Scotland might just show the rest of us the way to reset social democracy
- Thread starter tay
- Start date
Even better, transit fees with no development of repair costs.
'The deal' isn't about what you can cut off the deal will be how fast Scotland can replace those items and if it is at a better deal then London looks stupid. If the UK knew any method other than brutish rule they would have been doing it by now. Ireland not long ago is their idea of 'keeping the peace', create a problem and come in with the only option that will work, Military Occupation where nobody has any civil rights and a bomb or two going off at random in civilian areas will show that that level (and more) is appropriate for the long haul.
Kiev did the same thing to Crimea, first thing, cut off the heat to the civilians as a way to pressure the Govt. If you want the attention of the Govt cancel all their debit cards for 24 hours. Creating problems for the voters only makes the phone ring more times a day, it doesn't get answered more time in a day if that means anything about how effective they are.
What is the English plan on how to deal with this Crimea like situation?
What is the English plan on how to deal with this 'Arab Spring' where Muslims take legal control of the Government positions?
How disappointed is the Queen in George G. performance in uniting the people of the north into one unit when that unit is quite likely somewhat anti-monarchy as far as it being a charity funded by the peasants. They have better projects for the little money they have. If it is illegal to disband the Monarchy is it also illegal for the Monarchy to disband itself from the inside as 'the right thing to do for the good of the British people' in their time of need' or some sort of bull**** headline such as that.
Maybe he is just wise to the British way of doing business with people they are wanting to punish without looking like a complete prick. Commonly called sanctions.
Scotland would see it's borders go straight east from the land, you sure that doesn't alter who 'owns the fields?
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So all these Scottish companies saying they they will pull out of Scotland if it becomes independent and relocate to England; and all the supermarkets coming out saying their prices will be higher in an independent Scotland, are all lying are they?
It's not the businesses that are lying to the Scottish people. It's Alex Salmond and the SNP.
That supposed "brutish" rule is the very rule that has transformed Scotland from a backward, penniless, war-torn nation into a wealthy nation. Had it not been for the fact that Scotland unified with England and Wales in 1707 it would have remained backward and penniless. The ungrateful Scottish nationalists need to remember that they have a lot of reason to be grateful to the Union with generous England which made Scotland rich.
Comparing the situation in Scotland to the situation in Ukraine is a little bit silly.
Scotland is a wealthy, democratic people who are part of a nation state which has long been a beacon of democracy and freedom to millions around the world. The Scots enjoy freedoms that people in most parts of the world can only dream of.
There is no "English" plan. England isn't an independent sovereign state. It is just one of the four major constituent parts of the UK, like Scotland.
Have you got any evidence for that? The Queen's mother, don't forget, was a Scot.
Like what?
Why oil is not a good argument for Scottish independence
A mountainous, tribal, oil-producing country is shortly to hold a referendum on becoming independent. Not Kurdish Iraq, but Scotland. But as with the Kurds, the Scottish question hinges on oil – are revenues enough to underpin independence?
Scotland is still a significant oil producer – waters under its likely control yield about 800,000 barrels per day. The Scottish National Party (SNP) has estimated the value of a speculative 24 billion barrels of oil and gas resources at £1.5 trillion (Dh8.96tn) – ignoring the costs and time to extract them.
But production has declined steeply in recent years, down from about 2.6 million bpd in 1999. Contradicting the SNP figures, Sir Ian Wood, a leading oilman, said a “best outcome” for remaining resources was 15 billion to 16.5 billion barrels.
Most of the producing fields are mature, and many will shut down over the next few years. At the moment, the taxpayer is liable for a share of the decommissioning costs. New fields are smaller, more risky or located in the deep and stormy waters of the Atlantic Margin off to Scotland’s west.
With oil prices falling recently below US$100 per barrel, petro-pounds are a volatile and uncertain currency if not cushioned within the much-larger UK economy. And all of the SNP’s six forecasts for future oil income assume prices higher than today’s. They also contain a contradiction – investment (and hence corporate tax deductions) is lower, yet production is higher than in UK government forecasts.
The process of independence would be likely to deter oil companies for several years while the details are worked out – the division of cross-border fields and infrastructure, the establishment of a new legal and regulatory system for the industry. Although there might be room for some improvement, it is not obvious that Edinburgh would manage its oil industry dramatically better than London has.
And operating off Scotland is expensive by global standards. Recovering all the available oil from the remaining fields will need investment in enhanced oil recovery and extending the life of existing infrastructure – probably requiring easing tax levels.
And operating off Scotland is expensive by global standards. Recovering all the available oil from the remaining fields will need investment in enhanced oil recovery and extending the life of existing infrastructure – probably requiring easing tax levels.
Yet to fund its aspirations, a new Scottish government would be more likely to have to raise taxes on oil production, deterring new projects. Beyond oil, green technologies such as renewable energy and carbon capture and storage also depend on support from more numerous consumers and taxpayers in the rest of the UK.
Proponents of independence wish to spend the oil money at least twice – on improved social services and investment, and on a sovereign wealth fund like Norway’s. But the analogy with Scotland’s Nordic neighbours is misleading. Norway has more oil and, especially, more gas. Both countries started producing oil about 40 years ago – a better moment for independence that has now passed.
A possible Scottish National Oil Company has also been mooted, along the lines of Norway’s very successful Statoil. But ScotOil would either have to use public funds to buy producing fields, with the risk of overpaying, or venture into the risky and difficult game of exploration, or be given a mandatory share of new fields – which would put off private oil companies.
Beyond all these considerations are philosophical ones. Should the independence of any country be conditioned on a lucky bounty of natural resources? What happens when those resources are depleted? Is there any responsibility to the larger political unit that provided, in many cases, capital, expertise and legal security to find and develop the resources? And should decisions on independence be decided solely on cold actuarial calculations of economic advantage?
There may be good emotional, cultural or political arguments for Scottish independence. But economics – and particularly oil – is not one of them.
Robin Mills is the head of consulting at Manaar Energy and the author of The Myth of the Oil Crisis
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Capital doesn't like uncertainty. It's already been explained. Sorry you can't grasp it
You've called it "scaremongering". It isn't scaremongering. It's a fact.
Scotland and the Scottish people will be in for a rude economic awakening should they vote for independence. It'll be them who will suffer the most. Britain will put Scottish independence behind it in no time and get on with life. Scotland, though, could find itself in trouble.
How many of those businesses are owned by the locals and how many are owed by foreign companies with shareholders getting the profits when they live in some other part of the world. The companies that cancelled the party in Glasgow would have to relocate as they would be fighting against the 'patent company'.
I'm sure the Scots can figure out how to make pop and a burger, just might be reindeer than slime from some packing farm in Argentina. Spuds from Ireland for frost proofing the pop, you'll hardly know they left.
I'm sure the Scots can figure out how to make pop and a burger, just might be reindeer than slime from some packing farm in Argentina. Spuds from Ireland for frost proofing the pop, you'll hardly know they left.
Russia showed you only fall once and fall you must when your economy has gone over the event horizon. The event horizon for England was a few 100 years back, the fall doesn't get easier the longer you delay it. You are asking them to get deeper into debt like Ireland just did (and Cyprus, and Libya, and the Ukraine) rather than get out of debt like Iceland and Russia have. They will suffer first, that is true, that doesn't mean they will suffer more than England will.
The part you are leaving unsaid, and the part that is most important, is that England will be the cause of most of the bad things an independent Scotland would face. At the same time if she gets away like Iceland did then when England had to do the same to fix her debt then Scotland would be adding to the burden so there is the difference if you are looking for one.
A lot of the debt that the UK is in comes from the economic policies of the SCOTTISH Chancellor of the Exchequer, Gordon Brown, that Britain had between 1997 and 2007. It was a SCOT who is the main cause of Britain's national debt. So don't blame it on anyone else.
It is thought that Scotland is actually MORE in debt, as a proportion of its GDP, than the UK as a whole is.
Now, the arrogant SNP have threatened that an independent Scotland may renege on its share of the national debt if the UK decided not to allow an independent Scotland to share the pound with it in a currency union (and the three main party leaders have stuck to their guns and have consistently said that there will be no currency union with an independent Scotland).
But if the SNP did that, then they themselves will push an independent Scotland into an economic calamity. An independent Scotland would have to borrow money at interests rates comparable to payday loans firm Wonga if it walked away from its UK public debt share.
The Chief Secretary to the Treasury Danny Alexander (a Scot) said that an independent Scotland would be punished with extortionate borrowing costs, equivalent to those set by the payday lender, if it reneged on its debt commitment.
Mr Alexander said if Alex Salmond carried out his threat to take on no UK debt should a shared pound be withheld by Westminster after independence there would be "catastrophic" consequences for Scotland.
The rest of the UK won't suffer as much as Scotland would be. We'd still be a major economic power, one of the ten largest in the world. The Scots, on the other hand, would find themselves to suddenly be a third-rate economic power, with an economy a quarter the size of London, living on the cold rocky preriphery of Europe.
No. The Scottish nationalists would be the cause of the economic calamity that will befall Scotland should they manage to secede in breaking it away from the very Union that has made it rich.
The Scots Nats keep calling it "Scotland's" oil. But the oil in the North Sea is BRITAIN's oil. That oil in Scottish waters is only able to be brought to the surface thanks to ENGLISH subsidies and companies which are based in ENGLAND, like BP. It is ENGLISH companies and ENGLISH subsidies which bring up the North Sea oil.
It is English taxpayers which pay for England's infrastructure and that of the UK as a whole. England makes up 90% of the UK economy. England pays its own way in this world - and we also pay for all the wonderful freebies enjoyed by the Scots but which are denied to the English (you see, the English actually PAY for the services they use, unlike the Scots, who get the English to pay for them).
In fact, North Sea oil revenues pay for little. What Salmond and his SNP mob have not told the Scottish people, either through ignorance or because it is just an inconvenient truth they don't want the Scottish people to know, is that THREE TIMES as much money is spent in socialist Scotland by the British Government (using mainly English taxpayers' money) on its hugely bloated welfare system each year than ALL of the total combined oil revenues than Scotland and the rest of the UK receive each year.
In 2011, the then Scottish Secretary Michael Moore said it was a great strength of the UK that we provided the same level of help to those who needed it regardless of which part of the UK they live in. He also said it highlighted the fact that the Scottish Government’s numbers “don’t stack up” when they propose that oil and gas revenues will pay for the costs of separating Scotland from the rest of the UK.
Figures from the Scottish Government show that identifiable spending on welfare and pensions by the UK Government in Scotland was just over £15bn in 2010 while oil revenues totalled £6.4bn. In fact, the figures show that pensions spending alone in Scotland in 2010 of £7.2bn could not be covered by oil and gas revenue.
Scotland Office analysis of the spending and revenue figures from the Scottish Government show that, since records began in 2002, defined UK spending on pensions and welfare in Scotland exceeds the total revenue from oil and gas over that period by more than £38bn.
The UK Government has spent £98.1bn on pensions and welfare since 2002 while the total revenue from oil and gas was £59.7bn.
The analysis shows that in no year has oil revenue covered the welfare bill - even in 2009 when North Sea revenue reached almost £13bn.
The Scottish Secretary Michael Moore said:
“Oil and gas is a vital sector for the Scottish economy but these numbers put things in some perspective.
“Pensions and welfare spending is crucially important to people in Scotland and the UK.
“The great strength for us within the UK is that we get a common level of provision for welfare and pensions. It doesn’t matter whether you’re in Cornwall or the far North of Scotland, you are given the same support.
“The scale of the UK means we can better withstand economic shocks in certain parts of the country and look after those who need help.
“If revenues from oil and gas revenue decline significantly - as they can - we have got the bigger resources of the UK to keep welfare and pensions payments going.
“This highlights yet again the fundamental questions the Scottish Government must answer about how you deal with the costs of separating Scotland from the rest of the UK. Oil and gas revenues are offered up as the solution but the number don’t stack up.”
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/...three-times-greater-than-oil-revenues-in-2010
To any Scot reading this: THE BRITISH GOVERNMENT (USING MAINLY ENGLISH TAXPAYERS' MONEY) SPENDS THREE TIMES MORE MONEY ON PAYING FOR SCOTLAND'S BLOATED AND GENEROUS WELFARE STATE THAN ALL THE NORTH SEA OIL REVENUES THAT THE UK RECEIVES EVERY YEAR.
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I hope Canada and Quebec can see how Scotland does it.. and maybe we can get rid of our Welfare Province soon.
Maybe the only reason I want to see Justin Trudeau elected.. He will reverse his fathers bad deeds starting with Quebec..
Trudeau faces separation controversy | CTV News
That would separate Canada geographically, and damage her economically.. the rest of Canada would surly join the USA.
Go Justin!!!
Quebec sovereigntists learn from Scots, reflect on what could have been - Montreal | Globalnews.ca
http://globalnews.ca/news/1562630/q...n-from-scots-reflect-on-what-could-have-been/
And yet, ironically, the Scots will vote NO by a wider marging than what the Quebecans did.
http://globalnews.ca/news/1562630/q...n-from-scots-reflect-on-what-could-have-been/http://globalnews.ca/news/1562630/q...n-from-scots-reflect-on-what-could-have-been/
And yet, ironically, the Scots will vote NO by a wider marging than what the Quebecans did.