The Dirty Independence Question

[LJS]

I refer you to Das Kapital, or a million other bits of writing by all of left, centre, and right - which recognises that the poor do not own the means of production.

Ireland.

You know, the place that used to be called a celtic tiger and that Salmond wanted to mirror - including to mirror the collapse of its economy.

Why did its economy collapse? Cos the rich ran away with all of the money because low corp tax let them have that money to run away with.

Hmm, as so often, this is a gross over-simplification of what went wrong in Ireland. There were plenty of other factors as you will be well aware.

[tolywoly]

I spent a few hours last night/today reading comments about Sturgeon's avoidance of the need for cuts in Scotland if Scotland was running on just it's own money - and it's truly astounding just how many Scots are still claiming that oil is "a bonus" to Scotland and not not-enough of an essential asset to support Scottish public spending at it's current level.

It's absolutely incredible how often you now see that 'oil is only a bonus' line being parroted. The level of detachment from reality it demonstrates is terrifying.

You've got a group of people who've convinced themselves that most mainstream media outlets can't be trusted. No harm in a healthy cynicism there. But the flipside should be doing your own research, not uncritically regurgitating whatever you pick up from nationalist sources.

[eFestivals]

Hmm, as so often, this is a gross over-simplification of what went wrong in Ireland. There were plenty of other factors as you will be well aware.

Yep, but ultimately it came down to a badly-wrong call over what was important for an economy.

A badly wrong call much like:-

"Scotland should be a celtic tiger like Ireland and Iceland"

"iScotland would deregulate the banks, because nuLabour's Bank regulation is much too tight"

"the Scotland-based RBS staff wanting to take over ABN AMRO will be fantastic for the future of Scotland"

(yes, they're paraphrased, I can't be bothered to go find the originals which say nothing different)

Of course, all politicians can make wrong calls, but no major UK politican has a history of such big wrong calls on a consistent basis, which would have taken Scotland to disaster.

As Sturgeon recently said, the only thing wrong with the current cuts in Scotland is that they're being stipulated by England.

Bigger Scottish cuts by the Scottish people for the Scottish people would be so much more palatable to the people of Scotland, eh?

Edited January 12, 2015 by eFestivals

[eFestivals]

It's absolutely incredible how often you now see that 'oil is only a bonus' line being parroted. The level of detachment from reality it demonstrates is terrifying.

You've got a group of people who've convinced themselves that most mainstream media outlets can't be trusted. No harm in a healthy cynicism there. But the flipside should be doing your own research, not uncritically regurgitating whatever you pick up from nationalist sources.

It's fair enough if people take a rational decision that certain media outlets can't be trusted, but ultimately those people will be putting their trust in something.

In this case, because they're supporting the case that Salmond put forwards, very logically these people should believe the sources that Salmond is responsible for - like the Scottish Govts' "Government Expenditure and Revenue in Scotland" (GERS).

As has been seen even here, those people won't.

Instead, many will quote the deliberately mis-representing 2011-12 numbers as suggested to them by WoS, as tho that one year's numbers say everything there is to say about the Scottish economy - even tho a set of 2012-13 numbers are already available which paint a terrifyingly different picture.

And then there's the GERS numbers back to 1990, which show that for 17 years out of 24 Scotland has been supported by subsidies from England (with the amount of subsidy much greater over those deficit years than the subsidy to rUK amount within the surplus years).

And those numbers show that Scotland's position is not only very bad (bad enough to require an extra 10% of cuts over what the tories are making), but getting worse year on year as the oil production shrinks and the extraction costs rise.

Those people will tell me i'm wrong, but they'll never tell me where the magic money tree is.

[eFestivals]

You will find the Ebola that the Scottish nurse has is Sierra Leonian(?) although I am sure you would agree that ascribing a nationality to the Ebola Virus is probably not constructive.

I'm very pleased to hear she's starting to recover, and is no longer 'critical'.

All power to the individuals like her who have chosen to put themselves in danger to help others.

[russycarps]

dont worry scotland, mr carney is going to look after you.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/mark-carney/11346331/Mark-Carney-Falling-oil-price-negative-shock-for-Scotland.html#disqus_thread

[eFestivals]

dont worry scotland, mr carney is going to look after you.

I've just the opportunity to flip thru the Sun.

I saw that not only did Salmond get the oil price horrible wrong before the indy ref, he's got it horribly wrong since, and has had to pay out on the bet he'd made that it wouldn't fall below $50.

Scottish judgements for the Scottish people. They're always better, yeah?

[russycarps]

I've just the opportunity to flip thru the Sun.

I saw that not only did Salmond get the oil price horrible wrong before the indy ref, he's got it horribly wrong since, and has had to pay out on the bet he'd made that it wouldn't fall below $50.

Scottish judgements for the Scottish people. They're always better, yeah?

that bet is mentioned in this article. I know it's the Torygraph but I do enjoy reading their stuff about Alex. They absolutely despise him and some things here are quite amusing.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/scotland/11334334/Time-to-burst-Alex-Salmonds-bubble.html

[eFestivals]

you don't need to despise him to recognise he's far FAR less clever than the sheeples claim for him.

[eFestivals]

that bet is mentioned in this article. I know it's the Torygraph but I do enjoy reading their stuff about Alex. They absolutely despise him and some things here are quite amusing.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/scotland/11334334/Time-to-burst-Alex-Salmonds-bubble.html

there's a few bits in there I'd not heard about, that have made me laugh.

I think the potential for more comedy is massive, if he's in Westminster but not leader of the party. I really can't see him agreeing to be Nicola's pawn - and that has the potential to rip the SNP apart.

What i'm wondering tho is when Scotland is going to wake up the fact that there's no one in British politics with such a bad record of making the wrong calls over major issues. He outdoes even Cameron on that score, tho perhaps only because Salmond has been around longer. Then again, anyone in UK politics with Salmond's record wouldn't be likely to have lasted as long as Salmond has.

[Comfy Bean]

dont worry scotland, mr carney is going to look after you.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/mark-carney/11346331/Mark-Carney-Falling-oil-price-negative-shock-for-Scotland.html#disqus_thread

now now Russy as you well know, it`s us he is looking after - US !

I posted before about this being only the 2nd time in history that the oil price has dropped by more than 50% in 6 months. The last time, as we know, we had the crash. Do we think this could be a sign of things to come ?

If it is, then WE will again have to bail out Mr Carney and his chums so fair`s fair

[Comfy Bean]

I've just the opportunity to flip thru the Sun.

I saw that not only did Salmond get the oil price horrible wrong before the indy ref, he's got it horribly wrong since, and has had to pay out on the bet he'd made that it wouldn't fall below $50.

Scottish judgements for the Scottish people. They're always better, yeah?

Your right Neil in that he didn`t see this crash coming but lets just remember that his predictions were not about the price today. Unless of course you already know what the price of a barrel will be next year

In my opinion, Salmond`s prediction will be wrong. I also expect that at some point we will be looking at $100 barrels again.

On a non-indy or party political point, it`s shite that successive govts for 40+ years have pissed the oil money away instead of having some sort of fund in place to mitigate what we are seeing just now.

[eFestivals]

The last time, as we know, we had the crash. Do we think this could be a sign of things to come ?

I'm not aware of that particular "last time we had that we had a crash" fact, but I've read quite a few articles by 'economics correspondents' at places like The Telegraph in the last few weeks which have pointed at a a number of different stats and said "last time we had that we had a crash". Those articles have suggested a crash is imminent, this year.

Are they on the money with that observation and prediction? I've no idea.

But what I do know is that things like crashes need every relevant factor to be in the 'bad' place, rather than just some of them. And it's quite possible that some factors are regularly in the 'bad' place but as the others aren't it means little.

How exceptional are these bad stats? Without knowing we can't judge what they might mean.

One thing I've seen claimed is that the oil price crash is due to 'the rich' withdrawing from the oil markets in advance of the coming crash, but if that's true we're not seeing anything of where they're stashing their wealth instead.

[Comfy Bean]

We had a blether the other week about the possibility that Murphy may or may not have been pandering to the bigots with his vow to scrap the anti bigotry football law. Read this article yesterday that touches on the same sort of thing......

" This is truly pitiful, wretched stuff and augurs not at all well for Mr Murphy having anything like the guts to take on and see off the SNP at the general election.

Let’s get a few things straight, shall we. Unionism in Scotland is an entirely honourable label. Mr Murphy did a great job espousing it last September and if he chooses now to deny it for reasons of some form of feeble political advantage then he diminishes only himself.

He thinks that disowning the word will play well with those in Glasgowand the West Central Belt who appear to think more about the politics of Ulster than of modern-day Scotland. He may be right but he should be aware that the vast majority of Scottish voters care not a jot for those ancient tribal loyalties.

You are a Scottish Unionist Jim. Enjoy it. After all, we won.....

Full article here...... http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/11344083/Jim-Murphy-risks-looking-like-a-loser-by-running-away-from-a-winning-effort.html

[Comfy Bean]

I'm not aware of that particular "last time we had that we had a crash" fact, but I've read quite a few articles by 'economics correspondents' at places like The Telegraph in the last few weeks which have pointed at a a number of different stats and said "last time we had that we had a crash". Those articles have suggested a crash is imminent, this year.

Are they on the money with that observation and prediction? I've no idea.

But what I do know is that things like crashes need every relevant factor to be in the 'bad' place, rather than just some of them. And it's quite possible that some factors are regularly in the 'bad' place but as the others aren't it means little.

How exceptional are these bad stats? Without knowing we can't judge what they might mean.

One thing I've seen claimed is that the oil price crash is due to 'the rich' withdrawing from the oil markets in advance of the coming crash, but if that's true we're not seeing anything of where they're stashing their wealth instead.

Believe it or not, I`m not an expert but I remember reading the bit about the oil price only having lost such a large % ( over 50 ) in a 6 month period once before in history and it was followed by the crash in 2009. The same article was talking about oil junk bonds and how everyone was dumping them. IF.....we have more stock market / bank problems then our debt is going to sink us into a terrible state.

Like before, clearly I`m intending this as a non-indy related comment.

[eFestivals]

Your right Neil in that he didn`t see this crash coming but lets just remember that his predictions were not about the price today. Unless of course you already know what the price of a barrel will be next year

Yep, i'm well aware that Salmond's white paper prediction was $113 or higher as an average across the whole first parliament term.

However, he also claimed that price crashes of this scale weren't possible, so his white paper prediction was based within his bad judgement, and so you wouldn't want to mirror him by accepting his average first parliament prediction.

And, if you've voted 'yes' he'd now be negotiating with rUK - from a severely weaked position, where all economic case for a CU was compromised. Even the willingness of rUK to loan to Scotland to help it onto its feet would be reduced.

And he'd be preparing everything around the first budget, including the borrowings he'd need to make to be ready for iDay ... and where the borrowing options would have mostly dried up, and with higher interest rates, and with much lower loan values .... leading to the night of the longknives for all of Scotland's public services.

Even if the oil prices picked up long before iDay, it would still have been an utter disaster, because how precarious an iScottish position was would be clearly seen.

LJS has recently taken to regularly pointing out that I present my opinions as facts. He once did just that with me saying how precarious Scotland's economy was because of oil price volatility; my opinion is now fact.

At some point, people in Scotland will stop and re-evaluate the different opinions that have been expressed to see which opinions were the more astute. In fact, it's already clearly happening, and sooner or later even the most rabid of nats will catch up.

In my opinion, Salmond`s prediction will be wrong. I also expect that at some point we will be looking at $100 barrels again.

Eventually, yep.

But Saudi are now saying they don't expect the price to go over $100 a barrel in the short or medium term, and there's a reason why: at above $100 a barrel, fracking becomes viable which then undermines Saudi. So for all the while that Saudi is pumping in quantity (or until it's bought up the going-bust-already US fracking interests) the price isn't likely to soar.

On a non-indy or party political point, it`s shite that successive govts for 40+ years have pissed the oil money away instead of having some sort of fund in place to mitigate what we are seeing just now.

Nah.

If we'd have had a fund you'd be complaining about how the people were suffering more than they need to be, because we were putting 'Scottish money' into a fund for the whole UK; that we're putting 'Scottish money' into a fund for tomorrow when people need it today; that there's a big fat fund of 'Scottish money' that could be spent on people that need it today; and that there's a big fat fund of 'Scottish money' propping up those nasty banksters and capitalists.

Norway *needs* a fund, because of oil being such a large part of its economy. Its purpose is not merely to save for tomorrow, it's to stop the massive inflow of money from destroying all other Norwiegn industry.

(and it's worth noting that Norway had/has approx twice as much oil & gas per-head as Scotland).

It's a shame Thatcher pissed the money up the wall with tax cuts for the rich, but i'll remind you that Scotland helped vote her into the position that enabled her to do that and to set the scene for long beyond when enough of Scotland happily went along with it.

[russycarps]

problem is you cant really apply old trends to the current world. Everything is so fucked up and unpredictable using history to predict the future is no longer effective

the only thing we can predict with 100% certainty is that alex salmond will make a tit of himself again within the next 2 weeks.

[eFestivals]

We had a blether the other week about the possibility that Murphy may or may not have been pandering to the bigots with his vow to scrap the anti bigotry football law. Read this article yesterday that touches on the same sort of thing......

" This is truly pitiful, wretched stuff and augurs not at all well for Mr Murphy having anything like the guts to take on and see off the SNP at the general election.

Let’s get a few things straight, shall we. Unionism in Scotland is an entirely honourable label. Mr Murphy did a great job espousing it last September and if he chooses now to deny it for reasons of some form of feeble political advantage then he diminishes only himself.

He thinks that disowning the word will play well with those in Glasgowand the West Central Belt who appear to think more about the politics of Ulster than of modern-day Scotland. He may be right but he should be aware that the vast majority of Scottish voters care not a jot for those ancient tribal loyalties.

You are a Scottish Unionist Jim. Enjoy it. After all, we won.....

Full article here...... http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/11344083/Jim-Murphy-risks-looking-like-a-loser-by-running-away-from-a-winning-effort.html

from the Torygraph I'd take that as election-eering more than anything - them wanting the support for the SNP to continue to benefit the tories.

Having gone thru the close-thing of the indyref to create the divide the tories want in Scotland, they're not going to not want to play it for all its worth, are they?

As I've said more than once: those who have switched to the SNP in the last 5 years have been perfectly played by the tories.

Here's betting that you don't feel yourself to be a tories lackey tho. Am I right?

[Comfy Bean]

Here's betting that you don't feel yourself to be a tories lackey tho. Am I right?

You are always right

I`m quite comfortable with the fact I have never voted Tory. I am surrounded by millions of Scots and at the last GE " we " returned 1 ( one ) Tory MP. We understand what the Tories are about and vote against it. It`s not complicated.........if we wanted to be Tories we would just vote for them.....like people in England do.

Edit

Oh and I disagree with you on the oil fund. Whatever party was in power should have put something concrete in place around % of revenues and what the money could be used for and in what circumstances. As I said, not an indy motivated comment.

I like the way we are now dismissing comment based in what paper it is written in. My reading of it was that the guy was pro-union ( like yourself ) but each to their own.

Edited January 15, 2015 by comfortablynumb1910

[eFestivals]

Oh and I disagree with you on the oil fund.

Oh c'mon, are you really so daft as to think that the SNP could ever admit that Westminster was doing the right thing for Scotland?

Whatever Westminster does, the SNP *HAVE TO* criticise it, otherwise there's no reason for the SNP's existence. How would their campaigns go if they were saying "Scotland needs to be indie to save Scotland from Westminster doing things perfectly"?

If there was a fund, the criticisms would be much as I suggested, I guarantee.

Whatever party was in power should have put something concrete in place around % of revenues and what the money could be used for and in what circumstances. As I said, not an indy motivated comment.

It certainly should have been invested rather than spunked up the wall, but invested doesn't necessarily mean an oil fund. It could be been invested in infrastructure, or invested in new businesses as replacements for the shut-down in the heavy industries, etc, etc. Each idea would need to be looked at to see the good and bad sides of each option.

Unlike Norway, the UK doesn't need a fund to protect other industries from the effects of new wealth; there's a more rational case for a fund for Norway, and for the mainly-(comparity) undeveloped places that most of the oil comes from. For the UK, with a much more diverse economy and the oil/gas money only a small part, there's not the same need of self-protection from the effects of that wealth.

I like the way we are now dismissing comment based in what paper it is written in. My reading of it was that the guy was pro-union ( like yourself ) but each to their own.

Oh, the irony of a nat saying it's wrong to dismiss something because of its source. :lol:

There's fair analysis, and there's purposeful bollocks. The chances of purposeful bollocks increases the nearer we get to a vote. I thought you'd spotted that in Scotland recently?

The torygraph don't like Murphy, because he's Labour and they're tory. They don't want him to gain ground in Scotland, and they also want to use him to try and lose Labour votes in England by playing up the Scottish divide (that for torygraphers is about the same from either of Labour and the SNP). The article works for both of these.

Jim meanwhile is playing to the crowd, as all politicians do. He's tried to give a reason for the much-criticised 'Labour standing with the tories' that he hopes people might swallow so that criticism is then moved on from.

And actually, Jim is right (note: that's not me claiming he's genuine in applying it to himself). That 'social solidarity' idea is my own unionism, and nothing to do with that flag waving bollocks.

Me saying just that was about where LJS came into this thread. The earilest thing I remember posting back to him after him saying which way he'd vote whilst claiming to be from the left was "it's hardly social solidarity" (or something very similar).

What that social solidarity means in very real terms today is that I'm happy to see English money heading north to help you thru the impact of the oil price crisis that Scotland is currently experiencing. I shouldn't be so nasty to you by doing things like that, should I?

[eFestivals]

You are always right

I`m quite comfortable with the fact I have never voted Tory. I am surrounded by millions of Scots and at the last GE " we " returned 1 ( one ) Tory MP. We understand what the Tories are about and vote against it. It`s not complicated.........if we wanted to be Tories we would just vote for them.....like people in England do.

*Some* people in England, much less than half.

Meanwhile, this time you don't have to vote tory to cause Scotland to give itself a tory govt. There's no getting away from that.

No vote is made in isolation of all other votes in a FPTP system. Repent at your leisure if you choose to ignore that.

[tolywoly]

You are always right

I`m quite comfortable with the fact I have never voted Tory. I am surrounded by millions of Scots and at the last GE " we " returned 1 ( one ) Tory MP. We understand what the Tories are about and vote against it. It`s not complicated.........if we wanted to be Tories we would just vote for them.....like people in England do.

Edit

Oh and I disagree with you on the oil fund. Whatever party was in power should have put something concrete in place around % of revenues and what the money could be used for and in what circumstances. As I said, not an indy motivated comment.

I like the way we are now dismissing comment based in what paper it is written in. My reading of it was that the guy was pro-union ( like yourself ) but each to their own.

That single Tory MP is more a quirk of the FFP system than the will of the Scottish people. They mopped up almost as many votes as the Lib Dems and SNP last time round.

It's difficult to imagine an oil fund for the benefit of future generations ever being a viable proposition. It's just not the nature of politics in the UK or Scotland. An oil fund is an attractive idea. But depressingly I think the money would always have been frittered away on political quick wins and short term bribes. Any government attempting it wouldn't last long. A prospective government promising to cash it in to boost NHS spending, pensions or cut tax would be on to a guaranteed winner. The electorate doesn't reward long-termism.

[tolywoly]

*Some* people in England, much less than half.

Meanwhile, this time you don't have to vote tory to cause Scotland to give itself a tory govt. There's no getting away from that.

No vote is made in isolation of all other votes in a FPTP system. Repent at your leisure if you choose to ignore that.

That dividing line somewhere between Carlisle and Gretna has little relevance in a UK general election. Yes supporters in Scottish constituencies can either vote to achieve the best result for the UK as a whole, or they can pursue a petulant desire to punish Labour for disagreeing with them and pretend that the effect beyond Scotland's borders has nothing to do with them.

Whatever happened to 'it's not about the SNP' or 'getting rid of the Tories', I used to hear that so often? A lot of folk seem to have translated their Yes support directly in to support for the SNP, and having another Tory led government doesn't seem to be a problem either, if it means they get their revenge on Labour.

[LJS]

It's fair enough if people take a rational decision that certain media outlets can't be trusted, but ultimately those people will be putting their trust in something.

In this case, because they're supporting the case that Salmond put forwards, very logically these people should believe the sources that Salmond is responsible for - like the Scottish Govts' "Government Expenditure and Revenue in Scotland" (GERS).

As has been seen even here, those people won't.

Instead, many will quote the deliberately mis-representing 2011-12 numbers as suggested to them by WoS, as tho that one year's numbers say everything there is to say about the Scottish economy - even tho a set of 2012-13 numbers are already available which paint a terrifyingly different picture.

And then there's the GERS numbers back to 1990, which show that for 17 years out of 24 Scotland has been supported by subsidies from England (with the amount of subsidy much greater over those deficit years than the subsidy to rUK amount within the surplus years).

And those numbers show that Scotland's position is not only very bad (bad enough to require an extra 10% of cuts over what the tories are making), but getting worse year on year as the oil production shrinks and the extraction costs rise.

Those people will tell me i'm wrong, but they'll never tell me where the magic money tree is.

& you can't prove you are right either other than by quoting some guy from Slovenia & when asked for proof you supply a link to the Scot Gov gers figures which do not actually match the Slovenian version.

the interesting thing about GERS is that it was started by the Tories to show how dependent Scotland was on the rest of the UK. When they found out the figures proved otherwise, they gave up & the Scottish government took over.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Government_Expenditure_and_Revenue_Scotland

& of course when oil price is low it would not be good for an independent Scotland, but it is unlikely to stay low for ever is it?

The problem you have, is that neither Comfy of myself who have been the main pro indy posters on this thread have ever claimed Scotland would be rolling in wealth post-indy and indeed i have quite regularly stated that i believed the yes campaign was over optimistic on the short term financial benefits of independence even when the oil price was higher.

[LJS]

dont worry scotland, mr carney is going to look after you.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/mark-carney/11346331/Mark-Carney-Falling-oil-price-negative-shock-for-Scotland.html#disqus_thread

kind of makes up for the years Scotland's oil subsidised Thatcher's dismantling of the UK's industrial base