bencooper – Member

Okay, ideas off the top of my head ….

…..Try to rebalance the economy away from financial services and towards manufacturing.

So abandon a sector of the economy we’ve become world leaders in for one in which we failed miserably to keep up with modern working practices and economics ?

Try to rebalance the economy away from financial services and towards manufacturing.

Why do people always insist manufacturing is the only thing worth doing?

A flash car or a powerful tablet is just as useless as a posh haircut or interior design when no-one has any money.

So abandon a sector of the economy we’ve become world leaders in

This is a joke right? World leaders in what exactly? I don’t recall the manufacturing industry requiring a £1 trillion bailout by taxpayers after they bankrupted the country which very nearly resulted in the complete collapse of the economy and society itself.

Thanks for the links – I had seen the ‘shop’ story before and knew that was a gross exaggeration so was a little skeptical about the others, but they do seem to have some foundation which is a disgrace.

£1 trillion bailout by taxpayers after they bankrupted the country

Well, it wasn’t a trillion and they didn’t bankrupt the country. That was done by the politicians who had already spent it all before the crisis started. But you knew that anyway, right?

That was done by the politicians who had already spent it all before the crisis started. But you knew that anyway, right?

Does anyone actually believe this blatant piece of revisionism spouted by the right? It must be one of the greatest pieces of political propaganda of all time. Yes there was a large national debt and deficit. Under normal circumstances it was entirely manageable with the usual levers of economic policy and governance. Then the banks came along and said ‘give us hundreds of billions or the economy will collapse and people will be short of food within a week’. So they gave them it as they didn’t have any choice, then the banks apologists said ‘look at this incompetent government, they’ve spent all the money!’.

Under normal circumstances it was entirely manageable with the usual levers of economic policy and governance

This may not be thread on which to argue the subject, but no, it wasn’t manageable. The deficit was created through boom years (i.e. better than “normal circumstances”)and so was unsustainable whether there was a crash or not.

That’s not revisionist. That’s a view I came to in about 2002 when I saw the inevitable going to happen. Not that I didn’t ride the wave first, but I got off it in 2007 when it was clearly about to break.

This is a joke right? World leaders in what exactly? I don’t recall the manufacturing industry requiring a £1 trillion bailout by taxpayers after they bankrupted the country which very nearly resulted in the complete collapse of the economy and society itself.

Er yeah thanks for that, you really show a profound understanding of modern global economics 🙄

If a yes vote means more Monarch of the Glens Im changing my vote

I think it’s safe to say it means a lot less Monarch of the Glen:

“We pay around £300m towards the licence fee but, by clubbing together with the rest of the UK, we get well more than £3bn worth of programming.”

So it looks like you will be running quite a deficit, plus you have Alba and the Gaelic HD studios to run which are seriously expensive (or so I am told).

Friends who work in TV in Scotland are shitting themselves about a Yes vote, as they will have to leave Scotland as TV will become a wasteland of shit low quality TV as there simply won’t be any budget to do anything else.

Why do people always insist manufacturing is the only thing worth doing?

A flash car or a powerful tablet is just as useless as a posh haircut or interior design when no-one has any money.

If I’d known haircuts counted as financial services I’d have filled in my tax return a bit differently!

The ex head of Rolls Royce famously said that there’s only two ways to make money – you either dig it out of the ground, or you do work on something to increase its value. Everything else is just moving money about.

Financial services don’t actually make anything, they pull money out of thin air and then move it about. So it’s not surprising the castle of dreams collapses occasionally.

Yes not the right thread. But in the context of Scotland, given events of the last 10 years, if you were embarking on setting up a new country, would you be looking to base the economy on the financial sector?

Financial services don’t actually make anything, they pull money out of thin air and then move it about.

So?

When you make something, you take a raw material and apply knowledge and skill to it to make something else. Services (financial or otherwise) are the same insofar as it’s the application of knowledge.

if you were embarking on setting up a new country, would you be looking to base the economy on the financial sector?

If you’ve already got one, it would make sense to maximise the potential of it whilst encouraging the new industries you want. There doesn’t seem to be an aversion to basing much of the economics on oil, despite its limited remaining life.

Services (financial or otherwise) are the same insofar as it’s the application of knowledge.

It’s not knowledge though is it – it’s just gambling.

Well it’s application of knowledge in the same way studying betting odds is – it doesn’t produce anything productive at the end of it.

grum – Member
“despite the best attempts of some to portray it otherwise.”
You mean like epicyclo?

I must thank Ben for providing the right info on the fire.

In all those events I have quoted, I only looked at the initial reports. The photo of the shop looked like the entire thing was on fire in the pic I saw. I didn’t bother following up any further reports on those incidents because I regarded them as one-offs by bampots and not something condoned or encouraged by BT.

I mentioned them because we were being accused of being “sensitive”.

What I am concerned about is the Orange march in Edinburgh, and it’s the unpredictability of the “thousands” being imported that concerns me.

We pay around £300m towards the licence fee but, by clubbing together with the rest of the UK, we get well more than £3bn worth of programming

Yeah, you see it’s rubbish like that that shows you can’t trust the Better Together figures. Only about half of that £300M is actually spent in Scotland, the rest is effectively buying TV shows from the rest of the BBC. Ireland buys BBC channels too, for about £20M per year.

So if Scotland had the same deal as Ireland, we could pay the same license fee, put £20M towards buying the BBC channels, and then have £280M for home-grown programmes instead of the £150M we have at the moment.

Er yeah thanks for that, you really show a profound understanding of modern global economics

Ah yes the ‘you don’t understand economics so how could you possibly offer an opinion’ argument. Thing is the economists didn’t see it coming either (well, none of them who mattered anyway). It’s all very well passing the buck, but the simple facts speak for themselves. The banks failed to manage their business in a way which ensured they remained solvent. Without the tax payer bailing them out to the tune of thousands of pounds for every citizen they would have gone out of business. That’s an industry you would describe as a success?

Ah yes the ‘you don’t understand economics so how could you possibly offer an opinion’ argument.

But you’re offering an opinion on economics..?

The banks failed to manage their business in a way which ensured they remained solvent.

Some banks needed bailing out. The financial industry as a whole is WAY WAY bigger than ‘some banks’. And it was only parts of those banks that caused the problems.

molgrips – Member
…Some banks needed bailing out. The financial industry as a whole is WAY WAY bigger than ‘some banks’. And it was only parts of those banks that caused the problems.

That’s a bit like:

The hole was only on a relatively small area of the Titanic. The rest of the hull preserved its structural integrity.

Strange thing economics. Very useful for borrowing big heaps of money, but when they want it back, it’s the rules of arithmetic they use. 🙂

Banks. You do appreciate the French, German, Spanish and Italian banks had just as many problems and that the issue originated from the US ? The French, Spanish and Italian economies are in much worse shape than ours and they don’t have an overweight financial services sector.

I believe the UK is overly dependent upon financial services but let’s create something else before trying to suppress it / kill it off.

It’s not knowledge though is it – it’s just gambling.

HBOS and Northern Rock went bust as they gave too many mortgages to people who couldn’t afford them, is that gambling ? Barclays who had the largest investment bank (so “gambling”) emerged one of the strongest UK banks post the crises. Just to tick all the buzzword boxes HBOS and Northern Rock paid pretty much the lowest bonuses, so a crude look at stats would tell you low bonus = bust and bailed out, high bonus = success 😉

EDIT: Also RBS went bust as they paid far far too much for ABN Amro and then proceeded to keep the worst part namely their US businesses

Is everyone blind to the fact that the UK has a thriving manufacturing sector, we are the largest net exporter of defence equipment after the US. Manufacturing is worth more in real terms now to the British economy than at any time since the second world war.

Barclays who had the largest investment bank (so “gambling”) emerged one of the strongest UK banks post the crises.

Yes they were such a raging success they had to go cap in hand to the Qataris and sold off a massive percentage of the business to them at knock down rates as otherwise they too would have gone under. Strong indeed.

@dazh – they went to the Qataris and sold their asset management business so they found a “market solution”. I didn’t say they where a roaring success but they emerged from the crises in fairly decent shape.

Financial services are pretty important to Scotland, in the event of a Yes just watch as AS/SNP do all they can to try and keep them via massive tax breaks/grants/etc.

That’s a bit like

No it really really isn’t.

Well it’s application of knowledge in the same way studying betting odds is – it doesn’t produce anything productive at the end of it.

If you believe Malcolm Gladwell and the sources he quotes – there’s quite a lot of evidence to suggest that even highly successful financial traders offer no better returns than you would get by tossing a coin to make your investments decisions.

Ok, but the industry as a whole makes money.

Ireland buys BBC channels too, for about £20M per year.

You missed out the fact that they buy a (very) small subset of programs for £20M a year. They don’t get the full package as it were, you need to compare apples to apples.

TV in Scotland will be ****, unless the license fee goes up by a fair whack or everyone just switches to Sky (or turns the box off), and that ignores the fact that most people who make TV have to follow the work and there won’t be much in Scotland as at present people can work on BBC stuff which opens up the rest of the UK which you are opting out of.

So if Scotland had the same deal as Ireland

BBC is a company and will charge what it can get away with (that’s how capitalism works) and considering that most of the population will murder the government in the next election if they lose access to Strictly that doesn’t bode well to getting a ‘great’ deal; if I was in the BBC I would be aiming to gouge iS out of mental amount of money as you have them over a barrel and they will pretty much have to pay whatever you ask if they want to keep their jobs.

we are the largest net exporter of defence equipment after the US

And that’s a good thing? I’m all for manufacturing but a bit sad that’s it’s mostly things that kill people.

As for the BBC, it’s really not all that important is it? The Scottish bit will surely be one thing that divide up along with everything else and the Government can work out how best to fund it and it can decide where it gets its programming from.

As for the BBC, it’s really not all that important is it?

For me no, I didn’t have a TV for 3 years and now I’ve got one I realise why.

However for most plebs it does matter especially when you have long, dark, cold, miserable winters and you are used to settling down after work to watch the telly only to find that if you don’t stump up £30 (or groats or whatever they end up using) there’s **** all on, either that or you end up watching HD Gaelic made for the numpties up north …..

The BBC programming along with all the other UK terrestrial channels is readily available via Freesat, there’ll be very little they could do to block it.
the same as it is in Ireland

Am I missing something on the BBC thing or is Scotland too far north for satellite dishes to work?

Princeton economist slams independence movement.

And that’s a good thing? I’m all for manufacturing but a bit sad that’s it’s mostly things that kill people.

@whatnobeer, or you can see it as equipment which is capable of killing people and thus the deterrent keeps you safe ? Also if the other guy has stuff to kill you isn’t it useful to have something to fight back with ?

Interesting that the measures outlined by Labour today to support the No campaign do not hand Scotland total control over income tax as do the Conservative and Lib Dem proposals but only partial control. It would seem to me that the major party that best understands the Scots (based on the fact they have more MPs) don’t trust them to set tax policy ? 😯

Clearly a bit tongue in cheek obviously.

IT’s all very well Gordon Brown announcing a timetable for more powers, but the last time I looked he was a second rate backbench mp who barely bothered to turn up. I wouldn’t trust him as far as I could throw him.

Interesting that the measures outlined by Labour today to support the No campaign do not hand Scotland total control over income tax

That’s because the labour party are control freaks. They have a rather disturbing authoritarian and paternal streak which simply can’t bear to let people get on their lives without the government being involved somehow. Sadly it’s the only real tenet of classical socialism which they have left.

Princeton economist slams independence movement.

@Tom, thanks yes an interesting piece and like almost everything I have read from serious informed sources it says independence for Scotland is a very dangerous thing. Of course to say so is more project fear eh ?

Well, I have a message for the Scots: Be afraid, be very afraid. The risks of going it alone are huge. You may think that Scotland can become another Canada, but it’s all too likely that it would end up becoming Spain without the sunshine.

a second rate backbench mp

@wan is that why you gave him to us to be our Prime Minister ? 😉

He’s Scottish, he’s an ex Prime Minister so he is the best thing the No campaign can offer after Alasdair Darling.

Of course to say so is more project fear eh ?

I don’t think anyone is playing down the risks or ignoring them. I wouldn’t be surprised if the pound stance is a clever campaigning tactic by Salmond. I think he knows they’ll have to go it alone with their own currency as the English are not going to offer them any favours, but he can’t admit it as they’d lose the referendum. The pound is a convenient security blanket with which to reassure people, if they vote yes, I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s then abandoned in favour of something separate. And no doubt they’ll blame the intransigence of the Westminster govt in the process.

Funny that Krugman gives no comment on whether a new currency would be workable though?