The same old song
We’ve already briefly discussed Bill Jamieson’s article in today’s Scotsman claiming an independent Scotland will be more likely to suffer financial collapse and wouldn’t be able to afford to bail out its banking sector, that its economy will diverge from the rUK due to differing economic policies (making Sterling a millstone round Scotland’s neck), and that Scottish banks would relocate their headquarters to London as a result.
We’ve heard these dire tales of “too wee, too poor” inadequacy a thousand times. “But you couldn’t bail out the banks!” is perhaps the most scratched and worn-out disc in the No campaign’s entire DJ setlist of doom-and-gloom tunes. What we need is some sort of independence Woody Bop Muddy, but while we look for his number let’s yawn our way through this tired old scaremongering cobblers one more time.
Established international procedure is that countries are only liable for the investments within their own borders. Under European law every bank must be registered to operate in a given country in order to be allowed to take local deposits. The authorities in the country the deposits were made are then responsible under EU law for insuring those deposits up to €100,000 (£85,000), even if the bank itself is foreign-owned.
This principle can be seen in action in the Fortis and Dexia banking bailout of the 2008 Belgian financial crisis where the Belgian, French and Netherlands governments worked together to cover the bailout of the banks cross border business.
It can also be seen in the actions of the US Federal Reserve when it bailed out RBS in 2007 and 2008 to the tune of $84.5 billion (the most of any non-US-based bank) in order to provide liquidity to American clients caught up in the global credit crunch.
This fact was highlighted by Professor Andrew Hughes-Hallett (Professor of Economics at the University of St. Andrews) in an interview on BBC Radio Scotland’s “Newsweek” programme in July 2011, when he noted:
And the precedent for this, if you want to go into the details, are the Fortis Bank and the Dexia Bank, which are two banks which were shared between France, Belgium and the Netherlands, at the same time were bailed out in proportion by France, Belgium and the Netherlands.“
Hughes-Hallett’s comments were backed up by George Walker (Professor of Financial Law at Queen Mary University London and Glasgow University) on the same programme, where he stated:
“There are no formal rules for the allocation of market support costs in the event of the failure of a major financial institution on a cross border basis. We have provisions governing the allocation of supervisory responsibility and for cooperation and the exchange of information, but not for the formal allocation of support or recovery at the international level.”
There is a committee which is the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision in Basel Switzerland, although it has no formal authority on matters governing support costs which are reserved to the Central Bank governors directly. There is a European Union memorandum of understanding on cross border financial stability of June 2008 which does set out procedures for managing cross-border crisis within the EU.
In this particular case that we’re discussing, it would presumably then have to be calculated having regard to where the various subsidiaries and business operations of RBS and HBOS were located in England and Wales and Northern Ireland, with Edinburgh only then assuming a proportionate share of around, possibly, only 5% of the total costs concerned.”
Of course, these simple, clear facts probably won’t stop the No camp dragging out the scare story again (and again and again) over the next year, but we might as well keep pointing it out – the reality is that Scotland would never, ever have been expected or forced to shoulder the burden of RBS and HBOS by itself.
(And more to the point, won’t be in future, as HBOS is now wholly owned by Lloyds.)
So what about the threat of diverging economies? Scotland and the rUK have very similar economic cycles at present. Over the longer term however, changes in economic policy could mean that the interest rates applied to Sterling no longer met the economic requirements of Scotland.
What’s not mentioned, however, is that this process would be a long one, taking many years, and which would be visible at an early stage. In the short to medium term (10-20 years), a Sterling zone will remain an optimal arrangement serving the interests of both countries. If in future there was a significant deviation, an independent Scotland would have years of warning in order to prepare for a planned transition in currency.
This is not a threat to independence, but one of the benefits of it. If Scotland is tied into the Union during an economic divergence between Scotland and the rUK, it’ll be powerless to take steps to rectify the situation. With independence the country can either alter economic policies to reduce the divergence, or look at ending the currency union in a sensible and planned manner.
And what of Jamieson’s final point – that “Scottish” banks would move their headquarters to London? Let’s take a quick look at their current head office addresses:
- The Royal Bank of Scotland Plc: 250 Bishopsgate, London*
- Lloyds Banking Group (owners of HBOS): 25 Gresham Street, City of London
We’re bored of this. Someone change the record.
.
* Interestingly, the London Stock Exchange entry for RBS differs from the Head Office location given on the bank’s website, which names an Edinburgh address that the LSE lists as a “Branch Office”.
One would assume that Mr Jamieson would be aware of these points so that makes him either a liar or he holds his readers with such contempt thinking they are too stupid to know any better.
Once again pushing the dependency is not really failure angle.
As for the banks, its a real messy situation. Lloyds has something like 24 corporate addresses that it operates out of, 2 are in Edinburgh, 1 in Singapore and another in Hong Kong. So thats 20 operating in the UK alone. Bank of Scotland/Halifax has 10, 4 of which are based in Edinburgh, the rest throughout the UK.
They go out of area to promote their business – nothing would change in the event of independence.
I’ll cut to the chase. We don’t NEED to bail out the banks. Its done, in the past, its happened, gone, kaput, finito. Their behaviour won’t be allowed in an independent Scotland. If they are good, they might even be allowed to relocate to Edinburgh, Scotland.
Firstly, are we going to throw regulation to the wind again so the banks can do this again?
If the answer to the first question is Yes, can the Uk afford to bail them out again?
Thirdly, why oh why oh why can every country in the fecking world be independent but Scotland, of every nation on the planet, is uniquely placed to be an utter abject failure?
Is it lack of resources? Is it lack of good infra-structure? Is it poor education and a lack of universities and scientific research? Is it simply the people themselves are possibly the stupidest most incompetent in the known universe?
The answer to none of these questions is likely to be forsthcoming from the “Hidden Ones”*
* Formerly known as Better Together.
O/T saw some bods with a camera and a microphone outside 5 Blytheswood Square early this morning but recognised no one.
@frankieboy
EXACTLY! The bailouts were a response to lax banking oversight… which with independence we can remedy.
But the Unionist argument is that IF WE DID need to then we couldnt…
Well, we CAN! Although we probably wont need to. 🙂
When Iceland’s President Olafur Ragnar Grimmson was asked whether or not other countries – Europe in particular – would succeed with Iceland’s “let the banks fail” policy, he stated the following:
Annie:
“One would assume that Mr Jamieson would be aware of these points so that makes him either a liar or he holds his readers with such contempt thinking they are too stupid to know any better.”
IMO you didn’t need the either and the or, Annie.
I do not take the SG as being stupid they will have covered all the implications for Banking in a Free Scotland. Businesses, of ALL kinds, go where they are best treated, and SG are working on that all the time. So businesses will stay.
In the short term I agree that a we join the sterling area,or rather we stay in it, under the rules which would be negotiated, which again the SG have always said.
In the longer term, rather like Ireland did, I would prefer our own currency ie Sc$, the Scottish Dollar, sounds good to me. Australia has their Dollar, Singapore, NewZealand, and many more.
Another thing to consider is the £ may crumble BEFORE Independence so we do need a plan B, which I am sure the SG has,but is keeping quiet about.
“where the Belgian, French and Netherlands governments worked together to cover the bailout of the banks cross border business.”
– and Luxembourg.
I had accounts with both (I closed the Dexia account due to lots of charges that they introduced after the crash).
Fortis had bought over BGL (Banque General du Luxembourg) prior to the crash and BGL had it’s name changed to Fortis.
As part of the bailout BNP Paribas bought over Fortis (Like Llloyds with HBOS), so in Luxembourg it’s now part owned by BNP Paribas and part by the Luxembourg state.
As a result of that it’s now called “BGL BNP Paribas” in Luxembourg.
IF I had a hammer, I’d hammer in the morning. I haven’t…but! IF I did, well, say no more. Another non-story.
Its the same bloody Westminster mindset that call themselves Honorable Mambers. They “control” the City on a my word is my bond basis. Take Lloyds, got themselves into a pretty pickle over sovereign lending to South America so were “allowed” to take over TSB to put them in funds and give them an income stream till they got back to solvency. Thats how they come to have a Scottish registration. The proviso was don’t do it again. Ho ho. Come the crisis Lloyds are down the tubes again so, when Gordo says will you take over HBoS, Lloyds jump at it thinking its another TSB deal. Snap! like a rat in a trap. Don’t believe me; just look at where the bad loans we gave insurance to came from. Lloyds should be broken into 3 parts with 10% of retail deposits each. To allow the remaining Lloyds with its history of failure to control 20% of retail deposits is unfair on the other banks in the UK who have to put up the premiums to insure yours and mine deposits up to 100,000 euro. At 20% Lloyds knows its too big to fail and will act accordingly but promise not too. And Honorable Members will believe 🙁
I wonder how many times unionists have to repeat these baseless scare stories before they start to believe it themselves?
“We’ve heard these dire tales of “too wee, too poor” inadequacy a thousand times. “But you couldn’t bail out the banks!” is perhaps the most scratched and worn-out disc in the No campaign’s entire DJ setlist of doom-and-gloom tunes.”
Is Jamieson stuck in a time warp where he thinks that the only news available is from rags like his, and that people will believe what they read in it? Do the owners of the rag live in a bubble somewhere, totally detached from the fact that Scotland’s social, cultural and political scene differs from the rest of the UK?
I reckon that it is because of articles such as this that the Scotsman & Herald are rapidly going down the tubes. People are more news savvy nowadays, and certainly more politically aware thanks to the Internet. They’re not going to pay to be lied to, Mr. Jamieson.
This is what the BT/unionists group are protecting.
http://www.ianfraser.org/how-london-became-the-money-laundering-capital-of-the-world/
In fact, the unionists sound like the Self-righteous Brothers.
Scott, a few months ago I attended a meeting of Business For Scotland. Gordon McIntrye-Kemp covered this issue.
Going on my memory he stated that the UK bank bail out was circa £720bn. The vast majority was paid by the US Fed £640bn? The UK paid circa £65bn. Even the National Bank of Australia made a contribution circa £15bn?
Therefore an Independent Scotland’s liability would have been circa £13bn i.e. 20% of the £65bn, as per population split of the customers’ locations.
@ cynicalHighlander the page has already gone!
Sorry, just googled it and found it. Thanks.
@ronald alexander macdonald
£66bn was the UK bail out.
Profs Hughes Hallet and George Walker say its based on proportion of business in area… i.e. 20% customers may be in Scotland but only 5-10% business.
I’m tending to go with George Walker on this one.
Fair enough Scott. Anyway you look at it pure Unionist scaremongering pish!
No wonder The Scotman’s sales are collapsing.
Things must be pretty desperate if the unionist followers have to drag that old dead scare story from the bottom of the barrel.
Lets shout from the rooftops Scotland is the only country in the world that is not capable of doing anything on its own as an independent country.
Let the CRAP sellers go forth and down Scotland at every opportinuity, in fact we seem to provide our own homebred CRAP sellers to do the job for Westminster and anyone else that thinks it fun to denigrate the Scots.
All I ask is that after independence we do not forget who spoke in such terms about our country, and those who lied, spun halftruths and did all they could to prevent our rights to regain an independent Scotland are not forgotten.
Hail Alba, Vote YES.
Was Mr Jamieson paid by Better Together to regurgitate this guff……..again!
If he was why is there no mention of this payment. (I know he ‘works’ for the Hootsmon, allegedly ) Only doing something on behalf of Better Together could give any credence as to why he has written this garbage. What part of ‘the bank bailout of 2008 is history’ does he and his Bitter Together best buddies not understand?
Any one want to have a guess as to what Newsnicht might be discussing tonight?
It wouldn’t be Scotland’s ‘inability’ to deal with the 2008 bank crash by any chance?
I wonder who the ‘guest’ might be, not Mr Jamieson by any chance?
Is there anyone on Newsnicht intelligent enough to understand the reasoning behind the statement from Iceland’s President Olafur Ragnar Grimmson?
Scrub that last question, I mean the answer is quite obviously NO! 😆
Excellent stuff. It is so often the case that I have to laugh when I read pieces on this site. The display of ignorance on show in so many BT arguments is positively breathtaking at times. Great that you tirelessly (yawns definitely understandable and allowed) debunk again and again.
#Les Wilson
Just on that last point about the pound crumbling, I heard the other day that by 2014 the pound will have lost up to 20% against the Euro which by then will have parity with the pound.
That does drive one to the conclusion that we need to be nimble in how we cope with rUK going down the tubes.
All this ‘woe is me’ and ‘gloom, doom and disaster’ if too wee, etc,etc, Scotland joined the free Democratic world’.
Not a word ever in speculation of how England will fare on their own.
That unmentionable situation is quietly under wraps – why?
What is it they fear to mention? That they’ll lose ‘top table’ status? that they have been living excessively beyond their means? That they have no real friends anywhere? That they’ll have to cough up up-front because of a reducing credit rating?
Instead of pretending that it’s Scotland who might be in trouble by taking her place n the Free World at last, perhaps the 90% of the planet’s countries that she’s invaded, may take retributive advantage of her difficulties? What then?
They’ve said it so often I think they believe it now, they’ve brainwashed themselves.
I can only hope that the Scottish populace is canny enough to see through the lies and vote accordingly.
@ronald alexander mcdonald
“. . a few months ago I attended a meeting of Business For Scotland. Gordon McIntrye-Kemp covered this issue.”
Aye. It was Gordon’s excellent ‘Why did the banks only become Scottish – after they failed?’ article – http://tinyurl.com/q6xbzu5
“The UK government bail out of RBS and HBOS amounted to £65bn a lot of money but the US federal reserve made emergency loans available to RBS of £285bn and to HBOS of £115bn and $552.32bn to Barclays – sorry who bailed out the British banks again?”
Better Together event taking place at the Mitchell Library.
Albalha says:
“Better Together event taking place at the Mitchell Library.”
What? Without a Yes event to keep things balanced?
That’s surely not allowed!
X_Sticks
Well this is Glasgow City Council we’re talking about!
And in the e mail of confirmation they’re sending out it says, fearty fighting talk indeed …
‘We know that the Nationalists have to only win once and that they only have to win by one vote. We cannot allow this to happen.’
Interesting that jamieson doesn’t recognise Westminster’s refusal to co-operate with the EU regarding banking transaction fees.
This is the major reason for Cameron’s EU referendum ploy – he’s scared of the city and simply refuses to regulate any banks as the Tory party collect 50% of their donations from city firms, amounting to some £47m out of £100m over the last few years. Cameron would rather see the UK out of the EU than have to tackle the banks properly.
It is the rUK that will find itself set adrift in a few years, out of the EU, out of all regulatory bodies with no regulation whatsoever. Boris will still be calling for an independent London as he has done on a couple of occasions in the last six months.
What I can’t understand is that the rest of England, Wales and NI seemingly haven’t woken up to this and seem to have been taken in by the anti-immigration/ ‘splendid isolation’ rhetoric being dished out by UKIP, Westminster and the media.
I mean, they don’t even realise that the point of HS2 is not to spread jobs across the country, it’s to keep jobs in London but have the likes of Birmingham and Manchester as commuter belts where people can travel and still make a 9am start time in London.
Do you not think that they try the same old stories again and again becuase they don’t work and they are a loss to what to do with it?
Most sensible Scots will have the lugs tightly pinned back to avoid all of this until a month or so before the referendum. So I would suspect that is the reason things aint moving fast at the moment.
Possibly Thomas, but they also think that of you tell the lie often enough then people will believe it.
You only have to look at the ‘subsidy junky’ myth to see how effective lies can be.
Let’s hope the rule of silence is enforced at the Mitchell Library then..
O/T – so strange to hear Angus Robertson speak in HoC without the usual baying and shouting down from the Labour benches. Obviously some respect being given to the subject.
O/T Sorry. Regarding Scottish Trade Exports/imports with rUK. I have details from Wings articles/ Business for Scotland that Scotland’s export trade to the rUK amounts to £45.5 billion (from Scotland’s Global Connections Survey 2011) excluding oil and gas. But does anybody have figures and or a link for English exports to Scotland? We are constantly told that Scottish trade with the rUK would be affected by a Yes vote but if you apply that same logic how much English/rUK exports to Scotland would similarly be at risk. Not that I believe for one moment that trade in either direction would be at risk in the event of independence.
Hope someone can help.
If the BT Glasgow event is invite only, then the place will be full of O-O, union officials and Glasgow City Council. It will be a Scottish Labour conference by any other name with the appropriate apparatchicks ready to give riotous applause and ovations on demand for the accumulated Press. This won’t be a debate or even a discussion, it’s grandstanding through a series of keynote speeches by the Labour elite of Scotland.
On the matter of the banks, here’s a link to the New Statesman article of 2010 which shows that our banks were actually bailed out by the Federal Reserve. It’s a handy article to know when dealing with people like Jamieson spouting their rubbish.
http://www.newstatesman.com/2010/12/financial-british-money-fed
The Federal Reserve has released details of more than 21,000 transactions after being forced by the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform Act to disclose which institutions it had bailed out in the financial turmoil since December 2007.
The data reveals that British-based banks accounted for $1 trillion (£640bn) of the money the Fed issued to prop up the financial sector.
Barclays took the biggest chunk of bailout money, borrowing $863bn from the Fed. Almost half of the money came in overnight loans thought the Primary Dealer Credit Facility, a programme intended to help banks dealing in US Treasuries.
Barclays has since paid all of its loans, which came about because of Barclay’s $1.75 purchase of Lehman Brothers.
Royal Bank of Scotland borrowed $446bn, Bank of Scotland $181bn, Abbey National $19bn and HSBC less than $10bn. The figures show each institution’s total borrowing, not the amount they had outstanding at any one point.
The problem with these kind of untrue comments from the Press, is of course if you throw enough mud some of it will stick, meaning people not in the know will actually believe the fabrications of the BT camp, spouted through their attack dog the press.
Thankfully more and more people are accessing info online, I’d dread to think how bad this campaign would be for YES without the masses access to the net.
@annie
I am about to make a banal observation, otherwise I might just trash my house, this whole debate just makes me so angry ……Angus MacNeil is rather handsome on the tele, not often I think that about anyone when watching HOC Live.
@ Albalha
Have you received your password then?
Anyone got any idea of the Library’s audience limits?
O/T Rev sorry about that.
Dennis Canavan, and friends are holding a public meeting in Partick Glasgow on the 4th of September, to promote the case for independence, other speakers are, Jeane Freeman, who was Jack McConnells special adviser, she’s speaking on behalf of Women for Independence.
Michael Gray director for National Collective, and Sandra White MSP for Kelvin Glasgow.
Entertainment will be supplied by fiddler, Adam Sutherland, supporting TradYes
Traditional Music for Independence.
anyone interested then Twitter; @YesKelvin
Email; yeskelvin2014@gmail.com start time 6.30pm.
You know, when you think about it. If there were one single honest and positive case for the union, just one tiny little honest and positive case then it would be rammed down our throats constantly by Better Together, the MSM and the BBC collectively known as “No Scotland”. That is not going to happen because there is not one tiny little honest and positive case for the union. Instead we have this sort of guff on a daily basis and I am becoming so bored with it all. It is so bad that I am even looking foreword to FMQs just to watch Lammont making an arse of herself again. That’s assuming that she even turns up. Moan, moan, moan! 🙁
O/T here sorry Stu.
I couldn’t help myself, honestly. 😆
I just had to blurp out the location of the SECRET public Better Together Glasgow meeting on Saturday. I know it was meant to be kept secret but you know me, I am useless at keeping secrets. If you want to keep a secret do not tell me! 😆
I’m afraid I kinda let slip the location on http://www.munguinsrepublic.blogspot.co.uk/2013/08/better-together-ve-messagepart-two.html and, I don’t how, but somehow the location found its way onto my twitter account as well. I’ll be damned if I know how that happened. 😆
I propose that Wings Over Scotland hold a meeting at the same time as the BT event in the adjacent Bon Accord. Not that I usually need a reason to visit the Bon.
O/T Elfyn Llwyd of Plaid Cymru saying how it is on Syria, decision already taken and this bill is ‘paving the way’, for the strikes.
Will the Scotsman accept a response to Jamieson’s article ? Prob not from Stu but George Kerevan could pick up?
The MSM keep spouting garbage and the Rev has to
just disprove it each time.
My God Rev, (and you Scott) you have some constitution!
This repetitive nonsense is frankly boring and insulting,
especially to those that have seen it debunked the last time
and the time before that and the time before that.
If this is all they have why don’t they just give up; repeating it
is never going to make it true!
The problem is the public still get this stuff presented regularly by our press as fact based material such as this newspaper coverage It might all seem benign in way, but in most other democratic societies the press will service a spectrum of opinion and journalistic coverage varying between each publication where such material is then countered by another paper. Not so here.
Unfortunately with a year to go before this momentous vote, that puts this country at a distinct disadvantage with only the ‘Negative arguments’ being represented in the fullest terms again and again. From my own experiences this is not case in Catalonia where the press readily represents both opposing positions, and there is dialogue and discussion.
All the public here get from the press on a regular basis is this mince from the likes of Jamieson and Quinn – completely suggestive & biased in outlook, followed by exclusives from the BBC / STV where its discussed at more length and all presented as fact based.
Despite this, absolutely nothing still is being presented as a future vision of just how it all will be ‘Better’ by Negative Scotland, which up until this point has not come under any serious scrutiny other than from pro YES websites.
You know Better Together are panicking like hell when their media puppets are telling blatant lies that can be easily countered.
thanks Marcia for that quote from President Olafur Ragnar Grimmson.
Aside from the tedious fear mongering, what really irritates me is this continued talk of bailing out failed banks. Given the scale of the failure, the management and directors should have been sacked and prosecuted for gross breach of fiduciary duty. At the very least, there should have been a forensic examination of the books to clarify if it was only a reckless disregard of consequences and not control fraud.
O/T – Syria:
Sorry : Lifted from Frankie Boyle tweet but says it better than anything I’ve seen so far. Sometimes humour can be more surgical than any other medium.
“Oh I know … Let’s kill some Syrians to stop Syrians from killing other Syrians. That’ll show ’em. Go Jesus!”
Marcia : Cheers
One things for sure – bankers now tread very carefully in Iceland (not the shop)
“People in enlightened democracies are not going to accept that in the long run.”
Jamieson is suffering from Mad Bull Disease, and not only him, a vaccine needs to be found.
Just came across this BT message, maybe this is their new, lalala land charm offensive. Let’s all hold hands and sing Kumbaya, aye right.
https://twitter.com/UK_Together/status/373046344920735744/photo/1
@ Arbroath1320 – Oooooooh your are so naughty. Mind you the location had to be out soon. Cameras, video footage and voice recorders primed and ready eh? Oh calculators to tot up the big crowd attending.
Whos coming back to the bigger UK ??? (Thats what it says)
Is it Ireland, India or Australia maybe ??
“Anyone got any idea of the Library’s audience limits?”
Slightly over 400.
O/T Rev, any more on the non public ,public meeting that is not open to the public?
Och I know Archie, I really am the world’s worst enemy when it comes to keeping secrets. 😆
At least there is one good thing to come out of my ‘inadvertent’ leaking of this publicly secret meeting…..at least the MSM/BBC/STV/SKY now know where to go on Saturday for their latest ‘neutral’ opinion of how an independent Scotland will survive.
Got admit it gordoz, no matter if you love him or hate him Frankie Boyle does seem to have a knack of cutting straight through all the bull***e that is put about by Cameron and his ‘loyal’ followers.
It wouldn’t be just quite so bad R.A.M. if the lies being told were NEW lies but their not they are the same old lies that we have been bombarded with day in day out, week in week out, month in and month out. Oh wait a minute I’ve got it, they’re following the old regime of ‘tell a lie long enough and often enough then it becomes the TRUTH!’
I have attended events in the Mitchell library – it holds about 420, so working on the basis that cybernats have blagged tickets that will leave about 35 seats for the Better Together staff
🙂
Scotsman, mair like Scotsjessie, all this is depressing the crap out of me
This might help you on twitter Rev
http://www.airdriesavingsbank.net//
HandandShrimp says:
I have attended events in the Mitchell library – it holds about 420, so working on the basis that cybernats have blagged tickets that will leave about 35 seats for the Better Together staff
Are you sure there will THAT many seats left for the Bitter crowd HaS? 😆
O/T Chaps and chappeses.
I’ve just received my ‘Blether with Ruth’ invite, hand delivered. By whom, I don’t know.
I’ll need to enclose my Independence leaflets I’ve composed when I send it back.
Good to see this was the subject of Scotland Tonight (second half) – both sides of the argument given a fair hearing.
Shouldn’t several hundred people turn up demanding entrance to the “public” meeting