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Will you vote for independence?

Scottish independence?

  • Yes please

    Votes: 99 56.6%

  • No thanks

    Votes: 57 32.6%

  • Dont know yet

    Votes: 17 9.7%
  • Total voters
    175
Diamond said:
What on earth do you mean by that?
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What I mean by that is, based on Carney's statements, he could be making decisions and forming monetary policy on the basis of his political guesswork. Let's hope the tremendous fuck up that is the UK economy does not go tits up any time soon.
 
Diamond said:
That's not to say it's not the right thing in the medium to long term (for instance, if devo-max went ahead it would cause such a serious constitutional crisis as to all but guarantee the break-up the whole of the Union in pretty short order), but I certainly wouldn't trust the current helsmen, especially when they appear to have no rudder.
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Devo-max won't go ahead. It is not being offered. Gordon Brown has offered a pathetic array of hodge-podge, back of the fag packet powers that will do nothing but reduce the Scottish budget. It is designed to transfer the perception of accountability to Scotland. US states, German Lander, and parts of Spain have more power than what is being proposed.
 
Monetary guesswork, surely? Fair, there is a political element to it but he is an economist, approaching the matter from a Central Bank p.o.v. in his role as the executive of the control of the UK's money supply / lender of last resort and in the light of very little comparative data given the dearth of info from "yes" on the point and the absence of similar situations.
 
That makes absolutely no sense. The whole point of the BoE is that it is politically neutral. There is no political element to it. He is second guessing the results of political negotiations that he will not be participating in.

Dearth of info from the yes? What does that even mean?

They wanted to negotiate prior to the referendum. The UK did not. It has been made very clear what the Scottish Government position is on the allocation of debts and assets (they want to share them). If there is a yes vote, Carney will look like the total mug. You are catching up with the debate and it is nice you have taken an interest in Scottish politics.
 
weltweit said:
Either you are in favour of unions, with shared power, or you are not, if many Scots are not in favour of sharing democracy with Westminster why would they be with sharing democracy with the EU? The EU is also not an easy bedfellow.
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Well, the EU doesn't take all of your money and let you have some pocket money back. The EU doesn't put nukes at Faslane/Coulport. The EU isn't the government giving Ian Duncan Smith a licence to kill. The EU doesn't arrange tax levels.
 
DairyQueen said:
That makes absolutely no sense. The whole point of the BoE is that it is politically neutral. There is no political element to it. He is second guessing the results of political negotiations that he will not be participating in.

Dearth of info from the yes? What does that even mean?

They wanted to negotiate prior to the referendum. The UK did not. It has been made very clear what the Scottish Government position is on the allocation of debts and assets (they want to share them). If there is a yes vote, Carney will look like the total mug. You are catching up with the debate and it is nice you have taken an interest in Scottish politics.
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Party politics v the polis. There is a difference. Maybe I didn't make that clear.

Dearth of info, as in, all "yes" says on currency is a three line defence, progressively weaker

(i) we will enter into a formal currency union with rUK [or someone else, notably not defined, the dollar maybe?], the counterpoint being that there is no will to do that on the rUK or any other side - an agreement is between multiple parties after all. There is something really odd about the rhetoric here on this point as well. rUK is very large in relation to Scotland, it has absolutely no incentives to enter into a currency union with an experimental Scotland that it might have to rescue at some point, in the same way that it did RBS, so the argument, as far as I can discern is this - negotiations on currency are yet another example of English tyranny, which is such a basic misunderstanding of what a currency actually is that it's completely nuts!

(ii) Sterlinglsation - yes, this will work in the short term but as the economies diverge, and as the smaller partner the Scots can start to expect a "peripheral" Eurozone role - i.e. Ireland, Portugal, Spain, Italy, Greece, even France. The explicit lesson of the last few years on an economic level is that if you can't control your monetary policy, you are basically stuffed. Political union, fiscal union, monetary union together tend to work. Take away one of those elements and you tend to fail. It is amazing that people are citing Ecuador (oil bonanza and improving from a totally stuffed position c.2001) and Panama (very odd place, dependent on geo-location through a vital canal, central to the world's shipping) as their evidence base. These are total outliers!

(iii) New currency - only barely hinted at in the literature, as an any port in a storm solution. But this will almost certainly be where Scotland ends up. That is not a bad thing per se. In fact having independent monetary control is the optimal circumstance to prove one's viability as a state prior to entering the EU. i.e. we are good enough/realistic enough to not just take fiscal but also monetary control of our whole polity and therefore trust us as we then surrender that monetary control to you... [see the nub of the EU thing there, mebbe?]
 
DairyQueen said:
He is a poor economist because he has intervened politically.

The share of the debt and reserves would be decided in political negotiation. He either knows that and made the statement anyway or he did not think what he was saying was a political intervention. Either way, it was unprofessional.
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Why does that make him a poor economist? That's just nonsense, indeed you seem to be implying that economics can be separated from politics. Now only a fool would believe that he's independent and that he doesn't have an agenda but that doesn't mean that he's a poor economist (he might be but not for the reason you've claimed).
 
DairyQueen said:
That makes absolutely no sense. The whole point of the BoE is that it is politically neutral. There is no political element to it.
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Absolute rubbish, of course there is. There might not be a party political element but there most certainly is a political element.
 
Diamond said:
Party politics v the polis. There is a difference. Maybe I didn't make that clear.

Dearth of info, as in, all "yes" says on currency is a three line defence, progressively weaker

(i) we will enter into a formal currency union with rUK [or someone else, notably not defined, the dollar maybe?], the counterpoint being that there is no will to do that on the rUK or any other side - an agreement is between multiple parties after all. There is something really odd about the rhetoric here on this point as well. rUK is very large in relation to Scotland, it has absolutely no incentives to enter into a currency union with an experimental Scotland that it might have to rescue at some point, in the same way that it did RBS, so the argument, as far as I can discern is this - negotiations on currency are yet another example of English tyranny, which is such a basic misunderstanding of what a currency actually is that it's completely nuts!

(ii) Sterlinglsation - yes, this will work in the short term but as the economies diverge, and as the smaller partner the Scots can start to expect a "peripheral" Eurozone role - i.e. Ireland, Portugal, Spain, Italy, Greece, even France. The explicit lesson of the last few years on an economic level is that if you can't control your monetary policy, you are basically stuffed. Political union, fiscal union, monetary union together tend to work. Take away one of those elements and you tend to fail. It is amazing that people are citing Ecuador (oil bonanza and improving from a totally stuffed position c.2001) and Panama (very odd place, dependent on geo-location through a vital canal, central to the world's shipping) as their evidence base. These are total outliers!

(iii) New currency - only barely hinted at in the literature, as an any port in a storm solution. But this will almost certainly be where Scotland ends up. That is not a bad thing per se. In fact having independent monetary control is the optimal circumstance to prove one's viability as a state prior to entering the EU. i.e. we are good enough/realistic enough to not just take fiscal but also monetary control of our whole polity and therefore trust us as we then surrender that monetary control to you... [see the nub of the EU thing there, mebbe?]
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(i) Scotland's negotiating position is that we will enter into a currency union. Salmond is seeking a mandate to negotiate with the UK government. 'Experimental' Scotland? Get a grip.

(ii) Scotland, if it votes no, will have sterlingisation. You are are either claiming a) Scotland cannot be trusted to run its own economy without being to the detriment of the UK, b) the Scottish Government cannot even sit on the monetary policy committee or c) the status quo is not in Scotland's interests. I know you are not claiming the third part, you are probably claiming the first (a). Total outliers? Do you know what outlier means? An outlier with respect to what? Dollarisation is very common across the world. It is the unofficial currency even in Russia.

(iii) There would be nothing to stop Scotland having its own currency. In the short-term it would not be possible. What your argument boils down to is that Westminster can be trusted to act in the interests of Scotland and Scotland cannot be trusted to act in the interests of the rUK.
 
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redsquirrel said:
Absolute rubbish, of course there is. There might not be a party political element but there most certainly is a political element.
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Take an economics class. Find out why the BoE exists. I have explained it before. There should be no political 'element' to its decision-making, whatever that is supposed to mean. I think it has to write to the chancellor and explain why (agreed?) targets are not met.
 
Well that's a totally different matter to what you've posted above.
Personally I don't think it is that surprising, the majority of the political establishment and a significant proportion (probably the majority?) of capital are against Scottish Independence, the BoE is going to reflect that.
 
10421245_709468329131177_3531507973474979447_n.jpg
doing the rounds of facebook
 
redsquirrel said:
Well that's a totally different matter to what you've posted above.
Personally I don't think it is that surprising, the majority of the political establishment and a significant proportion (probably the majority?) of capital are against Scottish Independence, the BoE is going to reflect that.
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I don't know you but I hope you're not pretending to be of "the left" lining up with the majority of the political establishment and a significant proportion (probably the majority?) of capital.

And why do people assume it will be Salmond in charge of an independent Scotland? It's which boat they'll be sailing on they're choosing. Not who is going to be the helmsman.
 
DairyQueen said:
(i) Scotland's negotiating position is that we will enter into a currency union. Salmond is seeking a mandate to negotiate with the UK government. 'Experimental' Scotland? Get a grip.

(ii) Scotland, if it votes no, will have sterlingisation. You are are either claiming a) Scotland cannot be trusted to run its own economy without being to the detriment of the UK, b) the Scottish Government cannot even sit on the monetary policy committee or c) the status quo is not in Scotland's interests. I know you are not claiming the third part, you are probably claiming the first (a). Total outliers? Do you know what outlier means? An outlier with respect to what? Dollarisation is very common across the world. It is the unofficial currency even in Russia.

(iii) There would be nothing to stop Scotland having its own currency. In the short-term it would not be possible. What your argument boils down to is that Westminster can be trusted to act in the interests of Scotland and Scotland cannot be trusted to act in the interests of the rUK.
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I fully understand the yes campaign's position but it is very odd to seek a mandate to negotiate a currency union that it is quite obvious that rUK would not want.

Let's look at the two main reasons why...

Economic - given the very simple lesson provided by the Eurozone, why would rUK want to risk becoming the Germany to Scotland's Ireland/Greece/Portugal/Spain etc...? (i.e. why would rUK want to be the lender of last resort to an independent Scotland?) The potential costs of doing so greatly outweigh the benefits of entering into the currency union for rUK.

The yes campaign doesn't seem to get this. Instead, they seem to insist, without ever explicitly saying so, that Scotland has some kind of right to such a union, which is in keeping with their general nationalistic gist. But that is bonkers. An independent Scotland would be a totally independent party that would have to negotiate anew with any other party any agreement that it wants to enter into. The problem is that that requires the will of both parties to form an agreement. As far as I can make out, there is no will down here in rUK to form such an agreement because it runs so contrary to current economic logic.

rUK politics - but let's take this currency union debate a step further and imagine that in a month's time these negotiations are underway, perhaps Parliament has even been recalled and MPs are pondering what to do in Westminster, bearing in mind that there is a general election due next year. Given the current state of rUK politics, it seems far more likely to me that, the Scots, having declared their independence, will not be that welcome south of the border and that the rUK MPs will conclude that they have no mandate to enter into such a union until they have secured re-election. So this becomes a central issue of next year's general election (as it should be for such an important agreement)...

What do you think happens then when all those hated ConDems/New Labour/UKIP types south of the border are asked to cast their vote in a general election that will effectively become a rUK referendum on currency union?

On sterlingsation - you don't seem to understand the problem here. Sterlingsation would not be a currency union. Of course Scotland would have no representation on the Monetary Policy Committee, it would be using the sterling de facto, not de jure. Do you think that Ecuador or Panama materially influence the monetary policy of the Federal Reserve of the United States of America? The point being that Scotland would have no right to influence the monetary policy of a foreign country, and more pressingly, Scotland would have no monetary policy of its own.

This is one of the oddest "yes" arguments because it so degrades the idea of independence altogether. (Also pretty surprised that you cite Russia as a reliable economic model there. Countries tend to dollarise because their own currency is tanking thanks to poor policy...)

Finally, "what my argument boils down to" is this - to be optimally successful an independent Scotland would need an independent monetary policy and that means an independent currency. Anything else would require an agreement between one or more other parties who are incentivised to come to the table, a prospect that is unlikely at the present and, in any event, would mean the surrendering of a core element of sovereignty, or, in other words, the independence so recently won. Bizarre...
 
danny la rouge said:
They would, they do, and it's actually more in the rUK's interests than Scotland's. We've done this to death. Right on this thread, many times.
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OK, I'm English, live in London, have previously lived several years in Scotland, generally support Scottish independence and think it is inevitable within roughly a decade in any event, but the last few weeks is the first time that a currency union with an independent Scotland has come on my radar.

I certainly would not vote for it.

Where is this groundswell of support in rUK for such a decision?

Can you point to it?

Or, alternatively, how do you think a currency union with an independent Scotland would wash with rUK at next year's general election?
 
ddraig said:
fuck the rest of the 'uk'!
it's about Scotland :)
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But it's not really just about Scotland, is it?

Not when you are trying to enter into a currency union with another party who has to agree to it, you know, requiring the will of both parties...
 
rioted said:
I don't know you but I hope you're not pretending to be of "the left" lining up with the majority of the political establishment and a significant proportion (probably the majority?) of capital.

And why do people assume it will be Salmond in charge of an independent Scotland? It's which boat they'll be sailing on they're choosing. Not who is going to be the helmsman.
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What the hell are you talking about? I simply said I don't think it's surprising that the BoE are backing the NO camp, not that I agree with them. As for the second part I've not talked about Salmond at all in my recent posts.
 
Diamond said:
OK, I'm English, live in London, have previously lived several years in Scotland, generally support Scottish independence and think it is inevitable within roughly a decade in any event, but the last few weeks is the first time that a currency union with an independent Scotland has come on my radar.

I certainly would not vote for it.

Where is this groundswell of support in rUK for such a decision?

Can you point to it?

Or, alternatively, how do you think a currency union with an independent Scotland would wash with rUK at next year's general election?
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The question is not what the English electorate might or might not think, but as ever, what business interests think. For that, I refer you to the very sizeable discussions above. Seriously, we've done this one.
 
danny la rouge said:
The question is not what the English electorate might or might not think, but as ever, what business interests think. For that, I refer you to the very sizeable discussions above. Seriously, we've done this one.
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Right, so the outcome of the general election will be completely controlled by some businessmen who are a little concerned about loss of revenue?

Nothing else will come in to it, no considerations of optimum economic structures, systemic monetary risk, counter-vailing nationalist sentiment south of the border?
 
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