Is Scottish independence a 'good or bad' thing?

One could argue that there's 50 In the United States, Germany has half a dozen, as does Italy, Australia, France, Spain, Canada etc.

Your understanding of economics is as poor as your understanding of political science. There are many, very good arguments against oil funds. These arguments were made at the time, in cabinet, and it was decided against. I'm very grateful for that, considering the economic shift it allowed us to undertake in the 1980s. Britain is far better off for that decision.

Indeed. I mean how many countries are there other than those in the UK that are not independent?

Maybe avoiding seeing oil revenues used to fund another neo-liberal austerity plan is the reason people want to become independant.

Going on a Maggie Thatcher, she wasn't well liked up here, it should be pretty obvious there is a political divide that justifies Independance.

Maybe avoiding seeing oil revenues used to fund another neo-liberal austerity plan is the reason people want to become independant.

Which Political divide is that?

And you may find that at one point Thatcher was highly thought of in Scotland.

Notice how the sea of blue barely touches Scotland? That.


I didn't see a single tear shed for her when she died, on my facebook.

That would hold some sort of credibility if the nationalists weren't planning to exploit oil revenues for specifically neo-liberal objectives too (amongst the countless things they've said they'd spend oil money on). It was an interesting exchange at First Minister's Questions today - Labour pointing out that corporation tax cuts had consequences and that even Salmond's economic advisor disagreed with them, whilst Salmond stopped just short of getting out a chart with the Laffer Curve drawn on it.

In reality, it's a declining resource. We're producing far less now than we were back then. It works out as less than 2% of our national tax-take in the UK. It's not incredibly important, in the grand scheme of things.

In reality though, Scotland has got its oil money back. Public spending is considerably higher here than the national average.

Conservative estimates say ~40 years of oil. That's a lot of years and the amount of money that makes up 2% of current tax intake and apply it to 1/10th the number of the people it's pretty significant. That'll take a long time before it's anything like 2% when applied to Scotland.

Sounds like Salmond was saying he'd spend some of the rest of the cash to lower taxes, that's one way to increase demand. Not as good as public work spending, but it's better than using it to pay back debt. Specific policy decisions Salmond says about Scotland after independence aren't very important because that's not his call to make, but the general more left leaningness is a much better bet and one that aligns more with me.

Conservative estimates say ~40 years of oil. That's a lot of years and the amount of money that makes up 2% of current tax intake and apply it to 1/10th the number of the people it's pretty significant. That'll take a long time before it's anything like 2% when applied to Scotland.

Sounds like Salmond was saying he'd spend some of the rest of the cash to lower taxes, that's one way to increase demand. Not as good as public work spending, but it's better than using it to pay back debt.

Notice how the sea of blue barely touches Scotland? That.

Everybody is an equal partner in the UK.

Oh please, are we at the stage where we're even going to pretend an appeal to nature is in any way a legitimate argument?

It's even demonstrably untrue. There are 200-odd states in the world. There are countless hundreds of communities, thousands even, across the globewhich could be reasonably described as national. Any state of significant size has such minorities within it.

I agree with your first point that I was wrong to say Independence is the default state of any nation.

Aren't conspiracy theories fun?

Why is the concentration of wealth in London a conspiracy theory? As mentioned in Scotlands Economy-The case for Independence.

This trend has been highlighted by senior UK Government ministers. David Cameron
in his first major speech as Prime Minister said:
“Today our economy is heavily reliant on just a few industries and a few regions –
particularly London and the South East. This really matters. An economy with such a
narrow foundation for growth is fundamentally unstable and wasteful – because we
are not making use of the talent out there in all parts of our United Kingdom.”
He added:
“Our economy has become more and more unbalanced, with our fortunes
hitched to a few industries in one corner of the country, while we let other
sectors like manufacturing slide.”53
His deputy, Nick Clegg, has echoed this concern, arguing:
“For years, our prosperity has been pinned on financial wizardry in London’s
Square Mile, with other sectors and other regions left behind. This imbalance
left us hugely exposed when the banking crisis hit.”
To date, the evidence from official statistics indicates that there is little sign of the
rebalancing that the UK Government suggests is required. In March 2013, the Office
for National Statistics said:
“Looking at data between 2007 (before the economic downturn) and the latest
available, a clear trend is apparent with London outperforming the rest of the
UK economy.”54
It found that between September 2007 and September 2012, workforce jobs
increased by 267,000 in London but fell by 284,000 in the rest of the UK.
55.

http://scotland.gov.uk/Resource/0042/00422987.pdf




Your understanding of economics is as poor as your understanding of political science. There are many, very good arguments against oil funds. These arguments were made at the time, in cabinet, and it was decided against. I'm very grateful for that, considering the economic shift it allowed us to undertake in the 1980s. Britain is far better off for that decision.

What are the arguments against an oil fund then? From this paper as well.

The UK and Norway are the largest oil and gas producers in Europe. However, they
have taken different approaches to managing the revenue received from the oil and
gas industry.
Since 1996 the Norwegian Government has invested a proportion of the revenue
received from offshore production in an oil fund. The fund is now worth £450 billion,
equivalent to £90,000 per person in Norway, and is the largest Sovereign Wealth
Fund in the world. The aim is to ensure that the depletion of Norway’s natural assets
via oil and gas production are, in part, offset by an increase in its long term financial
assets.
In contrast, successive UK Governments have used the revenue generated from oil
and gas production to fund current general government expenditure73. This
approach has been contrasted with the Norwegian model. For example, Professor
Joseph Stiglitz has argued that the UK “squandered” its oil wealth74, and that UK
Governments’ economic policies reflected “false prosperity where they took all the
income coming in from the North Sea but rather than investing that in enhancing the
human capital, the fiscal capital and the technical skills, a disproportionate amount of
that went elsewhere”75

One long term implication of this different approach has been that whilst the IMF
estimates that UK general government net debt now stands at around 75% of
GDP, Norway has accumulated public sector net assets equal to 168% of GDP,
as outlined in Chart 3.8


Which were demonstrably proven to be false earlier this week through the novel use of actually looking at predictions and matching them to output.

Indeed. I mean how many countries are there other than those in the UK that are not independent?

I wonder what the reason for that might be...

Oddly enough, that's precisely what Maggie Thatcher used it for. Glad we've got a consensus here.

As for debt repayment - when you're spending considerable sums of money just servicing your national debt, paying it off is quite often a good idea.

Austerity is characterised by cuts in public services, that's something I find less likely in an independant scotland.

Austerity is characterised by cuts in public services, that's something I find less likely in an independant scotland. I still don't really give many ****s about what the SNP says about after independence because that's not their decision to make. When I see labor and the SNP fighting over corporation tax, it's a much better future than having the Conservatives arguing that public services need to be cut.

The Tories got 36% of the total UK vote in 2010, in Scotland they got 17%. The SNP and Lib Dems did slightly better, but Labor got 42%.

I'd much prefer to live in a country where Labour gets twice the % of votes than Conservatives, than in one where Conservatives get a higher % than Labor.

you are aware that even the SNP have said cuts need to happen and would happen harder in a separate Scotland?

Out of interest, where did they say that?

Out of interest, where did they say that?

In their leaked internal document from a couple of months ago.