Osbourne says no to currency union.

I hope we do launch our own currency, and link it to the pound. We can call it the Tillicoultry, Near Sterling.

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

I’d give that a solid 3/10 for reading comprehension.

Could Scotland have its own currency? Maybe, although Scotland’s economy is even more tightly integrated with that of the rest of Britain than Canada’s is with the United States, so that trying to maintain a separate currency would be hard. It’s a moot point, however: The Scottish independence movement has been very clear that it intends to keep the pound as the national currency. And the combination of political independence with a shared currency is a recipe for disaster. Which is where the cautionary tale of Spain comes in.

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

So is Tony Blair…

@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 ?

I’d agree with you and Krugmans assessment, but I sorely want to see Cameron **** everything up and I completely sympathize with why many Scots want to leave.

Basically I want to spite my face so I can mercilessly deride tories until the day I die.

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.

But it’s not about Alex Salmond Gordon Brown, nor is it about the SNP Labour. It’s about what lies in Scotland’s future as an independent country part of the United Kingdom.

@dazh – this is what Krugman said, maybe & hard so not impossible

Could Scotland have its own currency? Maybe, although Scotland’s economy is even more tightly integrated with that of the rest of Britain than Canada’s is with the United States, so that trying to maintain a separate currency would be hard.

Princeton economist slams independence movement.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/08/opinion/paul-krugman-scots-what-the-heck.html

This is exactly what I was on about yesterday – sensible, serious consideration of the technical matters involved – if the economics works out, Scotland should be ok but if the economics doesn’t, both Scotland and rest of UK could well be worse off.

But I’ve not seen any evidence (in the online discussions at least) of the technical matters making up any part of the decision-making process that the Yes voters are going thru. And that’s scary.

The main criteria seem to be ‘we want independence’ or ‘we hate Westminster’ as opposed to ‘a deep analysis of the data and well-informed projections of future economic growth show Scotland will be better off alone’.

I know that sounds ridiculous but to make such a major decision on such flimsy, emotional grounds seems deeply, deeply unwise to me.

So is Tony Blair…

@wan I was placing Gordon Brown above Tony Blair in the rankings, I don’t think that was a surprise choice. Tony would of course the Westminster Prime Minister the Scots did vote for of course, all 10 years of him 8)

duckman – Member
Different perspective to THM,but a buggers mess right enough.

The nicest thing you have said in months 😉

As an aside; I assume that since 51% isn’t a clear mandate for, then neither is it a clear mandate against if the boot is on the other foot.

Spot on – we are heading for a really crap result with no clear mandate and lots in uncertainty and increasingly bad feeling.

Pie monster – The upside of having a cretin screwing things up is that it throws up way if making money. The first step to a more equal society is to present easy money to financiers. My vol trade is coming good (several pages back)

One month vol on £$ doubles in a week. Thanks Alex, you may be deceitful but that’s an early Xmas present! Bravo, hope you had some options in you pension, you guys are going to need it. 😉

teamhurtmore – Member

Best bet probably buy volatility rather than direction – get the options handbooks out!

POSTED 4 WEEKS AGO #

If you can’t beat then at least makes one money and have some fun!

I don’t think anyone is playing down the risks or ignoring them.

Do you want the full list of those just on this thread? An awful lot of hope going on here.

You know what they say about two economists……

Two (arguably three) Keynesian economists – Krugman, Wolfe and Stiglitz – first two “NO”, the last one “YES”. Guess which one is paid by yS!!!!!!

On that topic there is a real smell IMO with Murdoch’s timing and the poll in the ST – a coincidence????

I know that sounds ridiculous but to make such a major decision on such flimsy, emotional grounds seems deeply, deeply unwise to me.

Some people think other things are more important than money
You are free to insult them for this.

joolsburger – Member

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.

It’s a weird thing this, lots of people seem keen to run down UK manufacturing but it’s still a huge success story- we’re IIRC 7th or 8th biggest manufacturing nation in the world, by gva. I’ve not seen post-recession stats but immediately before the recession it was as you say at an all-time high. But some folks confuse absolutes with proportions and think that because it’s a smaller part of the economy, it must have shrunk.

Don’t fixate on defence though, that’s another weird thing, it gets a huge amount of attention and government support but is only a couple of percent of our gross exports. I was pretty surprised by that.

Northwind – Member
It’s a weird thing this, lots of people seem keen to run down UK manufacturing but it’s still a huge success story- we’re IIRC 7th or 8th biggest manufacturing nation in the world, by gva.

Very true – but it’s much easier to tell lies and then blame the evil Westminster Tories. * Then evoke equally false claims about thatcher singlehandedly destroying scottish manufacturing in the 70s. All bllx, but great politics and easy to swallow.

Blimey agreeing with ducks and NW on this thread on the same day – but the crap UK manufacturing narrative is even sloppier than currency = asset.

* exactly the same thing can be said about success of the union. Much easy to sell it as a “negative” ( see what I did there!) story though.

It’s hardly an independence issue THM, people all across the country run down UK manufacturing.

Some people think other things are more important than money

Some things are more important than LOTS of money. However, ENOUGH money to pay bills and feed people is pretty high up the list of important things.

True but it’s an easy narrative to bash English Tories with – blimey resurrecting pictures on Maggie gets a bit desperate.

Thanks Alex!!

Fun how Krugman presents Spain (for some reason) joining the Euro as a cautionary tale. He omits to mention that immediately after joining, their GDP per capita rocketed, as did that of other European countries who did the same. Now that they’re in comparative bother, but still with a GDP per capita nowhere near as low as it was pre-Euro, Krugman the visionary hails it as some enormous folly?

Let’s bear in mind it’s no more than an opinion piece, and having your own currency/central bank is no guarantee of never-ending prosperity. Witness Japan at the moment.

And remind us why Spain had an unsustainable boom?

Scottish labour are going to deliver a white paper on home rule 4 months after the vote! 😆 I’ve been away all weekend and haven’t seen a tele. You can almost feel the panic eminating from it today! 😆

Junkyard – lazarus
I know that sounds ridiculous but to make such a major decision on such flimsy, emotional grounds seems deeply, deeply unwise to me.

Some people think other things are more important than money
You are free to insult them for this.

It’s not supposed to be an insult, sorry. The consequences for Scotland, for rUK, now, for our kids and our grandkids are massive. Maybe for the better, maybe for the worse, who knows.

I’m just genuinely shocked that no-one appears to have asked the proponents of either the Yes or the No argument for some data (GPD and employment projections, backed up with the underlying assumptions for e.g) to back up their assertions…

On that topic there is a real smell IMO with Murdoch’s timing and the poll in the ST – a coincidence????

@tmh, my thoughts exactly, in fact nit a smell but a real stink. The other polling company has had very consistent results whilst YouGov has these shifts to Yes.

Let’s bear in mind it’s no more than an opinion piece, and having your own currency/central bank is no guarantee of never-ending prosperity. Witness Japan at the moment.

But not having your own currency and central bank has been shown to be a huge mess

Ok, who thinks we can hit 400 pages before the vote?

Common sense, history and facts v deceit, lies and now Murdoch

Funny how successful the latter is – Leveson anyone?

Even the DOs advisors don’t pretend that plan b is a go-er Jambalaya. He’s on his own on that one. Markets showing the trend now.

The irony of Salmond now feeding the speculators their first course while taking away from Scotlands pension funds (the long only guys) and the population is a taste of what is to come?

Ok, who thinks we can hit 400 pages before the vote?

If thm can keep up the high standard of his delusional fantasies I’d say 400 pages is doable. However, if his carer gets his medication sorted out, that standard might drop to his usual swivel eyed dribbling.

Only 9 more days of righteous indignation…

Only 9 more days of righteous indignation…

After which we’ll have a lifetime of un-righteous indignation, whichever way it goes…

The latest TNS poll promises a shock. Is Murdoch behind that one too?

ChubbyBlokeInLycra – Member
Ok, who thinks we can hit 400 pages before the vote?

If thm can keep up the high standard of his delusional fantasies I’d say 400 pages is doable. However, if his carer gets his medication sorted out, that standard might drop to his usual swivel eyed dribbling.I reckon he must be due another dinner with high fallooting Tory and Labour ministers to give his arguments that wee bit more gravitas! 😆

38% No, 38.6% Yes 23% undecided

All to play for, though it was face to face, so shy interviewee syndrome might be a factor… 84% claim certain to vote!

Yep – and the evidence is that Yes voters feel more intimidated so are less likely to be forthcoming.

I’m fine thanks – AS is giving us an early financial present!

Seo..etc, no I can only take politicians of any variety in small doses. A whole weekend was entertaining but plenty for now. The world goes on despite them.

It’s “wee” BTW.

Delusional – don’t forget you were warned. We shall see. Bookmark this thread.

23% undecided. – buy volatility before it’s too late. Wee eck’s pre-Xmas bonus. That’s how much he cares.

So this export receipts thing they seem to have seized on now – what’s that all about?

I hope we do launch our own currency, and link it to the pound. We can call it the Tillicoultry, Near Sterling.

Well I laughed 😀

A long but very good article by Irvine Welsh[/url]

He explains very well why Scotland can’t help the rest of the UK, why voting Labour and hoping they get rid of the Tories isn’t enough.

And a comment from the master of bias…

The big question is how does he know what Salmond’s private polls say.

“it’s the Sun what won it”…

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.

paying foreign subsidy junkies like BAE to export arms, bribe foreign public officials and destabilize markets (in other words, to ruin the long term viability of those markets for legitimate exporters) is nothing to be proud of and is not sustainable.

Tns pol in The Times has it 50-50 with dk excluded.

@Epic Murdoch is someone I would like to keep at the very shitty end of a very long stick.

bencooper – Member

Well I laughed

I think it’s a pretty small target audience, that joke.