Scottish politics in numbers
Posted on
October 25, 2017 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
Percentage of A&E patients in Scotland in 2017 to date seen within four hours (target 95%), described by Labour MSP Colin Smyth as a “deeply troubling” figure: 94%
Percentage of the vote on which Mr Smyth was elected as an MSP in 2016: 8.9%
Good on her Shona Robson giving Brewer a tanking and not letting him away with his arrogant style
Go get them I say to the SNP.
Oops – sorry ronnie – didn’t see your link further up the thread.
Capella says:
29 October, 2017 at 12:08 pm
From Stu’s twitter – Alex Salmond in London shaking hands with pro Catalonia group:
Great first comment under it too, it a fake. Could be, an Salmond impersonator. BBC endlessly report Spain gov says their police violence was fake news too. Or they work a little harder propaganda wise and describe Spanish police violence on the ref polling day as “clashes.” Probably depends on which beeb gimp’s on at the time.
Christine Max? @raumtraum8 10h
Replying to @JordiMiquel @AlexSalmond
What a fake . Incredible . The likes are fake. I could make 10000 accounts if I would like to. Prefer doing other things with my holy life
Should have added that was a very,very anti SNP program today
Dont caw me ah Pedant .
@ Ruby wee correction to your Senyera’s post , there are 3 Catalan flags the Red & yellow striped Senyera then the Senyera with Blue Star & Senyera with White Star , both the stars represent different things which escape my memory at the moment . Hugs
@ Cappella apologies not necessary its better things are double posted than not posted atall atall
Just a few weeks ago the newspapers had stories of how England should be learning from Scotland on how to run a health service, Catalonia has a surge in their Independence campaign and all of a sudden Scotlands health service got worse practically overnight with Nitwits like Brewer on the Telly telling Shona Robison and us that if you strip some money out of the NHS then there’ll be less wont there and all done in the hope that the usual thick Unionists sat at home trimming their knuckles and licking their Sunday Propaganda off their plates will fall for this drivel
Shona Robison was very clear in her intent to Brewer and to anybody watching, Vote Tory and look at the state of England, Vote Labour and look at the state of Wales, both countries a mile behind Scotland on health
The BBC and all Unionists would rather see Scotland wrecked than have the SNP running things which shows the depth of their loyalty to England, and it must be panicking them seriously that NO voters are changing their minds bit by bit as they see what their loyalty to England has brought them with every pre and post referendum promise broken one by one and shown to be LIES and then they see the massive improvements to Scotland on every level by the SNP and all done on pocket change
What we could do with ALL of our own money
This week the gold standard fixed exchange rate zombies will all pile into the £ because they think the BOE is going to hike interest rates.
EUR/GBP Will fall. Depending what the FED does with the US interest rate the day before. The GBP/USD could break through the 1.4 mark again. Where it was just before the Brexit vote.
It’s hilarious ! They are all doing the wrong thing. If the BOE does indeed increase the interest rate it will weaken the £ and fuel inflation higher.
Gold has gone from $1,020 to over $1,350 since the US started hiking in earnest. So, the short-term portfolio shifts based on traders’ beliefs are false.
If what the gold standard, fixed exchange rate experts say is true gold should have fallen from $1,020. They’ve had 4 rate hikes.
If what they say is true the $ index should have flew upwards from 103. They’ve had 4 rate hikes and it dropped to 91.
Within our UK MMT group I made 4 predictions the day after the last US rate hike. The predictions were as follows..
EUR/USD would break through the 1.15 mark from 1.11
GBP/USD would break through the 1.32 mark from 1.27
USD/JPY would fall further to 1.06 from 1.12
Gold would break through the $1300 mark from $1210
I nailed 3 out of 4 and USD/JPY did fall to just above 1.07
You have to put those predictions into context. I made those predictions when everybody was throwing the kitchen sink in the opposite direction. If you tuned into any TV station or picked up any newspaper they all said the exact opposite would happen. In true gold standard, fixed exchange rate fashion.
Inflation in the US bottomed out Dec 2015 when the FED started hiking that was no coincidence. I’m not talking about hyperinflation here far from it but when you raise interest rates the inflation rate will move upwards. The problem of course is they think by raising interest rates they will make it go down and so does the Bank Of England.
https://realmoney.thestreet.com/articles/02/22/2017/rate-hikes-boost-bank-deposits
If we do get our independence and float our own currency and create our own central bank. We need people in place that knows how it works in reality.
I woke up a few days ago and thought they had actually got it right.
Can an interest rate rise halt UK inflation? Experts debate the data
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2017/oct/24/can-interest-rate-rise-halt-uk-inflation-experts-debate-data-brexit-watch
Read the article and realised that they will never get it. Stuck in a fog of group think delusion. These guys have had very important jobs with more letters after their name than a Welsh train station.
None of them recognise the interest income channels.
During the time in which the Fed conducted QE. On aggregate personal interest income did not grow. It went from $1.4T annually in 2008 to just under $1.4T in 2015. The Federal debt went from $11T in 2008 to $19T in 2015. So the debt rose by $8T and there was no increase in personal interest income. People were holding $8T more interest bearing securities yet on aggregate they earned not a penny more.
The Fed was stripping it out. The Fed’s earnings on assets went from about $20 billion annually in 2007 to over $100 billion annually by 2015. That’s interest income that would have gone into the economy, but instead it went to the Fed.
Madness when you think about it. I’m not sure but I am starting to believe that after the crash when they knew the automatic stabilisers were going to kick in and pushed the deficit all the way to 10% of GDP.
QE was actually used to control inflation. Yet, they still to this day call QE a fiscal stimulas.
Crazy !
“Is 94% not a (relatively speaking) significant drop?”
No.
So what damage to Scotland are our currency slave masters within the Bank Of England going to inflict on us this week ?
All else equal.
They are price adjustments, pure and simple. Higher rates equate to higher prices and higher prices mean higher inflation. Inflation is not good for currency. Higher inflation is good for inflation-sensitive stuff like gold and commodities as well as some stocks.
The data since the FED started hiking proves this. Just pick a graph, any graph. The price increases get passed on right across the economy.
Currencies are a bit like bonds, the only difference being they have zero maturity. Everyone seems to understand that when rates go up bond prices go down. It’s an inverse relationship. The discount to par reflects the implied yield and that discount increases as rates go up.
Same with currencies. The spot price of a currency can be considered par. In a rising-rate environment the forward prices of a currency are lower. The market is literally pricing in a lower exchange rate. The degree of discount to par reflects the implied yield. Buy a forward and hold it over time until it converges to spot and you will earn the implied yield.
Gold and commodities exhibit the opposite behavior. They don’t earn. They cost you to hold. There are interest payments and storage costs so the natural “curve” of gold and commodity markets has a positive slope. (Deferred contracts are priced higher than spot.)
In a rising-rate environment, forward contracts for gold are priced higher. That reflects the “cost” of holding, which equals the interest rate plus storage, etc. Prices rise in a rising-rate environment and they fall in a falling rate environment.
Of course this does not reflect short-term portfolio shifts based on traders’ beliefs. Many believe that lower rates are bullish for gold or bearish for a currency and vice-versa. As a result, they act on those beliefs and buy and sell accordingly. However, that’s not the true fundamental effect. That’s why so many people lost money buying gold when they believed rate cuts would be inflationary. Similarly, they wrongly sold the dollar. These mistakes are being repeated now, only in reverse.
The BOE thinks it is fighting inflation when actually it is feeding it via these rate hikes. Any commodity curve will show this in reaction to a rising-rate environment. The curve will instantly reflect higher future costs.
In addition, their policy and statements seem to reflect a lack of understanding of the government being a net payer of interest. They talk about being on guard against further fiscal stimulus when it is the Fed itself that is doing the stimulating. It is paying. That is income added, not removed. While some may find it harder to borrow because of the higher cost of credit, that is offset by the additional income earned by creditors and savers. There is net income received by the economy and that is by no means a brake on economic activity.
If you want to see what happens when they cut interest rates then look at Russia again pick a graph, any graph. inflation rate and the Ruble.
If it is true what they all say is true and that is increasing interest rates fight inflation and make a currency stronger.
Where is the evidence ? The clear evidence is the reverse is true.
Infact, the only time the $ has gained any strength or gold any weakness since Dec 2015 is before rate hikes as the herd on mass do the wrong thing. Herded to be annihilated.
So in the end the real question that should be asked of the corporate media is why have none of their predictions come true. Show us why increasing interest rates stop inflation and strengthen’s a currency. When it’s pretty clear looking at the data they don’t.
Increasing inflation while they think they are fighting it will hurt us all.
A lower £ while the brexit talks are in such a bad way could end up being a disaster for most of us but good for our exporters. They could end up pushing the £ all the way back to below the 1.2 level.
Our only saviour that might keep it around the 1.3 mark in the long run is that the FED are hiking interest rates also and they continue to weaken the $ further.
What a fecking mess, because they still believe and are educated at Oxbridge that we still use a gold standard and fixed exchange rates.
geeo says:
29 October, 2017 at 11:35 am
@breeks..
Worth remembering that the PEOPLE of Scotland are sovereign, rather than the country of Scotland as the sovereign ‘entity’.
Subtle but important.
It’s not me you need to impress Geeo. It’s Michel Barnier, and indeed Donald Tusk, Jean Claude Juncker, and indeed all the leaders, movers and shakers of the International Community. Wouldn’t hurt to put Westminster straight on the matter too…
My point is, that UNTIL we do implement Scottish sovereignty, even if it’s a probationary Sovereignty such as that the EU itself envisaged in the holding pen stasis pending our constitutional emancipation, then on the International stage, the recognised sovereignty of the UK lies with the Westminster Government, and only the Westminster Government.
Scotland, denied such sovereign recognition, will not be an “interlocutor” in any sovereign negotiations, and just like precisely what is happening with the Brexit negotiations, we will be denied the opportunity to speak or negotiate as a nation. We will be kept outside keeking through the keyhole.
There is no point Scotland living in a bubble, snuggling up to our sovereignty like a security blanket. It is the International community who needs to understand and recognise the legitimacy and ascendancy of Scottish sovereignty over UK Parliamentary Sovereignty, because until that revelation occurs and the all important recognition made safe, then we need only look towards the desperate predicament of Catalonia, clutching at its democracy like a life preserver in stormy seas while the International Community does nothing.
There was a hell of a lot of people out there surprised by the USD Gross Domestic Product Price Index number on Friday. Bloomberg, Reuters, all the usual stooges.
We saw it coming months ago 🙂
If the FED hikes next week or in December buy gold hold for a few months and donate your profits to REV.
If the FED keeps hiking gold breaks through the $1,500 mark.
The $ will continue to fall through the floor.
If Trump gets the FED chair he wants. Who is fooking mental and thinks interest rates should be at 6-7%. Then the world’s yer lobster.
Orders seem to have gone out form UK Media Control that henceforth the supporters of Catalan Indpendence should be referred to as Separatists.
Obviously an attempt to blacken them by doing the same as they do to our own independence supporters.
I don’t suppose that there is the slightest chance of Leave supporters ever being referred to as Separatists in our wonderful unbiased media.
@ gus1940
The supporters of Catalan Indpendence should be called what they are. Not very well informed.
They want to keep the Euro. They are as mixed up as Alex was during the currency debate.
Who on earth wants to be part of this!
http://bilbo.economicoutlook.net/blog/?p=37150#more-37150
The Euro is causing all the problems. Spain as a whole should leave the Euro and they’ll be fine. Spain should be asking for their indpendence back.
Nice one boris.
If Britain was ‘One Nation’, I’d expect the UN’s Special Rapporteur on minority issues would have grave concerns over the media Scotland has to endure. I think he would be horrified at London’s stance re. Brexit and Scotland. Mind you, HMG doesn’t appear to care much about universal human rights, whatever flavour of English
nationalistsparliamentarians sit in cabinet.http://www.ohchr.org/EN/Issues/Minorities/SRMinorities/Pages/SRminorityissuesIndex.aspx
Declaration on the Rights of Persons Belonging to National or Ethnic, Religious and Linguistic Minorities
http://www.ohchr.org/Documents/Issues/Minorities/Booklet_Minorities_English.pdf
http://pjp-eu.coe.int/documents/1017981/1667911/2.7.pdf/5a6e8423-45da-4f93-b7bc-514022851a16
When the mainstream Left gets lost down its Europhile hole.
http://bilbo.economicoutlook.net/blog/?p=37159#more-37159
Luv it !!!
” Of course, those who believe it has been the EU that has curtailed conflicts on the Continent conveniently overlook the vast presence of US military bases under the NATO alliance, which above all else, have been a strong deterrent to any military ambitions that Germany might have exercised.
But a supranational organisation such as the EU is well-placed to handle matters that individual Member States cannot easily handle – such as migration, climate change, rule of law – human rights etc.
But none of those issues require any “pooling of sovereignty” in the sense that we use the term sovereignty – the primacy of the currency-issuance capacity.
The problem the Left created is that it took the supranational step too far and surrendered sovereignty when it pushed the Eurozone onto citizens.
In that sense there is no meaning to the term – “pooling of sovereignty”. When the Member States agreed (or were bullied into) to adopt what is essentially a foreign currency they abandoned their sovereignty.
They lost their capacity to run fiscal policy in a way that would advance the well-being of their citizens. They created a democratic void – handing over key economic capacities to unelected and largely unaccountable technocrats in Brussels and Frankfurt.
They then accepted harsh and unworkable fiscal constraints which rendered what policy capacity they retained – under the misused concept of subsidiarity – relatively useless.
That is not an effective ‘pooling’ model. It has been an unmitigated disaster.”
It’s been turned into a neoliberal, bankers sess pit. Who have put in place an economic model that by passes democracy.
@robert peffers
Are you sure about Catalunya ever being an independent nation Robert?
I was under the impression the region had pretty much been under the rule of just about every entity who ever held a modicum of power in Europe. But never an independent power itself. I’ll have another look though.
I stand to be corrected.
@geoo
Eh? I don’t think my primary point was sovereignty or whatever had already been tested in some kind of court. It most certainly has been denied and quite vociferously. By none other than the Sectetary of State for Scotland at Westminster. As you actually agreed, there has been much obfuscated via the likes of Sewell, Scotland act, maritime boundary shifting, ad- infinitum.
Most certainly the final outcome may well be a tested in court and indeed, may well find in our favour and be we’ll be vindicated. If it ever gets to that stage though.
Equally, it may not be proven. The “law” and it’s outcome can be changed at the stroke of a pen.
Or do we forget the legal cases the Westminster government lost in high court and retrospectively changed the law to “win”. Ex-post-facto. Something so heinous, most of the civized world will not allow or recognise it. Not even the USA will allow ex-post-facto laws. Westminster does it on a frequent basis.
My primary point was “who will enforce the law?” Scotland does not have the power to enforce anything without allies to back our position.
Funny, BBC, Guardian, Independent with articles about pro-Union rally in Barcelona, claiming hundreds of thousands, but all photos close up, none of the streets full as far as the eye could see there were with Independence rallies.
McDuff,
“Rock 8.18.
Read my post again and comment on what I said, assuming you are capable of that.”
I have no problem with your 8:21 am post, McDuff.
I was responding (in your favour) to Dave McEwan Hill who had “Disagreed entirely” with you.
I was “disagreeing entirely” with Dave McEwan Hill, not with you.
Robert Peffers,
“@Proud Cybernat says: 28 October, 2017 at 3:26 pm:
“If such a very good test question can be devised, perhaps it might be possible that we could Crowd Fund a petition to the Court of Session / Supreme Court. And hopefully then get this constitutional dog’s breakfast decided once and for all.
Yupffurrit?”
I do not believe I am qualified to do such a thing, Proud Cybernat. It really needs a trained and qualified legal person.”
I knew your “expertise” on all Scottish constitutional matters was as pretendy as your pretendy “sovereignty”.
Maybe you should now start respecting the views of other posters and stop calling them “numpties” simply because they have a different opinion from you.
Rock says:
28 October, 2017 at 8:27 pm
“Yes, Robert Peffers, Yupffurrit?
I can say with 100% confidence that you are not.”
I remeber the days when we spoke of things crawling out from underneath rocks.
Seems that nowadays, around this time of the evening, the converse is true.
O/T.
As there are so much bad vibes on the world stage at the present time, have a wee look on you tube at a guy called James Kirby.
He is coming to Glasgow and Edinburgh at the start of December, this will be his first time in Scotland, my wife and I have seen him many times in Menorca, he is a gem of singer/songwriter.
We are making the journey to Edinburgh from the Highlands(yes he is that good), so any Central Belters please make time,you will see a legend in the making.
@ Gary45
Are you Tony Macaronis mucker? Were we drinking at the last gathering? Eh ken you said you posted on here fae time to time. Eh’ll come, if you think it’s worth the trip 🙂
Is this the guy?
http://www.jameskirbymusic.com/new-page-1/
William Wallace@3.40
Aye that’s the same James, he is well worth a listen, really good live and his albums are brilliant.
I think you’ve got me mixed up with someone else regarding Tony Macaroni.
Had a listen to a few of his tracks. He’s no bad like. Song and music style reminds me a wee bit o Ricky Ross/Deacon Blue.