New from The National this morning, and with me as one of those featured:
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You’ve even had a mention in the Diari ARA, the Catalan newspaper.
Heady days indeed.
Really? Wow….
The FT analysis is worthwhile if you understand a starting point and make assumptions of the future. The 2014 showed a good fiscal position from SNP but built round 3 assumptions.
$100 plus oil and production growth and forming monetary union and EU membership which would have reestablished frictionless trade with UK as fellow member off EU. All are completely unsound assumption. The EU part being changed with UK leaving.
The Scottish growth commission which is current SNP plan is off course the case for the Union and Andrew Wilson is the unionist secret weapon. This is austerity with even less control of your economy than devolved Parliament. You can use the pound but you need a lot of them and terrible strategy.
The issue around oil and wind have been discussed many times. As a 30 year oil guy we know the route of travel. $50-60 oil and UK declining area and huge environmental push to eliminate. I have never seen any wind plan integrated into the fiscal plans. The two different routes of travel are nowhere in SNP fiscal plans.
SGC we accept the fiscal base of 7% GDP starting position. The FT and other journal say the two changes are the recalibration due to covid and EU membership leaving UKR as third country trading partner. The scale of this later impact is a matter of debate. Probably LSE is overstating the impact.
I lived in Singapore for many years and understand their success. It is their health and education. These are the areas that Scotland could become Denmark but remain way short. But SNP control health and education and have tax raising power and Barnett funding. So why would independence change this?
SGC remains the SNP plan and it is pile of rubbish. And no serious plans around wind or how growth would be achieved or educational improvement or how to prioritize spending.
Go on, try to say something useful
Because that wasn’t in any way
I did not think you would engage. As it remains the current SNP plan for independence is nonsense. At least most people on this board realize this. Plans around wind and any other area growth are completely unspecified. Scotland would be poor unless it can fix its education and health. All the countries that are sighted such as Denmark have much better education and health levels as does Singapore where I lived. It is not to sight other counties but to understand why they are successful.
Brexit was won on a culture war and anti EU and immigration. Independence may be won along the same lines. But SNP should have serious plan. I think the SGC will be dumped but what replaces it. Plans around specific growth other than generic stuff remain non existent. Oil will decline and wind grow we know this.
Read what many there actually say please
You are really not engaging
And do not pretend this is an SNP site
It is not
I appreciate it is not SNP site and I bring no politics into the discussion. But back to the issue that there is no credible economic plan for independence. This may not matter in end. There is big switch from oil to wind in Scotland. Not seen actually how this fiscally impacts Scotland. And the core economic question around Scotland of how it would improve its health and education to be first world rich nation. Continuing to sight rich small countries outside union is meaningless.
There are credible plans for independence
You clearly have not bothered to find them
Start with Common Weal
I have read Common Wheal and view it as socialist fantasy. They do address the need to have currency. A more progressive Scotland is possible within the tax scope (income tax).
Back to your article on the National on energy. The story is 100% understood. Wind has been through a decade already of huge growth and will continue. Oil is not finished but major industry in decline. For environmental targets it will disappear. What is not shown is the economic impact of these two energy sources going in different direction.
As a note I have lived in work in Singapore and China. Both have huge state involvement but both tough market economies. And very highly educated work forces. As they say I have lived experience. Scotland should look at what has actually worked for countries like Singapore of similar size and recent independence.
Sure no engagement but good luck with this. I had viewed the site as the serious end of the independence side.
So, like all trolls you eventually out yourself
There is a serious plan, but you think it socialist so you dismiss it
As an example of identifying that as plausible that which suits your own self interest that’s a classic
Don’t call again
Mr Smith,
“But SNP control health and education and have tax raising power and Barnett funding. So why would independence change this?”
If you really think a balanced budget combined with that statement is sufficient to solve long established difficulties in Scotland in the areas you mention (going back generations, all within the Union), then I suspect you simply do not understand the nature of the problem. Candidly, neither does the scope or insight provided by your comments contribute much to the quality of the debate, or any illumination. It would also be useful if you explained how Scotland is going to solve these problems (or many of its problems) within this increasingly dysfunctional, eccentric Union; that is no longer fit for purpose, or in fact any persuasive, substantive purpose.
In order to be helpful, the starting point should be the current Brexit, austerity mess to which the Union has brought us.
Agreed
A THOUGHT ON SCOTTISH POLITICS
I am going to use an analogy to describe the state of Scottish politics by comparing it to the Jacobite campaign to restore the Stuarts to power.
Unionists are quite happy with the way things are so refuse to set off on an invasion of England
The SNP and Growth Commission regiment are willing to go as far as Berwick on Tweed but no further
Believe in Scotland are prepared to risk going as far as Leeds
Tim Rideout and the SCG will continue the rampage as far as Derby but will then turn back and choose to fight the enemy on a battlefield chosen by the enemy.
The embryonic SBFG would like to take the campaign all the way to London and capture the citadel and thereby restore real independence for the Scottish people by eliminating rentier capitalism and transforming our financial system so that it serves the people and the public interest.
We can only hope that history will not repeat the Jacobite tragedy as a modern farce….but that is currently the way things are headed. We need to stand up and do something in order to realise a different destiny.
Interesting thought Jim, and interesting analogy. From what I know about the Jacobite campaigns, the failures appear to have centred around those driving it listening to very poor advice. Closer scrutiny of the choice of advisor to those apparently driving independence now seems to be a reasonable gauge of how successful a campaign might be,,,
But mainly your analogies have prompted me to ask for help in updating this rather out-dated joke:
“The World Economy Explained With The Aid Of Two Cows
SOCIALISM You have 2 cows. You give one to your neighbour
COMMUNISM You have 2 cows The State takes both and gives you some milk.
FASCISM You have 2 cows. The State takes both and sells you some milk.
BUREAUCRATISM You have 2 cows. The State takes both, shoots one, milks the other and then throws the milk away.
TRADITIONAL CAPITALISM You have two cows. You sell one and buy a bull. Your herd multiplies, and the economy grows. You sell them and retire on the income.
VENTURE CAPITALISM You have two cows. You sell three of them to your publicly listed company, using letters of credit opened by your brother-in-law at the bank, then execute a debt/equity swap with an associated general offer so that you get all four cows back, with a tax exemption for five cows. The milk rights of the six cows are transferred via an intermediary to a Cayman Island Company secretly owned by the majority shareholder who sells the rights to all seven cows back to your listed company. The annual report says the company owns eight cows, with an option on one more.”
Although the venture capitalism part is fun, I really want to add a section on rentier capitalism, within the two-cows framework, and would welcome suggestions.
(This might appear silly, but it can help towards highlighting issues – the name given to it – into the public consciousness)
RENTIER CAPITALISM: you have 2 cows. You rent,,,
Contrary – Perhaps this….
You have two cows – you sell them to an investment bank which then slices and dices them, mixes them with some sliced and diced horse meat, some bits of rat, bat, and pangolin and then sells it on with a public health rating of AAA which the public then buy in good faith and die of food poisoning.
Does that make a decent parable?
🙂
Thanks Jim, that’s little more cynical than satirical, perhaps, and cuts a bit too close to the bone, so to speak – we don’t want to scare the horses after all. Apparently.
I think I’d file that one under ‘traditional capitalism’, I was hoping for something a bit more specifically renty. Like,,,
You have two cows. You rent both to your neighbours and demand money from them for the privilege. When the milk price crashes your neighbours ask for a rent holiday which you refuse, and the cows both die from starvation. You then get a government subsidy for loss of earnings and live comfortably on that, while your neighbours subsist in abject poverty.
But more pithy and entertaining,,,
🙂
Thank you, Richard, for so ably advocating the truth. Of course Scotland can ‘afford’ to be independent. Indeed, especially after Brexit, it can’t afford NOT to be.
For people who want to think in simple terms, try this: If Scotland can’t afford to be independent–because it relies on charitable handouts from England to keep functioning, as we’re so often told– then why is Westminster so desperate to hang on to us?
If we actually were ‘the weakest link’ surely they’d be delighted to see the back of us? This present crew in charge at Westminster would actually be inclined to boot us out of the union, against our will …right? The way they want to slam the door on refugees and immigrants, right? They are fed up ‘giving’ to ‘freeloaders.’ Right?
Instead of waving bye-bye and counting their blessings to be rid of us at last, they’re exerting all their energy to gaslight us, to undermine our self-confidence, to hamstring our ability to function, to insult our leadership and spread lies about our accomplishments–all in order to keep us mired firmly within this so-called ‘union.’ Westminster seems panicked at the thought we might actually leave.
Why is that? Obviously they don’t ‘love’ us. It doesn’t add up.
We must have something they want. Something they’re not admitting to. Something THEY can’t afford to lose? What is that? Ask that question, and make them answer it.
Contrary – you are being far too kind although I do accept that your parable is perfectly apt as well.
It’s the thousands of miles of Atlantic coastline, with control of tens of thousands of sq miles of ocean.
Having nuclear weapons, and a permanent seat on the UN Security Council, allows total nonentities like Gavin Williamson and Dominic Raab to act “Billy Big Baws” on worldwide forums. Indy for Scotland ensures that they lose those positions.
Imagine English diplomats having to be diplomatic?