Author Topic: England and Scotland Weighing a Break-Up  (Read 12044 times)

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Offline Scotsgit

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Re: England and Scotland Weighing a Break-Up
« Reply #30 on: January 15, 2012, 01:49:02 pm »
Interesting article on how Scotland's economy could function after independance.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-16548644

I'd just wonder what would happen after the oil and gas runs out.

The oil and gas will run out:  What is hoped is that in an Independent Scotland the money from it is invested in the country as whole, rather than it all going to London.  My fear is that Alex Salmond is too close to the oil companies for comfort.

Alex Salmond's plan seems to be

1: Get Independant Scotland
2: ???
3: Profit

It just doesn't seem to me that he's thought things through in the long term, like the costs of decommissioning the old oil-rigs and stuff like that. And then there's the RBS liability clusterfuck.

As I said, a lot of it seems to be fantasies, not reality.  A lot of the problem is that many nationalists have no real grasp of the economics:  Many think that, post-Independence, there will be masses of revenue from oil, tourism and amenities such as water or electricity.  What they don't grasp is that things like oil aren't indefinite and that tourism in Scotland isn't something the SNP is good at - if you look at Homecoming 2009, you see a prime example of how they don't understand how to compete in the tourism market and how their approach is too little, too late.
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Offline Shane for Wax

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Re: England and Scotland Weighing a Break-Up
« Reply #31 on: January 15, 2012, 04:16:59 pm »
As I said, so long as the SNP is actually seriously looking to the future instead of going 'FUCK YEAH! INDEPENDEEEEEEEEEEENCE! INDEPENDENCE ONCE AGAIN FOR SCOTLAND IN CENTURIESSSSS! *independence happens* Well... fuck. What the hell do we do now, mates? HEEEEEEEEEEELP!"

Unfortunately I can see a very big case of the way Ukraine is 'independent' from Russia. Which is to say, not that independent. Just the noun is applied, everything else they are dependent on Mother Russia. What Russia does impacts the Ukraine whether they like it or not. But, that may happen no matter what since Scotland is fused to England and Wales and the like.

If, however, the SNP does what they can to bolster the steel industry, is smart about oil, does good exporting, knows how to do tourism properly, etc., we could see a very strong and independent nation.

Some of the people I spoke to seemed like they knew what they were doing but it's drastically easy to fake it.

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Offline Scotsgit

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Re: England and Scotland Weighing a Break-Up
« Reply #32 on: January 15, 2012, 09:21:14 pm »
Shane, the problem is that Scotland doesn't really *have* a steel industry any more:  Ravenscraig was the last big steel plant in Scotland.  The Tories shut it down.  None of them have ever given me a good reason why.

Tourism - Homecoming 2009.  Did you hear about?  People I've spoken to in the US and Canada (the largest markets for Scottish tourism) hadn't heard about it:  many didn't know it was happening until it happened and only got to take part, to one degree or another, because it coincided with their visit to Scotland.  The point of it was to get people of Scots descent to come to to Scotland.  Now, take a moment to consider how many people that is world wide.  Yet none of the organisations that you would expect, such as St Andrew's societies or Scottish societies were left completely out of it and advertising seems to have been by word-of-mouth.  I think I should start a seperate thread about this.

Oil - diminishing stocks.  Grangemouth refinery used to be 14 miles of fencing.  Over the last 20 years, however, the refinery has started to shrink in size - ever get the feeling someone's planning a midnight flit?  'Cos that's how it looks to me.
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Offline Shane for Wax

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Re: England and Scotland Weighing a Break-Up
« Reply #33 on: January 15, 2012, 11:09:02 pm »
Well, the Tories are the Tories.

I never heard of it, no. None of the 'Scottish American' sites I was going to during that time frame mentioned it either.

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Offline Scotsgit

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Re: England and Scotland Weighing a Break-Up
« Reply #34 on: January 16, 2012, 12:40:59 pm »
I never heard of it, no. None of the 'Scottish American' sites I was going to during that time frame mentioned it either.

And that was the problem:  SNP supporters like to rave about what a great success it was, but they can't get their heads around the idea that it wasn't aimed at them.  The next is planned for 2014 and I've heard nothing from Scottish societies around the world (I'm a member of a couple having lived in expat communities).  There is lots that could be done to make it a success, notably offering group bookings to Scottish societies world-wide, putting on more events such as re-enactments, ceilidhs, Burns Suppers et al, but the way it seems to being handled is that there won't be any announcement about it, beyond a quick press release on the Scottish Parliament website last year, until at least 2013.
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