Trillions of Pints

December 29, 2003 6:25 PM

Who wants to own the United Kingdom? Slightly used, with annex. Rains a bit. Trains often late. Nice gardens. Food dubious, but lots of places to drink. Only 8.8 trillion dollars. I'm sure other countries could be bought for cheaper, and the citizens would probably be more willing to sell. If you really want your own private island, these would be the best people to speak to.
posted by Jimbob (17 comments total)

It can also get you 14.655 trillion Kit Kat candy bars -- but not quite enough to match all of the annual gross domestic product of the United States, which in 2002 was 10.45 trillion dollars..

Wow. The US gdp is more than the capital value of the UK.

The mind, having boggled, moves on...
posted by dash_slot- at 6:43 PM on December 29, 2003

not quite enough to match all of the annual gross domestic product of the United States, which in 2002 was 10.45 trillion dollars

Wow, the United States can buy Britain with only one year worth of income.
posted by VeGiTo at 6:44 PM on December 29, 2003

Argh... What he said.
posted by VeGiTo at 6:46 PM on December 29, 2003

If you really want your own private island,

Not unless it comes with a doomsday device, monocle, cat, and of course, sharks with frickin' laser beams.

Now, this... UK on the other hand...
posted by namespan at 7:14 PM on December 29, 2003

Huh. Well, maybe we could try test-driving Brighton next spring break.
posted by alumshubby at 8:19 PM on December 29, 2003

so the uk could buy itself in about 6 years (its gdp is about 1/6 that of the usa)? seems a bit odd.
posted by andrew cooke at 8:33 PM on December 29, 2003

'Ahh, the 1980s. Those, my friend, were good times. Correction. Great times. Remember in 1982,when Disney bought the UK and opened the United Magic Kingdom theme park?'
posted by dhartung at 9:54 PM on December 29, 2003

"We love Britain. You're our favorite colony!"

Don't worry. We'd never try to buy you. Unless, of course, there were some kind of bidding war already in progress and the Germans or the French were in contention.

Big hugs and kisses to the UK, including Blair and friends. Everybody but Prince Chuck. That dude is kinda creepy.
posted by jengod at 11:46 PM on December 29, 2003

Better off buying France that doesn't do what the USA would like it to do all the time. Britain's already in tow so why fork out the cash?

Unless I can be executor of the purchase, that is. I swear I only need the money in my account for one day...
posted by nthdegx at 12:08 AM on December 30, 2003

For comparative purposes, 4.983 trillion pounds can also buy 2.516 trillion pints of "bitter" or dark ale at a typical English pub, or nearly 43 million pints of beer for everyone in the country.
Actually, this will be buy a whole lot more than 2.516 trillion pints of beer. Unless you live in London. Then you might be able to afford a round of six drinks with enough money left over for a cab home.
[/pointless sniping]
posted by seanyboy at 3:10 AM on December 30, 2003

why buy the UK when you can steal the US (elections)?

/obligatoryBushSnark
posted by kaibutsu at 12:11 PM on December 30, 2003

Of course, in reality you can't buy nation states. You can only rent them.
posted by Pretty_Generic at 3:13 PM on December 30, 2003

how much for liverpool?
posted by aiq at 5:36 AM on December 31, 2003

I received the following spam this morning:

Dear Friend,

My mother is Queen of are country and after more than 50 years is willing to give up her throne to me, her oldest Sun. However she requires payment of 8.8 trillion dollars, an amount I have saved out of my allowance, and she refuses to sell it too me. Something about big ears and not letting HorseFace sit on the throne. So I would very much appreciate your help, by allowing me to deposit this monies in your bank account for a day or so, to become king--something I've dreamed about all my life--of this little islnd country.

If you would be so kind as to forward me your bank account information, we can make my dream come true. In exchange, I will bestow a hereditary knighthood on you and your wonderful family to have for generations to come.

Respectfully yours,
Chuck Windsor
posted by billsaysthis at 10:54 AM on December 31, 2003

Don't buy it it one, sell it off in chunks. My guess is Wales would be on the cheap side.
posted by ciderwoman at 12:26 PM on December 31, 2003

dhartung: Julian Barnes did a nice take on England-as-themepark in the novel 'England, England'.
posted by liam at 12:43 PM on December 31, 2003

Off-Topic Rant:

I thought this looked quite interesting, so I went off to The Office of National Statistics to look at the report. But I'm damned if I could find it, no matter what search terms or browsing paths I chose. Of course, this could easily be my search skills at fault.

My next approach was to look out stories about this on news sites, in the hope that one of them would link me to the report. Although I found articles at The Guardian, the BBC, and Google News has many more, not a single site (I admit I haven't checked them all) has a link to the report. Finally, on the This Is London website the actual name of the report was mentioned. Back to the ONS site to discover that according to their search engine there isn't a single mention of the report on their site. Okay, so now I know; I can't get at a copy to read online.

This is one of the biggest regular failures of news on the web for me; even if the referenced matetrial is available, a link to it from the story discussing it is almost invariably missing. In this case it took me half an hour of scanning news stories to even find the title of the report they were all discussing! That can't be right, not for a fundamentally linked medium. Surely someone, somewhere could have managed a (not available online) in just one of the news sources I looked at?!

Okay, I'm done now, and boy does it feel better to get that out :-)

[Sorry for the obvious derail, but I figured I could maybe get away with venting a bit of frustration in an almost dead thread.]
posted by Gamecat at 7:58 AM on January 3, 2004