An Independent Scotland?

Steep said:
I simply pointed out some inconsistencies and or manipulations in the document which show that the author is being disingenuous. How can you expect me propose solutions to problems which either don't exist or are not as stated?
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It was you who raised the question of solutions.

But, assuming that the author actually is wrong then by definition you must know what the correct position is?

So, is there a deficit? How big? How would we reduce it and continue to increase spending?
 
dod said:
It was you who raised the question of solutions.

But, assuming that the author actually is wrong then by definition you must know what the correct position is?

So, is there a deficit? How big? How would we reduce it and continue to increase spending?
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Dod the entire UK is in deficit, we're in debt to the tune of £1.5 trillion and getting deeper, I repeat I did nothing except point out what I saw as flaws in the guy's argument. He has an agenda and wrote the article in such a way as to promote that agenda, I'm not saying other people don't have agendas too mind you.

If you want specific economic answers I suggest you go ask a actual economist (or six since I think you'll get different answers from each). I can only say what I've said all along, I don't care what the figures show, they can be manipulated to say just about anything you want to hear but when it comes down to it the fundamental truth for me is that Scotland is better off going it alone because we have a vested interest in getting it right that Westminster doesn't have as far as Scotland is concerned.
 
Looking at the UKs national debt just now, this is aimed at those who think that UK is ok, the UKs national debt is 90% of GDP, we're currently 13th worst in the world, behind most European countries and even Zimbabwe (60%). Take a look at the Nordic countries, do you wonder why Scotland would want to model itself on them?

Pretty picture - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_o...debt#mediaviewer/File:Government_debt_gdp.jpg

The data - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_public_debt
 
jakeblu said:
Seems I get to live longer if Scotland goes independent might not be a bad idea after all :)

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-28192293

Joking aside it's an interesting article
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Well it's interesting but it's a classic example of why letting journalists have access to statistics is about as good an idea as letting children have access to guns.

I mean, for example:
"So an already busy island would suddenly become much more crowded, statistically at least."
Err... No it wouldn't, not in a statistical sense, and not in any other kind of sense either.
 
My Son had a chat with Gordon Brown yesterday in Kirkcaldy at the opening of the "Say No to Independence" office. He's now festooned the outside of his house with Say No banners. He has now decided he wants to get into politics :-)
 
Steep said:
Looking at the UKs national debt just now, this is aimed at those who think that UK is ok, the UKs national debt is 90% of GDP, we're currently 13th worst in the world, behind most European countries and even Zimbabwe (60%).
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That's a bit simplistic and I'm not sure it's terribly meaningful.

One reason the UK's national debt is higher than that of Zimbabwe, indeed higher than that of most countries, is that people are willing to lend money to the UK government but aren't willing to lend it to Zimbabwe. And the reason for that is they trust the UK government to pay them back. Doesn't sound so bad to me.

The actual level of public debt isn't very important. What is important is the ability to pay the interest which is owed, and the UK has the best track record in the whole world on that score.
 
Blank_Canvas said:
My Son had a chat with Gordon Brown yesterday in Kirkcaldy at the opening of the "Say No to Independence" office. He's now festooned the outside of his house with Say No banners. He has now decided he wants to get into politics :)
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I've never met a politician face to face I didn't like, selling themselves is what they do and GB has been doing it a long time. It's good that your son is enthused about politics but tell him to go have a career first and then get into politics, not to make a career of politics.
 
StewartR said:
That's a bit simplistic and I'm not sure it's terribly meaningful.

One reason the UK's national debt is higher than that of Zimbabwe, indeed higher than that of most countries, is that people are willing to lend money to the UK government but aren't willing to lend it to Zimbabwe. And the reason for that is they trust the UK government to pay them back. Doesn't sound so bad to me.

The actual level of public debt isn't very important. What is important is the ability to pay the interest which is owed, and the UK has the best track record in the whole world on that score.
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Zimbabwe was a shock horror inclusion. Of the Nordic countries only Denmark has any national debt at all and Norway is further into the black than the UK is in the red. Surely that would be a better position to be in? after all no matter how big or small the debt, at some point it has to be paid back and UK is borrowing more.
 
Steep said:
I've never met a politician face to face I didn't like, selling themselves is what they do and GB has been doing it a long time. It's good that your son is enthused about politics but tell him to go have a career first and then get into politics, not to make a career of politics.
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Thank you. He is actually been accepted into the Royal Navy and has a start date for basic training early next year.
 
Got the Air Force sorted, these were spotted at Sunderland air show, Norwegian Vampire T55s

View attachment 16543
 
Steep said:
Of the Nordic countries only Denmark has any national debt at all and Norway is further into the black than the UK is in the red. Surely that would be a better position to be in?
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Not necessarily. So long as you can afford the repayments, debt is generally a very cheap way of financing your spending requirements. Companies which don't have much debt are generally under-performing, and the same is true of countries.
Steep said:
after all no matter how big or small the debt, at some point it has to be paid back
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No it doesn't.
 
How many no campaigners does it take to change a light bulb?

It can't be done.
There are just too many unanswered questions about how we would reach the ceiling, what chair we would stand on,
what currency we would use to buy the replacement bulb, how investors would react to the upheaval,
whether we'd still be in the EU and how we could protect ourselves against possible attacks from outer space.
Trying to change a light bulb is a one way ticket to a deeply uncertain future.
Let's not risk our children's future on the altar of a utopian dream of a working bulb.
We can have the best of both worlds by enjoying the strength and security of sitting in a dark room and being allowed
our own candle stub to share between us.
 
That's exactly what I mean about the Yes campaign. Trying to ridicule perfectly valid questions because you don't have a sensible answer is patronising and quite frankly, bloody annoying.

Anyway, you ask the wrong question and as a result get a flawed answer. There's nothing in the question to suggest the light bulb is faulty but you want to change it anyway without providing the evidence.
 
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dod said:
That's exactly what I mean about the Yes campaign. Trying to ridicule perfectly valid questions because you don't have a sensible answer is patronising and quite frankly, bloody annoying.

Anyway, you ask the wrong question and as a result get a flawed answer. There's nothing in the question to suggest the light bulb is faulty but you want to change it anyway without providing the evidence.
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On a lighter note :p It's planned maintenance... it might be faulty and fail a year next Tuesday. :)
Sorry dod, couldn't resist it.
 
When your screw fit bulb blows and all you have are bayonet fit bulbs, will forcing it in anyway actually help?

Who would have thought light bulbs could be so versatile. :D
 
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bindex said:
On a lighter note :p It's planned maintenance... it might be faulty and fail a year next Tuesday. :)
.
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Planned maintenance is fine. You would however replace it with the same or something to a higher specification. You wouldn't install something that came in a white box with no description or performance guarantees
 
Good lord, all this fuss over a light bulb!

Dod, I wasn't ridiculing any questions but the no campaigners constant parroting of their buzz words in reply to any question. They've identified what they think is a good hook, preying on the fear of the electorate, any time you hear a unionist politician you'll the same words repeated over and over - doubt, uncertainty... The question is irrelevent, it could be will the sun shine in an independent Scotland? the answer would be the same "oh well there's doubt!, nobody can say for sure"
 
Here's Danny Alexander interviewed in the Herald, link to the article is at the bottom but basically he's admitting that his £2.7 billion start up costs claim was a fairy tale, remember that he went on national tv knowing that he was lying! This for those guys who argued that he was right earlier in the thread.

"It is brave of him to mention start-up costs.

When the Treasury claimed the bill could be £2.7 billion, the LSE's Prof Patrick Dunleavy claimed his work had been "badly misrepresented" by the Treasury to produce an exaggerated figure.

Does Alexander accept that, in the words of his own Permanent Secretary, Sir Nicholas Macpherson, the £2.7bn was "misbriefed"?

"Well, em, it was purely illustrative," he says. "It was clearly, em, eh, it's been taken and perhaps was briefed to mean much more than it actually did. It's for Nick Macpherson to account for what has happened there. He's said what he's said and I don't dissent from it."


www.heraldscotland.com/politics/referendum-news/in-the-hot-seat-chief-secretary-to-the-treasury-danny-alexander.24865127
 
Steep said:
Here's Danny Alexander interviewed in the Herald...
www.heraldscotland.com/politics/referendum-news/in-the-hot-seat-chief-secretary-to-the-treasury-danny-alexander.24865127
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Unfortunately your quote got cut off and your post didn't include Alexander's next sentence. I'm sure that was an accidental oversight, so in the interests of balance here it is:

"But actually I think that episode flushed out something incredibly important in this debate, which is the Nationalists don't know how much it would cost every Scot to set up a new state, and secondly that the Nationalists don't question the rest of our calculations for how much Scotland benefits [by £1400 a head] from being part of the UK."
 
The interview that I read was reposted and that section went like this

"Well, em, it was purely illustrative," he says. "It was clearly, em, eh, it's been taken and perhaps was briefed to mean much more than it actually did. It's for Nick Macpherson to account for what has happened there. He's said what he's said and I don't dissent from it."

Then that PR training kicks in again.

"But actually I think that episode flushed out something incredibly important in this debate, which is the Nationalists don't know how much it would cost every Scot to set up a new state, and secondly that the Nationalists don't question the rest of our calculations for how much Scotland benefits [by £1400 a head] from being part of the UK." Nice pivot."

I don't subscribe to the Herald so I wasn't able to see if the extra bits were comments from my source or part of the original article. However the last section you posted isn't relevant to my point except to show that he couldn't simply say 'sorry' he had to find some point to score to take the spotlight off himself. I'm not saying others wouldn't do the same but my concern here is his admission that he lied to us all.
 
Steep said:
I'm not saying others wouldn't do the same but my concern here is his admission that he lied to us all.
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I don't subscribe to the Herald either but could see the whole article quite clearly. Where does it say he lied? All I can see, or find, is that the figures were extrapolated wrongly and he was given the wrong information to work with. I suppose it just depends on whether or not the spin on any topic agrees with your point of view or not, not that the Yes camp would ever spin anything to suit their agenda :rolleyes:

http://archive.today/qIBIF seems fairly balanced to me

Your whole reply reminded me of this actually.

View attachment 17041
 
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Dod you can only click through to Herald articles three times in a month, after that a pop up blocks them.

When Danny Alexander stood in front of journalists to expose the 'true' cost of Scottish independence he didn't say £2.7 billion he said Scottish independence would cost the Scots £1.5 billion. He was originally meant to say 2.7 but Patrick Dunleavy had objected to the 'very crude misrepresentation' of his work before the press conference so DA's? advisors went hunting for some other figure to use. They chose the £1.5 billion from a 10? year old Canadian report on the cost of setting up an independent Quebec and that figure itself was immediately debunked by the person who wrote that report! At the time DA didn't say anything about his figures being guesswork, he was quite unequivocal.

The Sunday Post article you link to is in some ways the perfect example of spin interlaced with many of the unionist 'doubtwords' that have become commonplace. Twice in the article they quote Sir Nicholas Macpherson saying “The Treasury had “misbriefed” one key statistic” Misbriefed?? that's a classic politicians get out for we F'd up big time. You can decide for yourself if he/they made a mistake or simply fulfilled the brief to make Scottish independence look as unnatractive as possible but got caught out. They make a point of saying “Sir Nicholas was at the heart of the deal to bail out the banks in 2008“ Does anyone not remember back then? The banks lost hundreds of millions of pounds each of 'our' money and this guy gave them hundreds of millions of pounds more to make up their losses.

“But Sir Nicholas Macpherson also issued a warning about the dangers of a currency union, claiming any collapse could mean “you don’t want to be holding Scottish bank notes the day after” OK but if he also says “that If there’s a Yes vote, Scotland will still be a prosperous economy.” what are the chances of that actually happening?

There's no answer to the yellow poster thing except to say I have absolutely no idea what you mean by it.
 
Steep said:
Dod you can only click through to Herald articles three times in a month, after that a pop up blocks them.

When Danny Alexander stood in front of journalists to expose the 'true' cost of Scottish independence he didn't say £2.7 billion he said Scottish independence would cost the Scots £1.5 billion. He was originally meant to say 2.7 but Patrick Dunleavy had objected to the 'very crude misrepresentation' of his work before the press conference so DA's? advisors went hunting for some other figure to use. They chose the £1.5 billion from a 10? year old Canadian report on the cost of setting up an independent Quebec and that figure itself was immediately debunked by the person who wrote that report! At the time DA didn't say anything about his figures being guesswork, he was quite unequivocal.

The Sunday Post article you link to is in some ways the perfect example of spin interlaced with many of the unionist 'doubtwords' that have become commonplace. Twice in the article they quote Sir Nicholas Macpherson saying “The Treasury had “misbriefed” one key statistic” Misbriefed?? that's a classic politicians get out for we F'd up big time. You can decide for yourself if he/they made a mistake or simply fulfilled the brief to make Scottish independence look as unnatractive as possible but got caught out. They make a point of saying “Sir Nicholas was at the heart of the deal to bail out the banks in 2008“ Does anyone not remember back then? The banks lost hundreds of millions of pounds each of 'our' money and this guy gave them hundreds of millions of pounds more to make up their losses.

“But Sir Nicholas Macpherson also issued a warning about the dangers of a currency union, claiming any collapse could mean “you don’t want to be holding Scottish bank notes the day after” OK but if he also says “that If there’s a Yes vote, Scotland will still be a prosperous economy.” what are the chances of that actually happening?

There's no answer to the yellow poster thing except to say I have absolutely no idea what you mean by it.
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So then, how much do you think it will cost?
 
Steep said:
Dod you can only click through to Herald articles three times in a month, after that a pop up blocks them.

When Danny Alexander stood in front of journalists to expose the 'true' cost of Scottish independence he didn't say £2.7 billion he said Scottish independence would cost the Scots £1.5 billion. He was originally meant to say 2.7 but Patrick Dunleavy had objected to the 'very crude misrepresentation' of his work before the press conference so DA's? advisors went hunting for some other figure to use. They chose the £1.5 billion from a 10? year old Canadian report on the cost of setting up an independent Quebec and that figure itself was immediately debunked by the person who wrote that report! At the time DA didn't say anything about his figures being guesswork, he was quite unequivocal.

The Sunday Post article you link to is in some ways the perfect example of spin interlaced with many of the unionist 'doubtwords' that have become commonplace. Twice in the article they quote Sir Nicholas Macpherson saying “The Treasury had “misbriefed” one key statistic” Misbriefed?? that's a classic politicians get out for we F'd up big time. You can decide for yourself if he/they made a mistake or simply fulfilled the brief to make Scottish independence look as unnatractive as possible but got caught out. They make a point of saying “Sir Nicholas was at the heart of the deal to bail out the banks in 2008“ Does anyone not remember back then? The banks lost hundreds of millions of pounds each of 'our' money and this guy gave them hundreds of millions of pounds more to make up their losses.

“But Sir Nicholas Macpherson also issued a warning about the dangers of a currency union, claiming any collapse could mean “you don’t want to be holding Scottish bank notes the day after” OK but if he also says “that If there’s a Yes vote, Scotland will still be a prosperous economy.” what are the chances of that actually happening?

There's no answer to the yellow poster thing except to say I have absolutely no idea what you mean by it.
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it still doesn't prove he lied and it's still better than anything you're offering. I think I read that Salmond doesn't intend to release the estimated costs of independence until after the vote. That just looks like he's got something to hide. He's a liability to the No campaign and I'm still getting no encouragement to vote that way.

"What are the chances of that actually happening?" 50:50? I don't know any more than you do but, given that you can't or won't guarantee anything, why should I blindly believe your opinion?
 
Dave1 said:
So then, how much do you think it will cost?
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Patrick Dunleavy did a report for the Scottish gov (i think) saying 250million start up costs with more over the next 10-15 years, much of which would have to be spent replacing existing infrastructure anyway. His report is available online if you want to check it.
 
dod said:
it still doesn't prove he lied and it's still better than anything you're offering. I think I read that Salmond doesn't intend to release the estimated costs of independence until after the vote. That just looks like he's got something to hide. He's a liability to the No campaign and I'm still getting no encouragement to vote that way.

"What are the chances of that actually happening?" 50:50? I don't know any more than you do but, given that you can't or won't guarantee anything, why should I blindly believe your opinion?
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See my reply above, PD's estimates have been accepted by the Scottish government as reasonable, you won't get any more accurate figures than that until negotiations commence.
 
Everything you wanted to know about Scottish Independence but were afraid to ask, or in some cases have asked repeatedly...

I've posted before about Sir Tom Hunter's foundation's attempts to get honest answers to the important questions. They've published a book (free to download) which goes through the process from start to finish giving opinions from each side and independent analysis. Questions on start up costs, defence, social, business, pensions. international relations, Europe.

It's a good, honest read and completely non partisan.

scotlandseptember18.com/ follow the link to the latest news item.
 
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Interesting news on the oil front today, I've been reading that the Clair field west of Shetland has turned out to be three times bigger than previously thought, making it the biggest oil field in the world!
 
Steep said:
Interesting news on the oil front today, I've been reading that the Clair field west of Shetland has turned out to be three times bigger than previously thought, making it the biggest oil field in the world!
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No more fuel duty it is then?
 
Steep said:
Interesting news on the oil front today, I've been reading that the Clair field west of Shetland has turned out to be three times bigger than previously thought, making it the biggest oil field in the world!
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Great news, so if/when everything is divided up fairly, we'll all be better off :-D
 
Steep said:
Interesting news on the oil front today, I've been reading that the Clair field west of Shetland has turned out to be three times bigger than previously thought, making it the biggest oil field in the world!
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I don't like to be a party pooper, but how does 5 billion barrels of oil (of which <20% is expected to be recoverable) make it larger than the Ghawar field in Saudi Arabia which has about 70-100 billion barrels of existing reserves?

According to this list in Wikipedia it's about the 58th largest oil field in the world.
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_oil_fields
 
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Don`t mention Siberia.......................shhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh
 
Steep said:
Stewart, poop all you want :) As it stands There's no official info on the find at all, an article here says 'rumours'
newsnetscotland.com/index.php/scottish-news/9535-rumours-of-massive-oil-find-follow-camerons-secret-shetland-visit
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That's pretty thin:
An unnamed worker believed to be from the rig in question is said to have revealed that the amount of recoverable oil exceeds initial estimates and that the Clair could in fact be one of the biggest in the world.
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Right. So that's a bit of second-hand hearsay from an unknown and anonymous source. It sounds like "a bloke down the pub".

If it hadn't been published in such a prestigious and politically independent newspaper, it would sound like a real conspiracy theory. You know, there's fabulous wealth there but the UK government is keeping it secret to prevent the Scots voting for independence. But since it was published in..... oh, never mind.
 
I made and make no claims as to it's accuracy, time will tell on that.
 
Steep said:
I made and make no claims as to it's accuracy, time will tell on that.
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Oh come on. You originally said that the field "has turned out to be the largest in the world". That's not what the source said, but you exaggerated it and reported it as fact.
 
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