As a comparison, in 1999 Gordon Brown sold the UK's gold before the market moved up, the equivalent of a £9b loss, £13b in today's money. He did this to give the banks an under the radar bailout by manipulating the markets.
As a comparison, in 1999 Gordon Brown sold the UK's gold before the market moved up, the equivalent of a £9b loss, £13b in today's money. He did this to give the banks an under the radar bailout by manipulating the markets.
Gold doesn't pay interest, whereas the cash raised from the gold sale was used to buy (mostly) long term US treasuries to replace the gold in the BoE's asset portfolio. These have performed very well as an investment over the intervening years (look at, eg the BTTRX fund for a rough equivalent in the private sector) so the net loss is much smaller than you'd think.
It's less about the total loss of money and more about the valuation of the currency. The mid-nineties saw the pound drop even further in value and it's only recently begun to grow stronger again.
GDP in 1994 was £693bn
Govt. spending was £4,687 per capita and this loss was about £54 per capita.
Not zero but hardly devastating.
http://www.ukpublicspending.co.uk/piechart_1994_UK_total
£3.3b in 1994 would be £6bn today.
As a comparison, in 1999 Gordon Brown sold the UK's gold before the market moved up, the equivalent of a £9b loss, £13b in today's money. He did this to give the banks an under the radar bailout by manipulating the markets.
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/finance/thomaspascoe/100018367/...