The arc of recovery
We’re thrilled to welcome to the blog the YesScotland campaign’s estimable post-graduate European law expert Stephen Noon, with some intriguing stats.
The International Monetary Fund has just published its latest statistics for the relative wealth per head of different countries. And, for Iceland, Ireland, Norway and the UK, they paint a fascinating picture.
The figures are based on “purchasing power parity”, which allows us to make a fair comparison between the different countries, and they show that Norway, Ireland and Iceland are all wealthier per head than the UK. Indeed, at no point in the financial crisis did any of the countries dip below the UK in this IMF wealth league table.
If we take a look at 2010, when the full impact of the crisis was being felt, the wealth per head for each country, in current international dollars, was:
Norway $52,165
Ireland $39,492
Iceland $36,535
UK $35,344
The UK was $1,192 behind the ‘poorest’ of the three, Iceland, at this point. If we fast-forward to the current year, 2012, the IMF estimates are:
Norway $54,479
Ireland $40,443
Iceland $39,083
UK $36,605
This year, the average UK citizen is now forecast by the IMF to be $2,478 poorer than his equivalent in ‘insolvent’ Iceland. And putting the IMF’s crystal ball to full use, let’s take a look at referendum year, 2014. What will be the relative strengths of the four nations by then? Won’t being a powerhouse big country have propelled the United Kingdom above lowly Iceland at least?
Norway $57,217
Ireland $44,283
Iceland $41,647
UK $38,935
It seems not. In 2014, the UK won’t even reach the level of GDP per capita that Iceland enjoyed in 2012. The wealth gap between the two countries will have increased, once again, to $2,712 per person.
Similarly, for Ireland, 2010 saw the Irish $4,148 ahead of the UK in wealth per head, and according to the IMF that Irish advantage will increase to $5,348 in 2014.
And finally, Norway’s $16,821 advantage per person in 2010 is forecast to become $18,727 by 2012 – in other words, just short of 50% wealthier than the UK.
It’s not quite what you’d expect from listening to the rhetoric of the anti-independence parties. Perhaps they should actually go to Iceland, or Ireland or Norway – small, independent nations which, it seems, now form an arc of faster recovery.
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A version of this post appeared previously on SNmr.
And it would be very interesting to compare the average spending power of the bottom 95%, given that the UK is a much more unequal society than any of the others.
It is good to highlight these figures again as as recently as Friday, on the BBC’s ‘Brians big debate’ – the one with the BBC technical issues – Tory types were sighting Iceland is still being used as example of the type of basket case economy that Scotland would become compared to the UK under the present Right wing Tory Govenment under the leadership of Guideon Osborne and David Cameron.
The fact of the matter is under Cameron’s PR guidance, this is only part of the big lie to aid and abet better confidence in the abilities of the Torys on the UK/World stage of their Neoliberal cuts agenda.
Cameron’s reshuffle at the start of the week has firmed up a stronger Right Wing Government, as Cameron sets to put in place the fighting force against Labour at the next election.
Andrew
You beat me to it. The UK has one of the most unequal distribution of wealth in the developed World and that “purchasing power parity” measurement is artificially high, based on a small percentage of the population getting fat bonuses for shuffling international IOUs around the Globe, buying them back and declaring a profit
Ireland is easily as unequal and features crap health service. It also has s depression level youth unemployment rate and is exporting people again, including to the UK. Also taxes and austerity measures are more severe than the UK and have now lasted something like 5 years,
All for independence for anywhere and fully believe Ireland will recover eventually (biggest problem is the euro) but this is a dangerous argument.
Maybe a better comparison would be how the bottom 5% are fairing in each country?
Basically, this is the figures behind what we all already have realised. The the UK is a giant political parasite, sucking the blood out of it’s people, benefitting only the few.
I’m sure the YES campaign could do a real number on this kind of detailed analysis, and then present it in opposition to the “Better Together” narrative; it isn’t that hard to sketch out the kind of thing required in a publicity campaign:
Lets look at who exactly is going to benefit from being “Better Together”? Hint, it’s not not the large % of Scottish children living in poverty, not the people on benefits or the disabled who will suffer from the effects of cuts and austerity, or the people losing their jobs as a result of the Coalition’s failed economic policies.
Who will benefit from being “Better Together”? Im sure we all know who, and it won’t be hard to show how the usual culprits will be doing quite nicely thank you very much, not to point out that the newly refurbished further right cabinet signals what we can expect more of if the Tories win the next GE. We now have a climate change denier as Environment Secretary, a Health Secretary who apparently believes in homeopathy, a Justice minister who supported the right of bigots to deny services to homosexuals.
Better Together? I don’t think so!
Foo: You are correct, unfortunately the Republic of Ireland got caught up in the easy money/credit frenzy of that era along with many other countries. Lessons learned and hope that a more prudent fiscal policy will result in an end to the present situation. I have a genuine belief in that an Independent Scottish Government will not allow itself to be sucked into a debt based monetary system. I’ll also would bet that the people of the ROI are still very happy to be an Independent Nation.
Of course you can select statistics to give whatever message you want and economic data is notorious for cherry-picking.
For instance if you compared the change in this metric from 2009 (instead of 2010), to the 2014 forecast, the UK would be best performing of the 4 countries listed.
Willy Zwigerland
Nice try but just stick to measured values and not projections.
Projections are just guesses, try asking the B of E how accurate theirs are?
Your assertion could be defined as a jam tomorrow one, from the mouth of Osborne?
The original analysis stands
It’s Mr Noon who uses projections in the article to make his point! I was just showing how the answer you gets depends on the period of data you look at. I agree that the forecasts are of limited value.
O/T.
Remember that news article about Mandelson, Osbourne and Rothschild ‘holidaying’ in the Med?
I’m sure that photo would help the better together campaign.
I’ve just done a comparison on the IMF site for their “Advanced Countries” category. This list contains 34 countries across the world. Here are the 20 countries BELOW the U.K (based on the 2012 figures) in no particular order.
Spain, Slovenia, Slovak Republic, Portugal, New Zealand, Malta, Korea, Japan (just., by about 500,000), Italy, Israel, Greece, France, Estonia, Czech Republic, Cyprus.
Britain lies at number 19 in the list of 34. Here now are the countries ABOVE the U.K, again based on the 2012 figures and in no particular order.
Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Hong Kong, Iceland, Ireland, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Norway, Singapore, Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan, U.S.
Just looking at the countries ABOVE the U.K. that are in Europe one interesting little fact seems to jump out. You can travel from Ireland to Switzerland in a clockwise tour of European countries and EVERY one is ABOVE the U.K. , in fact they encircle the U.K.i.e.
Ireland > Iceland > Norway > Sweden > Finland > Denmark > Germany > Netherlands > Belgium > Luxembourg > Austria > Switzerland.
Is this REALLY what the Bitter together crowd mean by saying we’re better together?
We’re better off being the “poor man” of Europe?
Willie Zwigerland
That growth in the UK was built on increased debt showing as wealth unless you believe increasing your credit card balance as growth. UK debt is 6-9 times its income that is bankruptcy in anyone’s books.
Whilst forecasts are only forecasts due to the number of variables. Iceland is clearly not the financial basket case that the UK Government Ministers and others claim.
The fact that they claim that Scotland would surely be a basket case had it been Independent back in 2008 when the crises hit as a reason to stay in the ‘Union’ does not stand up to any level of scrutiny given actual events.
Iceland was very badly hit with the amount of cheep loans that it’s banking sector were involved in.
There are lessons for us all in what has been in the past. Westminster it seems do not wish to learn from the problems of the past, preferring instead to minimise any possible regulation and responsibility within the Golden Square Mile of London.
As Levinson continues, a libor scandal broke and the Americans look towards fining the London banks embroiled in the scandal. This story is far from over.
link to icenews.is
Iceland, it would seem has bounced back to a position since 2008 that no projections that I am aware of see the UK being in a similar situation any time in the next eight years.
Oh look, it’s the “GDP fallacy” yet again.
I did my own little comparison.
According to these figures, Luxemburgers are more than twice as “wealthy” as their neighbours in Belgium, France and even Germany.
I mean it’s obviously true, isn’t it? As you cross the border into Luxembourg the road surface changes from tarmac to gold, you are surrounded by herds of Mercs and Maseratis, everyone lives in at least three big houses – oh hang on, no they don’t.
Is it possible that there’s actually something a bit misleading about using GDP to indicate “wealth”, which shows up at its most extreme in cases like Luxembourg?
And is it possible that that particular flaw would also show up in the case of Scotland?
Why yes, it would and it does.
sm753. Try it, it feels good.
I’ve got a lovely bunch of coconuts, …….
sm753
You are confusing GDP of a Nation with personal wealth within a Nation. The two are completely seperate.
Indeed, what we see happening in the UK is those at the bottom paying a higher price than those at the top. This stagnates growth of the masses as they struggle to pay basic bills as prices rise. Something that has been ongoing in the UK since Blair was in Government.
I often wonder if some folk with a degree in economics spent most of their time at uni in the pub.
It’s simple. Give folk some extra money in their pockets, and they will spend it if they feel good.
Tell them we are all fucked, create fear and uncertainty, and they will hoard it.
Maybe some folk want the economy to collapse? Who would that benefit?
@adrian B
“You are confusing GDP of a Nation with personal wealth within a Nation. The two are completely seperate.”
Oh no I’m not. That is exactly what the author of the original post is doing: “The International Monetary Fund has just published its latest statistics for the relative wealth per head of different countries.”
No it hasn’t, it’s published stats for GDP per head. GDP is often used as an indicator of “wealth”, but it has flaws, and sometimes it breaks down. Luxembourg is one of the most extreme cases (Singapore is another) but the flaws also show up for Scotland.
Hence “Hapless” Swinney is correct to claim that an “independent” Scotland would have a higher GDP per head than the UK. But nobody would be any wealthier. Care to explain why, or will I have to do it?
@ sm753
The trouble with your approach is that the UK as a society fails on so many levels, that even were your point in this instance true (which given your general abilities has to be open to doubt), analysis after analysis shows that the UK performs consistently badly; you only have to look at the evidence in the many areas detailed in book The Spirit Level to see how badly the UK performs across a slew of social and economic indicators. The evidence is overwhelming, and cannot be dismissed on the basis of it being for one particular are; it is too consistent – the figures speak for themselves.
Of course it is hardly surprising that devotees of the dependency parties are becoming increasingly strident and hysterical the more the redundancy of their so-called arguments in favour of the union are exposed to be. Many of them will lose access to the deeply repugnant, corrupt and archaic Westminster system on which they depend for advancement, honours, expenses and sinecures for being the useful idiots of the British establishment. Turkeys don’t vote for Christmas, so they are hardly likely to welcome the demise of the union. No scare story is too extreme, no exaggeration too ridiculous for them not to trot it out to bolster their arguments.
If it isn’t the possibility of the UK bombing Scottish airports, it’s predicting Big Eck leading a dictatorship and seeing cannibalism in the streets as the economy collapses. If it weren’t so puerile it would be funny; thankfully the last laugh is likely to be with the supporters of independence. With 2 years to go, there is everything to play for. Those predicting that the current polls cannot be turned around have short memories given the way the polls looked prior to the SNP victory in Holyrood in 2010.
With 16 & 17 year olds being given the vote, and the probability of a higher turnout particularly amongst the working class vote (both groups also being more pro-independence than others), and 2 years of negativity and failure to come up with a positive case for the Union, the likelihood of further bad news for the economy, and an increasingly assertive Tory party, any impartial observer can see that a YEs result is eminently possible.
Of course, even if the result happens to be NO in 2014, the unionists will swiftly be hoist on their own petard when they fail abjectly to put forward, still less deliver, workable plans for further devolution.
Unionist “bitter einders” would be better advised to start preparing the ground for how they will interact with, and positively contribute to, an independent state rather than practising the atavistic ancestral cringes which served them so well in the service of their Westminster master!
@sm753
“No it hasn’t, it’s published stats for GDP per head. GDP is often used as an indicator of “wealth”, but it has flaws, and sometimes it breaks down. Luxembourg is one of the most extreme cases (Singapore is another) but the flaws also show up for Scotland.”
Nobody is arguing it is the be all and end all, but even someone as blinkered as you has to admit it is A measurement. As others have pointed out, there are others, and whilst everyone knows that there are lies, damn lies and statistics, this is only one measurement.
I have a fair bit of experience of a number of the smaller countries Scotland is commonly compared with, and without exception would say their general population is wealthier, and that their societies are more egalitarian, less socially divided, less class ridden than is the case for the UK and/or Scotland. As a people we can’t do much to change the UK as a whole when the English don’t want to chafe…. we CAN however do something to change Scotland.
@sm753
“No it hasn’t, etc.”
Nobody is arguing it is the be all and end all, but even someone as blinkered as you has to admit it is A measurement. As others have pointed out, there are others, and whilst everyone knows that there are lies, damn lies and statistics, this is only one measurement.
I have a fair bit of experience of a number of the smaller countries Scotland is commonly compared with, and without exception would say their general population is wealthier, and that their societies are more egalitarian, less socially divided, less class ridden than is the case for the UK and/or Scotland. As a people we can’t do much to change the UK as a whole when the English don’t want to chafe…. we CAN however do something to change Scotland.
sm753
“No it hasn’t, it’s published stats for GDP per head. GDP is often used as an indicator of “wealth”, but it has flaws, and sometimes it breaks down. Luxembourg is one of the most extreme cases (Singapore is another) but the flaws also show up for Scotland.”
Actually there are flaws in every version of measurement of GDP, there are far to many variables to arrive at a 100% correct figure for each nation. Just as there are flaws in the way government calculate unemployment figures. However these are the types of calculations that are used as the basis of much of our day to day lives.
One thing is not in doubt and that is how the UK is faring against other economies. I provided news links earlier on how well Iceland has fared in there position relative to their position when the Icelandic banks went tits up. Iceland took a very different path to most of the world and let their banks go. A brave one no doubt, but having endured that early pain, Iceland now looks to be in an enviable position as do many other countries around Europe.
The position to date in the UK is that borrowing has continued upwards, while TAX receipts are in decline. As the Government began it’s cuts program in the Police and armed forces. Changes in welfare to the poor and disabled and the continuing ongoing banking revelations will the Bank of England pours billions into quantative easing. Banks and business have decided that the best way to deal with the uncertainty is to hoard cash as more cuts are coming. That hoarding stops money from circulating within the economy which is further damaging the wider economy.
The wrong people are in charge making all the wrong decisions.
“No it hasn’t, it’s published stats for GDP per head. GDP is often used as an indicator of “wealth”, but it has flaws, and sometimes it breaks down. Luxembourg is one of the most extreme cases (Singapore is another) but the flaws also show up for Scotland.”
So what are you saying sm?
The IMF is a basket case for using GDP figures?
No one should use GDP figures for ANYTHING?
What should we use INSTEAD of GDP figures?
Doesn’t YOUR goody goody two shoes in Westminster keep using AND quoting GDP figures?
Is it the case that only people in WESTMINSTER are permitted to use GDP figures in their argument?
How would YOU carry out a comparison between different countries sm?
No one has EVER made a claim, as far as I know, that GDP figures are PERFECT. However, there has to be some sort of economic measurement available that can be used which will allow economists to compare independent countries against one another. Until a BETTER system comes along, if at all, then surely GDP figures is not a bad measurement to use.
sm753 ‘Hence “Hapless” Swinney’
Aye, I’ve seen Swinney re-folding towels and he’s completely shit at it. Not a patch on Osborne at all.
Oh very well.
Simply put, GDP measures “economic activity happening in a country”. It doesn’t measure “economic activity belonging to the citizens of a country” – that’s GNP, and is a bit harder to measure.
Most of the time there is little difference between the two as activity happening in country A, but owned by foreigners, is more or less balanced out by activity owned by citizens of country A but happening abroad.
But not always.
Luxembourg is effectively Europe’s offshore banking haven. Lots of financial transactions happen in Luxembourg. (E.g. most of Fidelity’s funds are now officially Luxembourg based.) But the actual concrete businesses and “wealth” behind those transactions are in France, Germany, Belgium and so on. A big chunk of the GDP ascribed to Luxembourg actually represents business and “wealth” spread out across Europe. So while Luxembourg is a nice, prosperous, well-off place, it’s nonsense to imagine that the average Luxemburger is more than twice as “wealthy” as the average German.
Relevance to Scotland? North Sea GDP happens in Scotland but is mostly foreign-owned. (BP, Shell, ExxonMobil, Total, Eni, Apache, etc etc). So if Scotland became “independent”, all that GDP would push us up the GDP table, but nobody would become any “wealthier” because the North Sea economic activity would still be owned by the same people.
The government wouldn’t be any better off either, because all this is covered by the now Swinney-approved GERS analysis and it shows that an “independent” Scotland with 90-whatever % of North Sea revenue would have broadly the same fiscal balance as now. You can argue a billion here or there, but it doesn’t amount to much. (One of the few benefits of the Nats in power is that it’s stopped them honking on about the alleged “hidden billions”. They’ve seen the figures now, they know they don’t exist.)
Anyway, that’s the “GDP fallacy” for you.
I have a feeling in my waters that Osborne hasn’t a clue about economics beyond a theoretical dogma which he lays down to the Treasury wonks and he gets back to his other pastimes and leisure pursuits.
He is a kind of semi detatched Chancellor of The Exchequer.
Maybe a bungalow Chancellor would a more appropriate metaphor.
Arbroath1320.
Economists are well aware of the limitations of GDP. The problem comes when politicians and bloggers try to shoehorn them into some spurious political argument.
As sm753 says making a comparison of the absolute values in this case doesn’t really tell us anything interesting (other than countries with smaller populations tend to perform better on this measure than large ones) and most economists understand this.
Now what could be interesting is looking at how the relative values in each case change over time. But even this is dangerous because the relative performance depends on what period you choose to look at.
Mr Noon has chosen a particular period, to make a political argument (UK bad, Iceland good). You could look at the exact same data, but over a different period, to support an alternative argument. (Iceland bad, UK good).
In conclusion, the data is the data and distrust anyone who uses it to make spurious political points without at least an armful of caveats.
Aye, the UK, only oil-rich country in the world to not have a national oil company (bar the country it is modelled on, i.e. the USA). Maggie made sure that people in the UK would benefit as little as possible from the UKCS, with profits instead going e.g. to Pierre from France and Bob from idaho.
Basically, the UK government are monumentally stupid when it comes to oil and gas.
Easy enough for an independent Scotland to take a controlling share in all new field developments just as is done in Norway.
And of course it’s not just oil revenues, but the services sector which provides expertise globally (60% or more of my work is for overseas developments, from the middle east to australia). The whole industry provides 25% of UK corporation tax. Of course upon independence, all London HQ’s would transfer to Scotland as that’s where opps are and well, where the oil is.
When will folk wake up!
Gideon was told what to do by his friend Rothschild at Eton!
The real masters of the universe are never spotted in public.
sm753
Basic Gross Domestic Product calculation Formula:
GDP = C + G + I + NX
‘C’ Consumer spending or Private consumption within Nations economy
‘G’ Government spending
‘I ‘ Business capital expenditure
‘NX’ Net exports of nation (includes imports and Exports)
As Scottish Skier has noted Norway has a stake in it’s own oil fields, something currently lacking in ‘sell it off Britain’
The important thing to note that come Independence in Scotland, all TAX revenue will flow through Revenue Scotland rather than HMRC. That means that we have control over all our own revenue once more. We can chose what we want do do with this revenue and I sincerely believe that we will be able to put enough of it aside for a rainy day just as Norway has managed.
@S-S
Oh dear.
“Easy enough for an independent Scotland to take a controlling share in all new field developments just as is done in Norway.”
Oh, the words “just as” crop up again. But the geology of our side of the North Sea is fundamentally different from the Norwegian side, isn’t it? Our side tends to have lots of smallish fields, their side tends to have a few big ones. Which means that the prospect of “an independent Scotland taking a controlling share” is much more likely to deter a company from bothering to develop a smallish field, isn’t it?
“Of course upon independence, all London HQ’s would transfer to Scotland as that’s where opps are and well, where the oil is. ”
This is on a par with “97% of independence referenda give a “yes” result”. Er, can I point out that the “opps” and “oil” are already in Scotland, but the HQs remain in London. Precisely how is “independence” going to change this?
You’d see some movement, I grant you, but the idea of Leatherhead, Sunbury or Shell House “relocating” to Scotland is obviously fatuous. Company HQs need to be close to the City and the banks.
@Adrian B
“I sincerely believe that we will be able to put enough of it aside for a rainy day just as Norway has managed. ”
But GERS shows an “independent” Scotland still inheriting a debt and running a deficit, even with 90-odd% of North Sea revenue.
So “putting some aside” requires cutting spending. What do you propose cutting?
Of course the alternative to the state “putting some aside” is for the state to cut taxes and allow individuals and companies to decide what to do with their money that’s been freed up. What exactly is wrong with that?
Did you get beatan as a child at public school sm?
” You’d see some movement, I grant you, but the idea of Leatherhead, Sunbury or Shell House “relocating” to Scotland is obviously fatuous. Company HQs need to be close to the City and the banks. “
I can just see it now. All those convoys of trucks as they travel up the M6 carry all those houses, businesses, banks, schools etc from Leatherhead and Sunbury to a place somewhere in Scotland. Only trouble is they’d need to leave their town signs behind. I don’t see Leatherhead and Sunbury going down too well in Scotland. 😆
sm753
“Of course the alternative to the state “putting some aside” is for the state to cut taxes and allow individuals and companies to decide what to do with their money that’s been freed up. What exactly is wrong with that?”
Is that why the UK has a 1.3 Trillion and rising deficit (figure apparently doesn’t include the pensions black hole). Is that why in times of plenty Labour created PFI contracts to slow down their spending. What about the aircraft carrier contracts that cost more to get out of, than to go ahead with? How about the redundant nuclear subs sitting at Rosyth and Portsmouth – 30 years old now some of them and the MOD doesn’t know how to deal with them?
The state has only cut income TAX. It has massively boasted indirect TAX however in order to cover this shortfall. Putting everything out to private companies only reduces costs if public services are badly run. Maybe we should try this with Westminster as it seems to absolutely haemorrhage cash at an unbelievable rate. Come to think of it the MOD also needs a rank and file clearout.
Sm753. But the geology of our side of the North Sea is fundamentally different from the Norwegian side, isn’t it?
I am a geologist/geochemist, currently a production chemist focussing on gas hydrates.
I can confirm that norway has special rocks unique only to Norway. In fact, they have little norwegian flags on them if you examine them closely with a hand lens. The transition between norwegian rocks and scottish rocks happens right at the maritime border. In fact this was used to delinate the border. Norwegian rocks are bursting with oil and gas, Scottish rocks are dry as a bone. The whole oil industry in scotland is a myth and that myth has just 10 years left.
Of course oil companies locate their HQs for specific regions in countries which have no oil. How stupid of me. In fact, you don’t have to have a registered office at all in the country you are producing oil in. You can just nip in, grab the stuff and run.
Sunbury is going nowhere, but look out for BP Scotland, Shell Scotland….. In any event, most of the new, smaller operators are not tied to London.
Personally, I’d be happy to be a good few grand a year worse off in an independent Scotland than live in an elective dictatorship where all the main parties are right-wing authoritarian and elevate themselves to the aristocracy when they’re no longer electable.
Oops. Sorry folks, it looks like the Independence referendum is OFF.
Apparently Scotland will inherit a debt and run a deficit. I guess Scotland must be the ONLY successful country in the world that will be in this position so better just call the whole Independence malarkey thingy off, what do you say folks?
I see sm you are suggesting that cutting taxes is the way ahead. Hmm, let me see now.
VAT UP
Fuel Duty UP
Both taxes that affect everyone, but something that the Bullingdon Boys Club seem to forget, or ignore even, is that these two taxes alone have a FAR greater effect on the spending power of the lower and middle income classes than ANYTHING else.
Of course I can not forget THE tax that has been cut Income tax, for the RICH! Yep, I can certainly see THAT having a GREAT positive effect on the overall spending in the U.K.
@s_s
“Aye, the UK, only oil-rich country in the world to not have a national oil company (bar the country it is modelled on, i.e. the USA). Maggie made sure that people in the UK would benefit as little as possible from the UKCS”
Er, the UK actually has something like 1.5 “national” oil companies – BP and Shell. And as I recall, it was the Blessed Margaret’s government which privatised BP. If you want exposure to an oil company’s revenues and profits, buy some bloody shares in it yourself. Don’t leave it to some civil servant or politician to do it for you, faff about and squander most of the returns.
@s_s
“I can confirm that norway has special rocks unique only to Norway.”
Well you can “confirm” that all you like, but it’s not what I said. You’re just running away from “confirming” that the eastern side of the North Sea basin is geologically rather different from the western side. Which makes claims that we can do things “just like” Norway specious.
BP and (Royal Dutch) Shell are plcs owned by shareholders from all over the world who enjoy the profits from UKCS.
National means nationalised wholly or partly, for example:
Saudi Aramco (Saudi Arabia)
Statoil (Norway)
Petrobras (Brazil)
Petronas (Malaysia)
DONG (Denmark)
KPC (Kuwait)
PEMEX (Mexico)
PDVSA (Venezuala)
To name but a few….
This means the country makes all or a share of the profits, rather than people across the world.
Ah the Blessed Margaret
Hallowed be her name
She walketh on water
Blessed be her name
Ah the Blessed Margaret
Hallowed be her name
She stealeth our oil
Blessed be her name
Ah the Blessed Margaret
Hallowed be her name
She closeth our industries
Blessed be her name
Ah the Blessed Margaret
Hallowed be her name
She closeth our coal mines
Blessed be her name
Ah the Blessed Margaret
Hallowed be her name
She giveth us the Poll Tax
Blessed be her name
“I don’t see Leatherhead and Sunbury going down too well in Scotland. ”
I was referring, of course, to the major Exxon and BP HQs located in those places.
@s_s
“BP and (Royal Dutch) Shell are plcs owned by shareholders from all over the world who enjoy the profits from UKCS.”
I think you’ll find that the bulk of BP shares are ultimately owned by UK citizens via their pension funds. Similarly for Shell, although only to a ~50% extent due to the Dutch angle (which is why I said “1.5”). I know that my portfolio has big chunks of both in it.
Are you seriously trying to claim that your list of NOCs represent good value for the citizens of those countries? Statoil and DONG, maybe. All the rest are just featherbedded havens for overpaid mediocrities. And what about the corruption?
A yes, Tories and privatisation.
Mrs Smith, would you like to buy some shares in this company we are selling?
Of course they don’t mention to Mrs Smith she’s buying something she already owns.
I should be a Tory target. Double degree educated middle class professional who’s set up a company with colleagues in addition to my full-time academic job. Worked my ass off and have never claimed benefits in my cream puff. However, Tory ideology turns my stomach.
Welcome to the UK, one of the most right-wing authoritarian (dictatorial) countries in the devoloped world.
link to politicalcompass.org
@ scottish_skier 6:57
LOL.. you bet me to it; what is this guy on? It obviously slipped his notice that many of the fields cross the national boundaries…. not of course that he seems to know anything much about oil… or indeed nothing else.
Apparently he’s already proven (to his own satisfaction of course) that Scotland is too wee and too poor and too stupid to defend itself, or provide for its own security. I wonder how those Norwegians and Danes manage it…. someone told me (oh, ok it was on Wikipedia, so it MUST be true) that the Danes even manage to build their own warships…. I mean, you can hardly credit that a country with no history of shipbuilding would be able to mange that… so obviously Scotland will be defenceless won’t it….?
… oh wait….
Bloody hell, I just added a comment to my immediately previous post comparing our chum SM 753 to Iain Davidson. And I am accused of spam? Are the words Ian Davidson spam or what the heck is going on?
Is SM 753, or whatever current identity he claims, not a bit of a fanboy for Mr Davidson?
I think the folks of Auchtermuchty demand to know. 🙂
@sm753 7:09pm
Your claim is specious. Many fields straddle the Norway/UK division line, and whether the fields which are wholly within either sector are geologically different is irrelevant to the point.
Their geological basis tells us nothing about whether a scottish government could act in the same way in policy terms as the Norwegian government. The gas fields in the southern North Sea (in what would be the English sector) are no doubt pretty distinct too… so your point is what exactly?
Ah yes, thought so…. you don’t actually have one. Thanks for that.
@s_s
“Mrs Smith, would you like to buy some shares in this company we are selling?
Of course they don’t mention to Mrs Smith she’s buying something she already owns.”
Oh she (we) owned it, but due to incompetent / featherbedded / unionised state management, we never saw the benefit of it. Been there, done that – was at CEGB as it transitioned to private ownership, got rid of thousands of drones and the lights never flickered.
I will make the point again, because it needs to be said.
Statoil has it’s headquarters in Norway:
link to statoil.com
According to the Bible according to SM753 that can’t be the case. Oil has to be beside money and money is only available within the square mile.
How come Statoil is based in Norway?
@sm753 7:19pm
Aren’t you committing a category error just like you complained about in relation to the referendum question on another thread?
It is vanishingly unlikely (except of course in the minds of unionist carpet biters like yourself, Ian smart, Davidson and the like) that Scotoil would be akin to the nationalised companies in places like Saudi and Venezuela…. it would be like Statoil and DONG.
I’ve worked for major US oil companies, and been involved with many smaller oil exploration and services companies; they will be falling over themselves to locate in Scotland and invest here when they realise Scotland will be gaining independence. They are hardly likely to trumpet the fact now, but post 2014 there will be little point cosying up to the Tories in westminster when in future the decisions affecting their livelihoods, the allocation of new blocs and licenses etc will be emanating from Edinburgh, not London.
Is nobody listening?
When answering sm, all you need to say is, ‘i’ve got a lovely bunch of coconuts’.:-)
@sm753 7:34
“Oh she (we) owned it, but due to incompetent / featherbedded / unionised state management, we never saw the benefit of it. ”
Nonsense.. we never saw the benefit of the sale either, because rather shares being allocated to every tax payer, they were sold off cheaply to the minority who could afford them in a misguided and doomed attempt to create a share owning democracy, which of course never happened. The minority who could afford to but them usually sold them on quickly, allowing square mile wide boys to make a killing, pension funds to buy them up, and the companies ultimately to fall into foreign hands.
All part of the Thatcherite experiment responsible for getting us into the present mess…. way to go!
@ Galen 10
“Apparently he’s already proven (to his own satisfaction of course) that Scotland is too wee and too poor and too stupid to defend itself”
Where? As far as I know, the words “too wee, too poor, too stupid” are only ever uttered by Nats.
I’m guessing sm753 is a Tory or a New Labour Blairite. Both did a fine job at breaking up Great Britain. Maggies sowed the seeds and nurtured the seedlings, new labour brought them to flower. Quite an achievement to break up a state that has existed for 300 years. Really something. Not many could put that on their CV.
‘But GERS shows an “independent” Scotland still inheriting a debt and running a deficit’
Phew, thank the Lord we currently contribute nothing to debt repayment and have no responsibility for the deficit. What joy it is to be in weightless, carefree, irresponsible Scotland
@galen 10
“pension funds to buy them up”
Ah yes. Pension funds. Which ultimately means “we” own them, doesn’t it?
Cheerio.
Galen 10,
I’d have thought that was the point. SM753 has an enormous capacity for errors of all sorts.
@sm753 7:55
The fact that pension funds now own many of them is an indirect benefit for SOME people, yes… but it is emphatically not the same as the benefits having been allocated equally to every tax payer as they should have been. Plenty of people who contributed to buying such industries in the first place don’t have private pensions or investments.
Also, your weak response takes no account of the fact that most of these companies were sold off on the cheap, whether deliberately, or as a result of incompetence.
Next…..
sm753 thought process at work!
link to 25.media.tumblr.com
Found this on the scottish independence site. Thought it would make a great poster for everyone’s car and home. If not a poster then perhaps we could get bumper stickers like this, We need to get this out there!
link to facebook.com
Thanks to Arthur on Scottish Independence for putting this sign up. 😀
Arbroath 1320,
Link is not working, can you check it to see if it is complete?
sm753
“ I think you’ll find that the bulk of BP shares are ultimately owned by UK citizens via their pension funds.”
BP UK ownership:
32..Institutions
3…Individuals
35.Total (%)
The other 65% is owned by Institutions & Individuals outwith the UK
It worked when I tried it Adrian., however I’ve posted it up again, hope it works for you this time. 😀
http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=159594487497971&set=pb.135402323250521.-2207520000.1347134580&type=1&theater
Getting an internal server error using Chrome, but Safari working fine? Go figure. 😆
ARGH! Internet, who needs it? 😀
Bring back pen and paper! 😆
@sm753 7.48
“Where? As far as I know, the words “too wee, too poor, too stupid” are only ever uttered by Nats.”
The words themselves don’t have to be used for the ancestral cringe of those exhibiting the symptoms to be obvious. On your own blog, you made a none too well thought out attempt to rubbish both SNP policy on NATO, conflating it with one of the usual britnat hobby horses that Scotland would be unable to protect itself:
link to nat-mythbusting.blogspot.co.uk
Don’t try and hide behind the old double bluff that only cybernats use the “too wee, too poor, too stupid” line; by their actions shall ye know them. Your posts, and your pathetic apologia for why we are Better Together elsewhere fairly reek of the sentiment, even if you have the modicum of self awareness not to utter the actual words. Your forelock must be a few feel long from all the tugging by now surely?
“was at CEGB as it transitioned to private ownership, got rid of thousands of drones and the lights never flickered”
And there’s the giant despicable hole at the heart of Thatcherite ideology, right there in all its glib, smug missing of the point, bereft of all humanity. “We privatised this company, sacked thousands of people – sorry, ‘drones’ – and it kept on working!”
Yeah, great. Your company now makes a private profit because the people left worked harder to fill the gaps, because that’s what people – ordinary, decent people – tend to do when money-grubbing cunts slash the workforce for profit. Of course, the cost to those surviving workers in terms of quality of life, and time spent bringing up their families, is disastrous. But fuck ’em, eh? The bottom line is all.
Meanwhile, the state just got landed with the tab for hundreds or thousands of people who are now on the dole, claiming JSA and Housing Benefit and God knows what else. But the millions of pounds that costs doesn’t appear on Company X’s balance sheet, so we just pretend it doesn’t exist.
And of course, THEN we notice that the country’s welfare bill is crippling (because we’ve fired everyone in the previously-public sector), so suddenly we have to save tens of billions from the benefits budget, so we cut payments to the disabled and the sick, and we force people to work for nothing, further reducing the numbers of jobs in the market, because why would a company pay someone six quid an hour when they can get free slave labour from the DWP? That’s just plain bad business.
Yeah, congratulations, your company’s still going. Because the rest of us are paying for it, the people who work for it are sacrificing their family lives to fatten the wallets of directors and shareholders, and the world’s another little bit worse. Go fuck yourself.
You’d almost think that SM753 didn’t want Scotland to benefit from its natural resources.
Seasick Dave,
SM753, assuming he is Scottish. is cringeworthy. On an almost universal scale. It is, apparently, worthwhile, to deny or obfuscate the independence of others to hang on in there with his unionist mates.
I have always enjoyed Stephen Noons’ take on independence. What is, frankly undeniable, is that Iceland got it right about the bankers. Even the IMF admits that. See here:
link to businessweek.com
Which rather jiggers up the square mile consensus about how to run an economy. Which rather jiggers up the Eton consensus that runs our, GB ra ra ra, country.
It ain’t rocket science to make idiots suffer for their mistakes. What does GB do? It listens to these freaks. It has them in for lunch and tea. Just because they went to the same school and live in the same, or better, areas of Hampstead as the politicians that currently run the show. It is a convenient mafia of toffs that run our country into the ground. SM753 is, frankly, a Stockholm syndrome freak, along with almost every other unionist waster.
To buy into the Eton syndrome is to be dead from the neck up. It is what killed Gordon Brown and it is what is killing his successors and ultimately chums, in the Conservative and Unionist Party.
Iceland got it right about bankers. They are crooks and should be dealt with in that way. The UK pretends that they are too important to fail. Our good chum sm753 is on one side of the fence, I am on the other.
Me?
I’d sequester them….
Stephen Noon is stating an obvious point. How we deal with GNP per capita is an issue for a post independence government. It would be nigh impossible to make such a mess of it as Westminster currently does…..
OT
“Scottish independence can be defeated with a Saltire in one hand and a Union Flag in the other, NI Assembly First Minister Peter Robinson has claimed.”
link to bbc.co.uk
Can of worms indeed.
Continued,
It is amazing, is it not, that we protect bankers?
I have been ‘hit’ with a £25 charge just yesterday for being, apparently, overdrawn. This is despite a statement that shows no such overdrawness.
Such is the joy of having a bank account.
It would be a happy situation if these freaks had to explain themselves. Apparently the minor crimes outweigh the major, they have their ‘brains’ working on that. Y’know, the minor stuff, not the real stuff. It would be beyond amazing for that to matter,
My pathetic overdrawness, if it is it true, results in penalties that are beyond reason. Banks are bastards…….
And completely misdirected……
clochoderic,
It is not a can of worms. Get a grip. That is a unionist politician being a unionist politician,
Thay are a bit brain dead….
This is what the prick had to say:
“I feel about this passionately and those of us who believe in the strength of the UK as a joined-up entity should make it our business to challenge the flawed logic which suggests that the peoples who inhabit its constituent parts would be better apart.”
He said it was his “sincerest hope” that the Scottish referendum would be used as an opportunity “to expound the significance and worth of the Union and evaluate how the Union can be improved to ensure its survival”.
“If we get that right, then I hope it will be at least a further 100 years before we have another challenge to the integrity of the Kingdom,” he added.”
Quite what that idiot has to say is irrelevant and daft, I quite hope we tell him, and his cohorts to gtf. For they are apologists for bankers and Cameron and the power of Eton, That is the obscure mafia they apprently love.
His sincest hope is to love the union.
Well, he hasn’t woke up yet. What a prick!
@ Mr Campbell
Actually, the former state-owned electricity industry discovered that it was employing tens of thousands of people serving no useful purpose at all. And it managed to get rid of them without any compulsory redundancies – many were at an age where early retirement was an option, for the rest there were generous severance offers.
This is what state-owned organisations do – over time they accumulate generously paid useless mouths. My wife and I are now back in the state sector and are seeing it again – for every local authority and NHS HQ, there is a long list of overpaid heid yins who simply do not need to be there. This is one of the great things about Gove’s Free Schools programme – they are going to demonstrate that it is perfectly possible for schools to work and deliver great results outwith the control of council education departments. Oh hang on, so what are council education departments for then?
@Galen 10
If you can’t understand the difference between “smaller, poorer” and “too wee, too poor” then you are indeed “too stupid”.
The important thing to remember is that the Tories are utterly defeated in Scotland; they present no real threat anymore. At best they can drum up just 15% odd of the vote and even that continues to decline. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again.
Scotland will never accept to be governed by a Tory majority in Westminster.
The Scottish Government know it and so do the Tories. The Tories will of course still push to win a majority in the next UKGE; the loss of Scotland’s revenues is a price worth paying for the loss of Scots MPs, so long as a deal on defense, particularly with respect to the nukes (time to move them somewhere else) can be struck with the Scottish government. That and of course a sensible fiscal pact with respect to currency union. The last think the UK needs right now is further economic instability after all, particularly with respect to currency.
It will all be being discussed behind closed doors. It would be monumentally stupid of No. 10 if it was not.
After all, the Tories are in effect the English equivalent of the SNP (socio-economic stances may be different, but both are civic national parties) and they share a common enemy – the labour party. The enemy of my enemy is my friend.
I expect that we’ll see Labour becoming increasingly deranged in Scotland, the Scottish Tories too. Both are out of the loop and powerless to stop what is going on.
I like that this concept has been picked out by rabid unionists as ridiculous. Means it has struck a chord.
sm753,
What have you got to say about Bangladesh?
You are a bit sleekit about stuff. You just career from one post to another. Without answering any points raised.
Incidentally, your piss poor comment here:
“If you can’t understand the difference between “smaller, poorer” and “too wee, too poor” then you are indeed “too stupid”.”
Is. perhaps, as ignorant as you go.
We can understand the difference, it is, perhaps a thrawn unionist like you that cannot. You are perfectly capable of telling it as the lie it is. That is what you do, after all….
I noticed not too many Norn Ireland catholics keen to compete at the paralympics under the Union flag. 4 gold medals to Ireland from Enniskillen and Belfast and not a union jack in sight.
Had they been “british” then 4 more gold medals to the tally….
Did any catholics compete under the union jack in TeamGB or did they all compete for Ireland and sing the Irish anthem if and when they won? Hard to sing God save the Queen at full voice with the history of Ireland I would imagine.
Commercial interests notwithstanding of course.
Maybe Scots will have the choice to compete for the remnants of TeamGB (and NI?) or Scotland in future. I know what I would choose but each to his own.
@sm753 8.54am
What does that actually mean? As usual, just more un-contextualised mind burping on your part.
You have already amply demonstrated here and on your own blog that you have swallowed the “too wee, too poor, too stupid” meme whole; you simply lack the courage of your convictions as you know how negative it looks.
“Smaller, poorer” differs from “too wee. too poor” how exactly? You haven’t demonstrated that smaller = poorer, and if it was true, presumably unionists would be clamouring for an ever closer Union with Europe? No? Thought not.
Unionists know they can’t trot out the old lies that an independent Scotland will be an economic basket case; people simply don’t buy it any more, particularly given the economic mess presided over by the Tories and New Labour. Why else would you have a procession of Unionist politicians admitting (however grudgingly) that of course whilst Scotland could survive perfectly well on its own, we are still Better Together?
They can’t “prove” their future history any more than the SNP can “prove” theirs, or the poor benighted LD’s can prove they will make an electoral recovery. The difference now is that more and more people in Scotland are convinced that since the status quo isn’t an option, and devo-max is dead, they are minded to vote YES in 2014.
You obviously don’t like being tarred with the brush of being in the ranks of those spouting the “too wee, too poor, too stupid” line, but if the cap fits…..
redcliffe62,
Oh, do fuck off with your petty Northern Irish Catholic pish. It is like argueing with SM753,.
It has nothing to do with us!
We don’t care about your problems:
Maybe Scots will have the choice to compete for the remnants of TeamGb or Scotland in future. I know what I would choose but each to his own.
No. You apparently don’t.
You appear to think that a Catholic Irish identity trumps a Scottish National identity. Or maybe you think it is the same thing.
Well, fuck that for a game of sodjers. I am neither Irish, nor Roman Catholic, I am in fact I am an atheist. And a Scot. And an SNP member.
It seems to me that idiots want to reduce the independence referenda to stupid. I am not interested in being on one side or the other, I am intersted in winning .I am not at all willing to go along with Catholic pish. We need to persuade everyone of our case.
You, redcliffe, sir, are not helping……
Everybody’s arguing about GDP per capita and GNP, but the whole point of Noon’s (and the IMF’s) findings is that these figures are adjusted for PPP – purchasing power parity. That means the individual spending power of the average citizen! They clearly show that people in Ireland, Iceland, and of course Norway generally have more spending power than people in the UK – ie. they are better off. That’s the story here. Full stop.
SM753 must wonder how BP were able to extract oil from the Gulf of Mexico and pay taxes on it to the US government while having the word British in their name. It doesn’t matter where an oil company is incorporated or headquartered, or what it’s called, it matters who they pays taxes to. NSO and gas revenues improved the UK’s balance of trade by £35 billion last year, which is more than Scotland recieves through the Barnett formula, and this money should be going to a Treasury in Scotland.
As Gavin McCrone said recently to the Lords Committee on the Economic Impacts of Scottish Independence, Scotland’s GDP “goes up by around 20% if you put north sea oil into it.” That would transform this country, and I want to see that transformation take place.
Here it is, from a former long-time economic advisor to the UK government: link to youtube.com
.
@BBB
“As Gavin McCrone said recently to the Lords Committee on the Economic Impacts of Scottish Independence, Scotland’s GDP “goes up by around 20% if you put north sea oil into it.” That would transform this country,”
No it wouldn’t. If you’d bothered to read what I wrote, it would indeed make a big difference to the figures for “GDP”, but it would not make one jot of a difference to actual “wealth”.
Unless of course you really do believe that Luxemburgers are twice as wealthy as Germans…
Oops!
Looks like Gavin McCrone is an idiot.
Gavin McCrone knows NOTHING!
We should ALL stop listening to Gavin McCrone and stop believing ALL the lies and deceit that he portrays.
Gavin McCrons is wrong, he is no expert, sm753 is the expert!
@ sm753:
“No it wouldn’t. If you’d bothered to read what I wrote, it would indeed make a big difference to the figures for “GDP”, but it would not make one jot of a difference to actual “wealth”.”
.
Scotland’s GDP per annum at the moment is £144 billion. The Scottish government could potentially be in receipt of a 20% increase on that figure. Since Barnett monies would cease to flow if independence occurs I suppose we would probably only be about £10 billion a year better off in the end, as a nation. How could that fail to improve the general standard of living here?
.
We’ve been running a modest budget surplus the last five years. Add ten billion to that and we’d be doing very well indeed by modern standards, whereby everybody is constantly in deficit and indebted to everyone else.
.
Certainly our borrowing costs would be low, allowing us to invest in capital projects to future-proof the country.
.
I don’t know if Luxembourgers are twice as wealthy as Germans, but I would like to see a comparison of their average incomes when [i]adjusted for purchasing power parity[/i] like the ones above.
sm753 – serious question, what measure should one use for ‘wealth’ if not GDP (per capita) adjusted for PPP?
Perhaps we should be using Pennies from heaven perhaps Major. 😀
Tax revenue flowing into the national treasury to be spent on investment and social programmes somehow doesn’t improve anything. All that extra money isn’t even spent. It magically disappears because Scotland became independant! Just because!
We’re runnning a surplus, BillyBigBaws? The SNP are probably doing it deliberately too!!! How dare they! 😮
@BBW
“Scotland’s GDP per annum at the moment is £144 billion. The Scottish government could potentially be in receipt of a 20% increase on that figure.”
No, it wouldn’t. Go do yourself a favour and read that GERS report which is now personally endorsed by your nice Mr “Hapless” Swinney.
At best, leaving out capex and ignoring all the increased costs of duplicating current UK functions, “Hapless” can only find himself a billion or so. So I think we can safely state that an “independent” Scotland would be —>at best<— roughly as “wealthy” as it is now.
Don’t just believe me, go look it up.
“At best, leaving out capex and ignoring all the increased costs of duplicating current UK functions, “Hapless” can only find himself a billion or so.”
By all means make your economic arguments. But the last person who insisted on repeatedly using a juvenile derogatory nickname for someone instead of conversing like a grown-up didn’t last long here.
@MB
“sm753 – serious question, what measure should one use for ‘wealth’ if not GDP (per capita) adjusted for PPP?”
Try GNI at PPP.
Knocks Luxembourg down from the ludicrous GDP of $80k to a GNI of $63k, has UK GNI slightly ahead of Ireland’s, which is what you’d expect given recent events.
Available on the World Bank website, amongst other places.
sm753
I think we can safely state that an “independent” Scotland would be —>at best<— roughly as “wealthy” as it is now.
Great. Well that’s that settled.
Cheers,
SS
sm repeatedly and deliberately ignores the obvious fact that Scotland would have control over how the money is spent too. Including any extra billions that are rustled up post-Yes result. That GDP or budget can be used in various ways. Not spending it on foreign wars and nukes is a good start. Simply barking out GDP repeatedly, pretending it will all be the same “at best” and ignoring the reality of the various ways a budget can be managed is either deeply dishonest or terribly confused. Couple that with policies to manage the economy and improve society’s lot and you’ve got far more potential than the narrow minded view that sm is showing in this thread.
Thanks sm753 – I had a look at the 2011 GNI per capita adjusted for PPP (on Wiki, the World Bank site crashed my browser for some reason) and yes, by that measure the UK appears to be performing better than Ireland and Iceland:
21th UK 36,970 (Intl. USD)
24th Ireland 33,310
27th Iceland 31,640
Not being an economist I can’t argue the toss either way as to whether GDP or GNI is the more representative measure of economic activity/wealth/the deficit and/or national debt/future well-being, etc. However, there was one thing that I did note, and that was the countries that were ahead of the UK in terms of GNI, but similar in size and resourses to Scotland:
4th Norway 58,090
13th Sweden 42,350
14th Denmark 42,330
16th Germany 40,170 (I know, not similar to Scotland – just included for info.)
19th Finland 36,910
I believe that Norway is so far ahead because it has something that is clearly an asset to them but would only be a liability and burden to us hapless Scots…
Oil take a gamble at that Major. 😆
O.K. folks we have dear friend sm boasting all the time about how GREAT the union is.
Well how about THIS for the GREAT country we live in.
The empire is dead, thank goodness. However, the down side of the dead Empire is that a great deal of Empire history will NEVER be told. Why? Well reading this might answer that question.
Do we REALLY want to be part of a union that carried out such despicable acts and NOW is burning and hiding the evidence.
link to oxfordstudent.com
@sm753 9.56am
“At best, leaving out capex and ignoring all the increased costs of duplicating current UK functions, “Hapless” can only find himself a billion or so. So I think we can safely state that an “independent” Scotland would be —>at best<— roughly as “wealthy” as it is now.”
This is “at best” unconvincing, and more likely just bollocks!
What is your actual evidence for this? Of course, you have none, any more than you have for your other fanciful claims. The supposed “costs” of duplicating current UK functions will of course be offset by savings in many other areas; one of these, as already discussed relates to defence, where there is the potential for either large savings, or for spending the same amount as we do now, but coming up with a far more balanced and coherent defence stance than the hopeless UK has managed. Any serious defence commentator could only laugh at the last “Strategic” Defence Review.
The killer blow of course, is your admission which is increasingly common for Unionist supporters in the face of overwhelming evidence, that “at worst” the economic consequneces of independence will be neutral, because it is overwhelmingly likely that any “opportunity costs” incurred as a result of seperating currently shared functions, will be more than offset by a combination of savings in other areas (i.e. “cost avoidance” for things we can do more cheaply.efficiently, or don’t need to do at all) and the fact that we will be able to allocate ALL spending and tax revenues as we see fit.
The nightmare scenario for Unionists (which they will never state openly as a reason of course) is that Sottish independence will make their job much harder, because it will make rumpUK poorer; the “Better Together” misty eyed appeals to our shared culture, history etc are actually far less important a motivator than their need to keep Scotland within the Union, because Scotland (irrespective of oil revenues) subsidises the rest of the UK. Without us, they only have London and the SE providing a surplus, and they know quite well their creaking political system won’t be able to cope.
@ Appleby: “sm repeatedly and deliberately ignores the obvious fact that Scotland would have control over how the money is spent too. Including any extra billions that are rustled up post-Yes result.”
.
Another thing that we’ve all been ignoring is this:- Barnett money, at least the significant part of it that is paid out in public sector wages every year, gets taxed, and this tax goes straight back to the UK Treasury. A significant fraction of our Barnett payment goes straight back to Whitehall. So if we would currently be only a bit better off by foregoing Barnett money in favour of fully controlling our own revenue, then imagine how much better off we will be again by keeping hold of our own public sector income taxes, our own VAT, our own criminal and traffic fines, etc.
.
Basically, imagine how much better off we would be if we weren’t paying taxes twice on the Barnett money, which comes out of our own taxation in the first place.
.
It really is a very clever system they have created, but it does Scotland no good at all.
“Basically, imagine how much better off we would be if we weren’t paying taxes twice on the Barnett money”
This is baloney. GERS demonstrates that government spending in Scotland is higher than revenues even if you include 90-ish% of oil. So it doesn’t matter whether the revenue goes via Edinburgh or London on its way to being spent.
Unless you are proposing that in “independent” Scotland, public servants would pay no tax?
sm753. GERS demonstrates that government spending in Scotland is higher than revenues even if you include 90-ish% of oil.
If that’s the case – i.e. that Scotland’s economy is so weak within the union that it can’t support itself – then surely something is very wrong with the union?
I thought the pro-union argument was that Scotland did well economically as part of the UK?
If Scotland is not doing well as part of the UK, with major economic powers not being used properly by Westminster, seems to me we should give it a go ourselves?
If you could demonstrate that Scotland was prospering as part of the union, that would clearly be a big reason to stay.