Hence, better together as the majority recognised!!

political games, the oil price will go back up when the handbags with the russians has stopped.

@seosam and @northwind – yes perhaps but in the meantime you are bust, game over. By the time the oil price recovers someone else is in charge (Scotland absorbed back into the UK ?) and all your assets (inc the oil reserves) have been sold off cheap to someone else.

Oil only makes up 15% of Scotlands exports – a considerably smaller proportion than for Norway.

They seem to handle oil price fluctuations fine, but that’s because they had the brains to set up an oil fund to balance the income from it.

And remember what needs to happen before you set up an oil fund Ben?

Wonder why we haven’t had one in Bonny Scotland – well you don’t have to wonder very hard.

Yes, we need to have smart politicians who think about more than the non-executive directorships and speaking engagements they’ll get after they leave office.

Wouldn’t it be nice to have leaders like that?

jambalaya – Member

@seosam and @northwind – yes perhaps but in the meantime you are bust…

What? Like the United Kingdom?

Living on debt = bust in my eyes.

konabunny – Member

well, great, but in the meantime you still have to deal with less tax revenue

So it becomes just a case of which sets of figures was correct

Though just to state the obvious, the current slump would have been on the UK’s watch 😉 Lots of people getting excited about it but who knows what the price would be by exit day, I’m seeing lots of people forcasting this to be a short term drop (though I think smart people are saying, we don’t know)

jambalaya – Member

@seosam and @northwind – yes perhaps but in the meantime you are bust, game over. By the time the oil price recovers someone else is in charge (Scotland absorbed back into the UK ?) and all your assets (inc the oil reserves) have been sold off cheap to someone else.

It’s a country, not a corner shop

Not quite Ben, but appreciate that yS didn’t do the grown-up thinking on what was otherwise a good idea. Nothing new there though…..why because like everything else it was going to be magicked out of nowhere.

So what is bust then? 1.4 trillion? 😆
I think its pretty clear that debt ddoesn’t really matter anymore…since no-one seems to be interested in paying it off…

Yes it’s amazing how much austerity george has cut spending by isn’t it?

Austerity isn’t about paying off anything its about redistrubiting upwards and the storing of wealth. Calling it austerity or even capitalism is ridiculous. We live under a hoardist society. In fact I’m going to coin the phrase hoardism for the system we live under! 😆

Have a wee word with your MSPs then – AS described austerity policies in his last FMQs and dear Nicola did the same this week. I wish they would get their terms right, it gets so confusing….

If they are hoarding how come we have so much debt?

They’re not my msps. I’m not a fan of the current building up of the SNP into a Goliath. I don’t particularly see them as greatly different.

There’s debt because private and corporate bank accounts don’t belong to the government. And they seem to be having a wee bit of bother getting the hoardists to pay the proper amount of taxes. Amongst other things.

“Though just to state the obvious, the current slump would have been on the UK’s watch “

whooooooooshhh! you haven’t understood the point at all (are you speaking from the SNP front bench?). Scotland is much more exposed to that risk than the UK as a whole because a far greater proportion of Scottish business and tax revenue is/would derive from selling oil and gas.

konabunny – Member
…Scotland is much more exposed to that risk than the UK as a whole because a far greater proportion of Scottish business and tax revenue is/would derive from selling oil and gas.

So? Is that a reason not to be independent?

The simple way to help contain costs is to not wage wars you can’t afford.

The UK isn’t in a position to be held up as an example of financial management to anyone.

konabunny – Member

whooooooooshhh! you haven’t understood the point at all

Nope, actually the point a lot of commentators making is exactly this- “LOL oil has gone down in price, Scotland wouldn’t have any money”. Bizarre to see lots of UK people delighted that the UK economy’s taken a hit, too.

So? Is that a reason not to be independent?

Well I imagine in the next few months we’ll find out. I’ve a feeling the answer is an emphatic yes and the SNP have dodged a bullet. The Saudis/OPEC seem to be manipulating the oil price to suit there own needs effectively creating recessions in many other OPEC nations. Granted Scotland is not fully reliant on oil, but hey, it’s surely better to be exposed to such fluctuations as a wider economy

So? Is that a reason not to be independent?

It’s a reason to be cautious about founding a state that relies significantly on oil revenue and skeptical of people who’ll promise a lavishly-subsidized future based on oil.

Talking purely about the economics of oil. Surely a slump in oil price is a double edged sword? For one when the price is down its never completely passed on to the consumer and secondly consider everything in our economy is based on oil for something, surely a low oil price should give the rest of the economy a boost?

I think youse are over simplifying things.

I am just pointing out the obvious, about how much trouble an independent Scotland would be in, so much of the “bonus” promised by the Yes campaign would have been delivered by oil revenues which far from increasing would have collapsed. Of course this is bad for the UK as a whole but it would have been far more severe for a country of 5m so heavily dependent upon these revenues. I appreciate my going bust / sell off the assets comment was simplistic and corner shop like, we can dress it up in fancy language but an iS could really have afforded to just hang on and wait for higher prices in the distant future as that future may well be very distant, there are bills to be paid today.

@epic, every country has a national debt. You are right in that we should be aiming for a neutral budget over an economic cycle but we are far far from that, Osbourne tried to deliver that and has failed, an alternative government with more aggressive spending plans would have plunged us much deeper into debt, as is happening in France. A far worse situation than the one we face. £1.4 trillion is indeed a large debt, we should be aiming to reduce it which is what this government is trying to do.

@seoas – yes a lower oil price provides an economic boost particularly to those countries which are net importers.

surely a low oil price should give the rest of the economy a boost?

Possibly – but it’s a loss for people that receive services and support from the state, and a gain for people that buy lots of crude oil.

@ Konabunny- see what I mean?

jambalaya – Member

I am just pointing out the obvious, about how much trouble an independent Scotland would be in, so much of the “bonus” promised by the Yes campaign would have been delivered by oil revenues which far from increasing would have collapsed

The simple facts about oil revenues are lost on most of the pro independents, because they just are not interested in the facts….they have become so entrenched in their anti UK stance, some would rather face hardship than admit they may be wrong about it all.

Fair enough I say, but they are gambling dangerously with their children’s and grand childrens futures…which is not fair or right.

@Rockape has it. It also would have impacted the rest of us in the broader UK as we’d be faced with meeting the same costs for defense etc with 10% less people/tax base.

@Northwind – you are “selective quoting” there, look at the next sentence too. Many of always said independence would be financially bad for UK and worse for Scotland, oil prices at these levels would have made he situation for an iS much worse. Lower oil prices really impact investment, that would dry up totally and with the Scottish economy very dependent on that investment spending it would have been very exposed.

No, I’m not selectively quoting at all, the next line makes no difference to my point. Which is that this:

“I am just pointing out the obvious, about how much trouble an independent Scotland would be in, so much of the “bonus” promised by the Yes campaign would have been delivered by oil revenues which far from increasing would have collapsed.”

Is entirely based on the false “obvious” idea that the current price drop would have affected an independent Scotland, when in fact we’d obviously still have been in the UK at this point.

Yes prices go down as well as up. What you have right now is the down, there’ll almost certainly be a longer term up, long term speculation on short term trends makes no sense. People just want to spin the current down as if it would have been an issue in the event of a Yes vote, which it would not (yet?)

If in 5 or 10 years time the price is still this low, they’ll have a point. Bet you 10 scottish pence it’s not though.

Fair enough I say, but they are gambling dangerously with their children’s and grand childrens futures…which is not fair or right.

Everything’s a gamble. Having a government that thinks spending £15bn on building more roads is a good idea is a big gamble with my child’s future. Having a government that’s going to pull us out of Europe is a big gamble with her future too.

There’s no risk-free life. Everything’s a balance of risks and probabilities. We believe that it’d be better for our children to have Scottish independence.

I think Osbourne has put one over on the Scots – Northern Ireland is to get control of corporation tax (makes sense with Irish rates so low just south of the border) – this is explicitly a tax Scotland will not get control of.

Also the North of England is to get a regional wealth fund from shale revenues, that will rile the SNP I am sure, tremendous 8)

Northwind got it, indeed I was looking further forward. Will the price be this low in 5 years or 10, it might as the shale production will be in full swing. The point is we don’t know and an iS should be very exposed as oil revenues are such a large part of the economy

In the long term, leaving it in the ground is almost certainly going to increase the value, it won’t go off

If the well is drilled then oil won’t go off per se, but if you just leave it you could end up with it not being recoverable for a number of reasons. Plus once the offshore infrastructure is in place there is no logical argument for leaving it, as you have paid all the costs up front for no return. Plus you would still need to continue paying maintenance costs so it was fit for purpose, for the day you wanted to start back up.

jambalaya – Member
I think Osbourne has put one over on the Scots – Northern Ireland is to get control of corporation tax (makes sense with Irish rates so low just south of the border) – this is explicitly a tax Scotland will not get control of.

Also the North of England is to get a regional wealth fund from shale revenues, that will rile the SNP I am sure, tremendous Keeping it coming. we’re gearing up for a long term fight! 😉

[video]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TGcb8aY2FR8[/video]

dragon – Member

If the well is drilled then oil won’t go off per se, but if you just leave it you could end up with it not being recoverable for a number of reasons.

Yup- especially towards end of life where you might cut back on the secondary/tertiary extraction which gets more and more marginal- not always viable to cap then reopen an end-stage field. But in the majority of cases fields can be mothballed, and closed fields can be restarted (as in the case of Alma, or Argyll- closed as uneconomic to extract, reopened decades later.

Also the North of England is to get a regional wealth fund from shale revenues, that will rile the SNP I am sure, tremendous

In what way is it fair that one region gets a fund from the energy it produces and another doesn’t? Oh hang on,it riles the SNP;that makes it ok. I am all for the contrast being highlighted,for every colonial “massa” gloating,there will be a no voting Scot wondering why it is fair.

The good news about the oil price dropping is that fracking looks less viable.

There’s always a silver lining… 🙂

Is entirely based on the false “obvious” idea that the current price drop would have affected an independent Scotland, when in fact we’d obviously still have been in the UK at this point.

I don’t think anyone is arguing that this single sequence of events (which in an alternate reality in which YES had won would still be happening to UK not iScotland, you’re right) proves that a NO outcome was right. I think it is being used as an example of the systemic instability associated with strong exposure to resources prices, and of why having such great exposure is a weakness, not a strength.

No, seriously, look around- the UK government rushed to release figures making predictions based on today’s price remaining static for the next 5 years and “proving” that it’d cost Scotland billions.

The Scottish Secretary says:

“Only ten weeks on from the referendum choice of the Scottish people it is already clear that we would be facing up to a very different and much more difficult future if Scotland had opted for separation. Falling oil prices combined with the Scottish Government’s wildly optimistic production figures would have blown a massive hole in the middle of the finances of an independent Scotland.”

The Telegraph:

“Scotland’s NHS would have been facing a “black hole” the size of its entire resource budget instead of an extra £125 million if voters had backed independence, Alistair Carmichael has said ahead of the Autumn Statement. “

None of these are making theoretical cases- they’re all saying “This fall would have had this effect on a newly independent Scotland.” Mind you, all the predictions are made by people whose previous predictions totally failed to predict today’s oil prices 😉

Yessers ability to spin never ends.

Forget the Swinney leak in 2013, the fact that many observers were highlighting consistently that the DOs assumptions on oil were BS and hence the accompanying pipe dreams were nonsense and of course when the independent OBR pointed this out, guess what, the DO dismissed them as ” stuff and nonsense”

So Nicola, time for some truth finally, who was it that was really “betrayed”?

Ah, so pointing out other people’s spin is spin now?

I have to admire your chutzpah though- to point at the OBR as authorities when of course their projections have been blown out of the water by the price fall. But of course lets take their rush job brand new projections as gospel. Bold…

The simple truth is, we don’t know what the impact on the long term price will be. Some big players are forecasting a fast return to growth, most are forecasting higher than the OBR. Excitably denouncing the Scottish government’s forecasts for 2016 and onwards as having been proven wrong is just plain daft. That’s not spin, it’s just being able to tell the difference between today and the future.

(Ironically, the UK government and the OBR’s forecasts have been proven false in the short term 😆 But over the same timescales, they might yet be right. Well, not the OBR’s, having 2 contradictory forecasts means they’re guaranteed to be proved wrong 😉 )

A bit of instability now is a good reminder to the future govt of Scotland not to be dependent on oil based revenues.

No doubt this will be borne in mind when we declare independence next year once we have a majority of pro independence MPs in Scotland.

No simply pointing out the inaccuracies in your argument.

But what’s new, we went through a referendum exercise that was largely held up as an excellent example of democracy at work and yet strip the basics aside (high engagement, turnout etc) and all you had was an example of how contemptuous yS was of the people they represent. Pretty much every pillar (sic) of their argument – oil being an obvious case – crumbled under basic scrutiny and yet there were prepared to insult the intelligence of their countrymen and woman by persisting with deceit and lies on an epic scale. Whenever the vulnerability to and predictions of a falling/volatile oils price were pointed out, the DO and others hid behind the 3B smokescreen that they relied upon unsuccessfully throughout. A blatant political/ego-driven sham. The extraordinary thing is just how many fell for it.

And they are still at it with a blatant disrespect of the outcome of the vote. And people wonder where the stereotypes come from?

And people wonder where the stereotypes come from?

weren’t you just marvelling at the contempt of others?