just my views)

Yeah but it made from some good comics.

Why did we do this?

@PointlessSloth British nationalism. Because that totally hasn't caused 20 million deaths in 1800s India alone.

So... the pound was lower at a time Britain wasn't leaving the EU.

I WANTED TO MOVE TO ENGLAND AND NOW I HARDLY CAN EAVEN VISIT WTF WHY I LOVE BRITISH ENGLISH WHYYYYY

@EUcomicartist Honestly, I would swap you Sweden for Scotland. I wanted to move in a shot. Sweden is so pretty!!! But I respect your opinion

Ahhh '85.. what a year.

@sgt_Oddball GB is about to leave the EU in March 2019....that would be in twentysomething days. Hopefully the pound has recovered since last year. I mean, 1986 was a pretty nice year too.

@minando Well - it's April and we're still here (for now)

Uh oh.

And we still have magic stars!!!! ( current packaging states they are not to be sold outside of the EU )

@SisterJapanBae
...Because we're still in the EU. Article 50 hasn't been invoked.

@Iateapenguin Article 50 has been invoked, in march 2017, but it only shows intent to leave in 2 years. So you'll be leaving in march of 2019 unless deciding otherwise.

@psilorder Pretty sure that was posted prior to march 2017, unless you were trying to post an update instead of a correction like it's worded.

Yeah I think it was compared to the dollar.

@GilbertGobbels ( cc. @Karen )
The GBP:EUR rate dropped by 6%. It's levelled out now, but is still volatile.

@Iateapenguin Yes true, it dropped by 10% compared to the dollar though.

@GilbertGobbels
I know, I was telling you the EU rate in response to that.

Given the current price, this chart seems to back it up: http://thismatter.com/money/forex/images/historical-exchange-rates.gif

Note: all exchange rates have to be relative to something else. I'm assuming "dollars"

@Karen Everything is compared to the USD. That's how our money has worth. Other countries exchange their money by comparing it's value to the dollar, which means the only thing that makes our money worth anything is other countries comparing their currency to it. We went off the gold standard a while ago, so our money isn't actually worth any physical thing.

@Astarties Maybe in the US everything's compared to the USD. Here in Iceland things are just as commonly compared to the euro and the pound. I imagine that in non-Euro countries on the mainland they care more about the euro that their neighbors are using than they do about the dollar. Because that's what the goods that they buy are denominated in.

The US does not run the world. You're about the same GDP as the EU.

'@Karen'
The USD is generally held as the comparative standard though in a variety of international ways.
The rest of what he said is hot nonsense though.

@sagas I guess the main reason why the USD is held as the comparative standard, is because oil is priced in USD. And oil is a very important commodity.

@Tjalve Indeed. And the Americans have gone to very strenuous efforts to KEEP oil priced in USD.

@Karen Euro is compared to USD. It's a long story, but Extra Credits did this series on paper money and the latest part explains why USD is the de-facto global currency which all other currencies are compared to on international level. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GNo7MDN5-0g

@Astarties That's the biggest bunch of Mule Muffins I've ever heard. The Exchange rate between to currencies are calculated on values like purchasing power parity of the two countries in question as well as the GDP. If I were to Exchange Euros to Pounds the current value of the US-Dollar is actually completely irrelevant to the calculations. In explanations as to how the Exchange rates work EUR and USD are often used as an example because of their familiarity, but other than that the USD is not - and I am sorry if that strikes against your patriotism - the Gold Standard around which the world revolves.

@Wolfenbuehl That's actually wrong. World banks use USD as the "main" currency which every other currency is compared to. That's mostly because USD is pretty much the safest currency in the world, what with all oil prices being measured in USD. Almost always when you see a country go bankrupt you also see USD popping up as the unofficial money. EUR is a close second and probably will take that spot if problems with Turkey and UK are solved without big drops in exchange rates.

@Barracuda Sorry, but what has the usage of USD got to do with how exchange rates are calculated? Nada.

@Wolfenbuehl For some reason my longer explanation doesn't show. In short it's beause of math. If you have one common nominator it's easier to compare things. USD happens to be the "default" setting currently.