Osbourne says no to currency union.

Maybe we just all got tired of being patronised.

Go on then. How does your society work and fund itself? Does it immerse itself in the big wide world and prostrate itself at the alter of free-market capitalism and “big business”, like 195 countries currently do, or does it free itself from those shackles like North Korea.

Like it or not, “big business” is at the heart of what we eat, what we wear, where we work, how much we have to spend. You make it unfavourable for “big business” to operate and they take all that elsewhere.

The Flying Ox – Member
Go on then. How does your society work and fund itself?

In that most boring of ways – just like any other small country.

The mistake is thinking that the way things work in the UK at the moment is the only way they can work. We live in one of the most unequal countries in the developed world, and a big part of that is running the country for the benefit of business not people. Many other countries manage to balance bisiness and society much better, we can try to copy them.

brooess – Member

The Economist article about money leaving already, and significant employers planning on leaving is what’s worried me… it shows clear intention.

The economist article is downright misleading- Standard Life have drawn up contingency plans but they’re not to “move in the event of a Yes vote”- they’re to prepare in case that becomes desirable, in the face of uncertainty over the outcome of negotiations.

Here is a more honest article on the subject: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-scotland-politics-26364418. Which unsurprisingly has Better Together attempting to mislead in exactly the same way, but has detail from Standard Life telling us what the contingency plans are really for.

The mistake is thinking that the way things work in the UK rest of the world at the moment is the only way they can work.

So North Korea then.

Well, you’ve just proved my point 😉

The economist article is downright misleading- Standard Life have drawn up contingency plans but they’re not to “move in the event of a Yes vote”- they’re to prepare in case that becomes desirable, in the face of uncertainty over the outcome of negotiations.

Which it almost certainly will. If it was unlikely they wouldn’t really be drawing up contingency plans would they? Not misleading at all – the Economist has simply taken a view on the likelihood of the contingency plans being used, probably also based on more recent information on the regulatory framework (that is after all quite an old article and things have moved on with other companies also starting to take action).

I suppose you could always hope that it won’t happen.

aracer – Member

Which it almost certainly will. If it was unlikely they wouldn’t really be drawing up contingency plans would they?

Ah yes, so if it’s not unlikely, it must be almost certain 😆 Standard Life took great pains to make themselves clear, do you think they went to the press meaning to say “we will leave” and accidentally said “We’re making contingency plans so that if things go tits up, we’re ready”? That’s quite a lot more words for something you can say with 3…

In that most boring of ways – just like any other small country.

With a sizeable helping of “big business” then.

Let’s look at it another way. How many countries that eschew the benefits of favourable “big business” conditions would Scotland look to emulate?

I’m not saying Ben’s ideals aren’t admirable. I’m saying they’re slightly naive when you consider Scotland has to operate as part of a global economy.

Standard Life took great pains to make themselves clear

Standard Life took great pains to make themselves appear impartial whilst they drew up plans which are almost certain to be put into action in the event of a Yes vote.

bencooper – Member
The mistake is thinking that the way things work in the UK at the moment is the only way they can work. We live in one of the most unequal countries in the developed world, and a big part of that is running the country for the benefit of business not people. Many other countries manage to balance bisiness and society much better, we can try to copy them.

I am not sure if such ideas and beautifully innocent or simply scarily niaive? Many of the challenges faced by the UK a common to many parts of the developed and indeed the developing world. These challenges cross political and economic boundaries – not least the challenges of inequality and over-leverage. It is a grow simplification to argue that the UK is in a significantly worse positions indeed the flexibility that exists in the UK is one reason why we are currently emerging from the crisis is relatively better shape that many other economies including the bulk of Europe.

AS has presented no new economic/political or social paradigm to address any of the questions other that glib promises on issues such as inequality. It is a complete myth to suggest that a yes vote will lead to theis new McUtopia – not least that ironically many policies are either direct copies of what goes on in rUk or ironically are even more RW. But since a foreign country will be determining both monetary and fiscal policy, the whole idea of independence fall flat in its face. As does the € proposal – just look what is happening on the continent.

Sell a false dream and stay away from the truth – the realpolitik of the iS campaign.

FWIW, I was recently talking to a major US corporation (best not to say who) about getting a job. They tried to open an office in France a year ago in order to recruit a whole load of engineers being made redundant there at the time, but gave up because of the labour laws. They are now opening an office in Cambridge and one of the factors they mentioned was the much more sensible legislation.

I assume most of the people camped at Calais would disagree with all the negative comments about England.

Given the plans for a socialist utopia in Scotland, with free higher education for all, free prescriptions, no bedroom tax and an end to Tory austerity politics

I reckon we should learn from France and meet any immigrants at Dover with a leaflet on Scottish benefits and a free bus ticket to Carlisle, let Scotland have the f****** 😀

Many other countries manage to balance bisiness and society much better, we can try to copy them.

Like where, specifically?

And how will iScotland change the power dynamic?

I assume most of the people camped at Calais would disagree with all the negative comments about England.

What negative comments about England?

AS has presented no new economic/political or social paradigm to address any of the questions other that glib promises on issues such as inequality

We’re not voting for Alex Salmond, we’re voting for the chance to choose our government – which could be made up of the SNP, a rejuvenated Labour, the Greens, the SSP,…

What this argument boils down to, again, is “you’re not good enough to go it on your own” – Better Together have been trying that, and it looks like Scots are getting more confidence in themselves to believe those stories.

Oh, and contingency plans. All businesses make them. I worked for a big IT company looking after mainframes for a large insurer, and they had contingency plans for everything – including asteroid strike. You make contingency plans just in case, not because you anticipate using them. Just like the Wall St banks making plans to leave London if the UK leaves the EU.

Apologies- this has probably already been covered but what is to stop Russian forces hanging around (at will) around the coastline of Scotland in the future? Right now incursions are seen off but the future? Will Scotland have the will and capacity?

Like where, specifically?

Having a look at what other Northern European countries do would be a good start.

I thought it was the no campaign that was being accused of being negative!
Reading some of the yes vote garbage on here just makes me feel so sad that this is what is being preached to the Scottish voters.
The thought that one stupid referendum can bring an end to the United Kingdom just makes me sick.
Look at a map, what possible sense does it make to become totally, separate, independent countries?
The rest of the world must think we are crazy!

running the country for the benefit of business not people

You do realise those two things overlap a great deal, don’t you?

We live in one of the most unequal countries in the developed world

@ben come on you just made this up !

Medium and low income people in the UK are much better off than in Spain, Italy and Portugal for example. You really think the UK has a lower level of equality than the US ? Are China and India part of the developed world as far as you are concerned ? We do happen to have a lot of very successful people in this country which is a credit to our country, as I posted before you can make the UK more equal if they leave (and they are very mobile) but as the top 1% pay 30% of the taxes you better have a plan as to where the money is going to come from instead.

Krugman wades in again:

(ps. the comments section on that article is brilliant)

Right now incursions are seen off but the future? Will Scotland have the will and capacity?

Ha! Right now what happens is that a fisherman sees a bunch of Russian ships and mentions it on Twitter – a day later a single ship arrives from Portsmouth to keep an eye on them! Scotland has no surface patrol ships at the moment, and no air patrol aircraft either since the Nimrods were scrapped.

An independent Scotland will have a larger defence budget – at the moment only about 60% of the Scottish contribution to defence is spent in Scotland. But that budget will be spent sensibly – no aircraft carriers we don’t have aircraft for, no nuclear submarines – so we’ll have a more sensible defence force, similar to what Ireland, Sweden etc have.

Look at a map, what possible sense does it make to become totally, separate, independent countries?

I’ve looked at a map. What am I looking for? Or are you calling for the abolition of all land borders?

FWIW I wrote to Standard Life (who have 50% of my pension money and who I am generally pleased with) and said in the event of a Yes vote I would move my pension unless the company moved to the UK and continued to be regulated by the FCA. The company is well run and it will have worked itself that UK customers don’t want their retirement saving managed by a company based in a country which isn’t even planning in a central bank never mind a financial regulator.

You do realise those two things overlap a great deal, don’t you?

We can alter the balance.

An independent Scotland will have a larger defence budget – at the moment only about 60% of the Scottish contribution to defence is spent in Scotland. But that budget will be spent sensibly – no aircraft carriers we don’t have aircraft for, no nuclear submarines – so we’ll have a more sensible defence force, similar to what Ireland, Sweden etc have.

Blatantly incorrect. Scotlands first Minister said he’d drastically reduce the defence spending and base their marine capacity at Clyde. The Navy said it’d take years to adapt the facility from Submarines to surface ships/to accept any sort of ships there.

It really does worry me- the disaffected voters who think ‘my lifes not great now, what have I personally got to lose’?

Their life would be bland/shit in any country as they didn’t listen at school. FFS.

I didn’t realise i lived in a country of serial gamblers, that has come as a surprise to me.
There absolutley needs to be change however call me old fashioned but i like a bit of detail when people proclaim they can save the world.

The latest Ministry of Defence figures said there was £1.57 billion spent on defence in Scotland in 2007/08. However, in that year Scotland paid in £2.84 billion towards UK defence spending. (GERS 2010-11). There is a huge gap in how much Scotland pays for defence and how much is actually spent in Scotland.

http://www.businessforscotland.co.uk/defence-in-an-independent-scotland-spend-less-to-get-more/

It really does worry me- the disaffected voters who think ‘my lifes not great now, what have I personally got to lose’?

Their life would be bland/shit in any country as they didn’t listen at school. FFS.

Yes, because that’s the only reason people are voting Yes. FFS.

I didn’t realise i lived in a country of serial gamblers, that has come as a surprise to me.
There absolutley needs to be change however call me old fashioned but i like a bit of detail when people proclaim they can save the world.

Detail matters – which is why research has shown that the more information people have the more likely they are to vote Yes. So, to get you started, there’s lots of good detail in here: http://wingsoverscotland.com/weebluebook/

There is a huge gap in how much Scotland pays for defence and how much is actually spent in Scotland.

Do you predict that Heckler & Koch, Boeing, Radway Green, Airbus etc. will have have domestic Scottish alternatives in iScotland? Or is the reason defence money gets spent outside Scotland mainly down to the fact that we buy lots of things from international companies that have no factories there.

I look forward to seeing the Scottish alternative to a Boeing C17!

The tartan livery should look quite stunning.

@ben thanks for that, I’ll look up the study later (I do see US, Portugal and Italy I quoted are less equal, surprised about Spain’s position but these “co-efficient” type measures can be very sensitive). As I have posted before the best way to improve such statistical fairness measures is for the rich people and their money/spending to leave which certainly doesn’t help the less well off.

I look forward to seeing the Scottish alternative to a Boeing C17

What are we going to need one of those for? Anyhow, the difference isn’t in money spent with Scottish companies, the difference is in defence provision. In other words, where the equipment is based, not where it’s made.

As I have posted before the best way to improve such statistical fairness measures is for the rich people and their money/spending to leave which certainly doesn’t help the less well off.

Look at the countries further down the list – they’re definitely not poorer overall.

Look at the countries further down the list – they’re definitely not poorer overall.

Like Greece?

research has shown that the more false information people have the more likely they are to vote Yes. So, to get you started, there’s lots of good detail in here: http://wingsoverscotland.com/weebluebook/

I found at least two incorrect or misleading “facts” on page 2 – possibly three, but I’m being generous. It even points one of them out further on:

Threats that Scotland will be ejected (even temporarily) from the EU are hollow, impossible to ever put into practice.

Anyone, on either side of the debate, claiming to know as a matter of certainty what would happen to an independent Scotland’s EU membership status is a liar.

bencooper – Member

Detail matters – which is why research has shown that the more information people have the more likely they are to vote Yes. So, to get you started, there’s lots of good detail in here: http://wingsoverscotland.com/weebluebook/

More like there’s a lot of misleading statements and assertions based on only listening to people who support your viewpoint.

http://chokkablog.blogspot.co.uk/2014/08/the-wee-blue-book-of-lies.html

Enjoy.

NZCol – Member
…There absolutley needs to be change however call me old fashioned but i like a bit of detail when people proclaim they can save the world.

We’re not out to save the world, simply to govern ourselves.

And as we are perfectly competent to do that, it makes sense to do it.

We can argue over the minutae as much as we like, but it comes down to Scots want independence, and Scots are capable of running their own country.

After independence, we will be eternally grateful to the UK Establishment for their co-ordinated campaign of lies, threats, and sneers, because that has made many otherwise passive Scots abandon their traditional party vote, and get out on the streets and involve themselves in the Yes campaign.

9 days to go… 🙂