First thread the uk and Scotland

Hi vinny

I'm being very patient with you. I'm on the fence. OK?

Neither the union or independence has won me.

..and terms like surrender is totally inappropriate. It's not a war with a winner and loser.

Persuade me. Why should I back the union?

When you see Jaydee claiming that Ireland is one of the richest countries in the world then you should know there is some serious massaging of stats occurring.

Which of course is true, if anyone here thinks that Irishmen and women are on average earning an average salary of 100k+ per year, you are seriously detached from salaries in Ireland and have likely never visited Ireland in your life.

The reason tiny nations like Luxembourg or Ireland have such huge average wealth per capita is because of the impact multinationals have on their country whilst contributing minimal to the economy.

As an example, Apple doesn’t pay its Irish employees an average of 120k/year and I think if anyone seriously thinks they do, I’ve no words, however the reason the Irish average gdp per capita jumped by a huge amount a few years ago is because Apple shifted ownership of much of its IP rights over to Ireland to avoid a huge tax to be levied upon them. This increased the ‘wealth of Ireland’ by the sum of billions but didn’t inject a single cent into the Irish economy and because the Irish population is so low, this skews their average wealth or gdp per capita far in excess of what an Irish person earns.

While it’s true the people of Scotland do earn more on average than the average income across all od the people in the UK, this by barely more than 5 pounds per week.

Compare that to the average salary in London, which is nearly 10,000 per year more than Scotland and then the distortion of stats become obvious.

www.statista.com/statistics/416139/full-time-annual-salary-in-the-uk-by-region/

Hi tinculin

I think both your posts confirm my OP. London pays the most taxes because it's inhabitants are paid way above the uk average and more corporations operate there. I'm suggesting that this is a structural weakness of the uk economy and is a major factor in it's projected long slow decline.

I also believe that the early years of Scottish Independence will be hard, so I'm sitting on the fence on the constitution. The question is can scotland in such a situation develop its huge potential. Which looks unlikely in the UK?

Having said all that, I do notice that many union supporting people tend to overstate the problems. I cannot think of a single country that went independent then failed to find a suitable currency, for example.

To get me off the fence, I need the union side to stop pointing out how hard independence will be and tell me how it proposes to fix it's structural economic weakness. If Scotland doesn't have enough of a tax base to pay for all its public services, what is the uk planning to do about it?

The phenomena of London exists the world over. Every country has it's regions which pay far more than others, be that the southern regions of Germany such as Hessen, or California in the US vs the mid west, there are always going to be regional salary differences and the reasons for this are varied and complex. The same will be true in Scotland, there will even now be regions of Scotland that pay more than others, but you're probably already aware of where those are. Western economies have moved from production of simple goods to more complex goods and/or services because that's just good economics. If you can buy steel from abroad cheaper than you can make it in your own country, then that's what a country is going to do.

Admittedly, the entire of Europe has been caught off guard when it comes to Russian energy, but the UK is far from the worst offender here and I do suspect that the UK as well as the rest of Europe have learned a harsh lesson and are likely to strive to become less dependent on other nations as a result of this.

Back on topic - From a purely fiscal/economic point of view, if I was asked whether Scotland should remain in the UK, I'd vote Scotland out in a heartbeat. It would be other reasons such as history and a desire for unity that might make me consider otherwise, but it doesn't make economic sense for someone living in England to want to keep Scotland in the union.

I say this because financially, Scotland is far more of an economic burden on the rest of the UK, and this isn't because the Scots have done or are doing anything wrong, it's just they've got an exceptionally good deal from the UK parliment that is unfair on the rest of the country and it's everyone else who is paying for it.

As for your question and lack of money to fund public services, an independent Scotland would have to suddenly begin paying for things it currently enjoys 'for free'. How an independent Scotland achieves this is really upto the Scots to decide and really wouldn't be the rest of the UK's problem. 

Needless to say, while long term, this can be countered with economic growth, there are only a few ways Scotland, the UK or anyone else can achieve this in the short term:
- Increase the ratio of debt:gdp and borrow alot more money - something a fledgling economy would not want to do (because debt costs smaller economies far more than it does larger ones).
- Make cuts to some existing services.
- Raise taxation.

Lastly I think you mentioned new countries haven't struggled with finding a currency, well, of the 5 newest countries, 2 adopted the Euro, 2 adopted the US dollar and South Sudan created it's own currency which it is now considering removing because of how it is failing. That's not to say Scotland can't create it's own currency, but just be aware that there isn't perhaps the strongest precedent as you seemed to believe for countries successfully creating their own currency.