Scotland Watch

[Tarrel]

Meanwhile, back OT:

I notice the £ had a wobbly last week on announcement of the closing of the opinion poll gap in the indyref. I wonder what will happen tomorrow when the markets digest the news of the YouGov poll putting "Yes" in the lead?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SwRFoxgEcHc

On this occasion, I think the markets might be right to price the currency down. A yes vote would set the cat among the pigeons and usher in a period of uncertainty. The rUK budget would have to be reformulated, and the ability to pay down the debt would come under fresh scrutiny IMO. Plus, of course, there would be a protracted period of negotiation, during which the foundations for rethinking the budget would be laid. Share of oil revenue, possibility of a currency union and Scotland's share of the debt are just some of the relevant issues that would be on the table.

Of course, all of this would be taking place during the election of, and transition to, a new government in rUK, adding further to the uncertainty. Said government would have to work with a House of Commons that would be reshaped within 10 months of it being formed.

Against this background will be a myriad of small, medium and large businesses trying to figure out what Independence will mean to them, and taking action accordingly.

I'd probably characterise it, from an economic point of view, as a massive, collective "taking the eye off the ball".

[Tarrel]

British pound collapses to 10-month lows:

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-09-0 ... month-lows

[Little John]

British pound collapses to 10-month lows:

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-09-0 ... month-lows

from that article:

......the revival of local/national concerns, from Scotland to Spain and beyond, as part of continuing anti-establishment sentiment and a backlash against globalisation. And the UK experience (with growing support for UKIP alongside faster economic growth) raises the issue that economic recovery alone may not be enough to reverse the rise in anti-elite, anti-establishment sentiment.

[UndercoverElephant]

Yep...anyone who is offering any sort of relatively effective kick up the backside of "the establishment" is doing well. From UKIP to the SNP.

[kenneal - lagger]

Another slight problem for the SNP at the moment is that Scotland doesn't have a decent size bank of its own. You have two banks with Scotland in the name but one is part of a British banking group, Lloyds, and the other, RBS, is 84% owned by the British government. Ooops! Their value should rocket if Scotland gain independence.

Remarkable how people get back on topic when an awkward off topic question is asked!

[another_exlurker]

Steve, most of those agricultural workers aren't married and don't have kids. Also, the farms usually provide accommodation of some kind (usually static caravans). As far as I'm aware, agricultural accommodation that is located on the farm doesn't attract council tax if it's for farm employees. There usually isn't any rent to pay either (hence why the wages are lower).

One of the reasons why the farms have to rely on immigrant workers is because, traditionally, those jobs were done by migrant workers from within the UK. Thanks to Maggie destroying the traveller community, that whole way of life was (to all intent and purpose) completely destroyed.

exactly. We are all, apart from a few fuckers at the top, dancing to a tune not of our making, where we must each of us **** the next guy over in order to stay afloat.

The problem is systemic

I completely agree.

One of the other problems is that society has become increasingly urbanised. Actually, I'll rephrase that, too urbanised.

Anyway, this has little to do with the Scottish Vote! Apologies for the slight thread derail

[UndercoverElephant]

One might argue that even the few fuckers at the top don't have much choice about the tune being played. Or rather, that if they weren't using their out-sized influence to help keep that sort of tune playing then they wouldn't have got to the top in the first place.

If Rupert Murdoch, or the CEOs of Halliburton, Nestle and the rest actually had a social conscience - if they weren't ruthless, single-minded, power-obsessed, greedy and utterly lacking of any sense of responsibility for anything other than their own success and that of the corporations they are in charge of - then somebody else would be doing their job, and that somebody else would be ruthless, single-minded, power-obsessed...

There's a fundamental problem here, and we're still no closer to solving it than we were when it was originally described, sort of, by Plato, 24 centuries ago. How do we ensure that "the right sort of people" (which he called "philosophers", but can be taken to mean something like "people who will act in the interest of the common good of all the people they govern, instead of their own interests or those of a specific sub-group they belong to or who support them") end up in positions of power?

[Little John]

Yes. It seems to be unsolvable. But, it is the central problem.

[vtsnowedin]

British pound collapses to 10-month lows:

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-09-0 ... month-lows

So ten months ago the pound sterling was monopoly money? Things seemed to be chugging along then as usual. Why the panic over a six percent drop against the US dollar which has a lot of tight oil and fracked gas boosting it up at the moment.

[Tarrel]

British pound collapses to 10-month lows:

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-09-0 ... month-lows

So ten months ago the pound sterling was monopoly money? Things seemed to be chugging along then as usual. Why the panic over a six percent drop against the US dollar which has a lot of tight oil and fracked gas boosting it up at the moment.

a) The mainstream media are following a well-trodden path of picking one sensationalist story to produce "rolling news" on,

b) The powers-that-be in Westminster have leaped upon the market movements as an opportunity to stoke the "project fear" furnace in the referendum debate, which has led to more "Big Newz".

Two weeks ago, nobody south of the border was talking about the referendum. You'd have thought that, maybe, a BBC researcher or Telegraph journalist might have had a holiday up here and reported back to their editor along the lines of; "Err, boss, do you have any idea how BIG this whole referendum discussion thing is north of the border?!"

But no, silence, until now.

Actually, a drop in the value of the £ will be no bad thing. IMHO it is over-inflated on the back of mickey-mouse economic growth fuelled by a housing bubble and financial services. A lower currency valuation might just help the export-led recovery that everyone said we need to create after the 2008 crash, but which hasn't really materialised.

[biffvernon]

Yes, until recently most folk assumed that the No vote would win so there wasn't much to talk about. Now that Yes is a real possibility I wonder if there will be a positive feedback effect with more people willing to vote Yes. After all, it's nicer to be on the winning side.

[UndercoverElephant]

British pound collapses to 10-month lows:

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-09-0 ... month-lows

So ten months ago the pound sterling was monopoly money? Things seemed to be chugging along then as usual. Why the panic over a six percent drop against the US dollar which has a lot of tight oil and fracked gas boosting it up at the moment.

The "panic" is not because sterling has dropped against dollar. The "panic" is because sterling dropping against the dollar is seen as an indication that "people who know about these things" and who manage large amounts of money think that the result of the referendum might be a yes vote.

People are worried about the costs of the break-up of the union, not about a devaluation of sterling. In most of the western world there is an on-going race to devalue quicker than everybody else. Nobody wants a rising currency, everybody wants a falling currency.

[biffvernon]

The Queen, (sensible woman) has said that the Scottish vote is for the people of Scotland alone. So Cameron, Miliband and Clegg (silly men) are going to Scotland tomorrow to tell people how to vote.

[biffvernon]

And of oil

But the large political parties on both side have got it wrong, ignoring Britain's past experience and misrepresenting the future. The Scottish Nationalist Party alongside Labour, Conservatives and Liberal Democrats have all promised to defend the interests of oil companies. For 30 years, the UK's North Sea model has functioned as a form of corporate welfare, delivering massive profits to multinationals and minimal public benefit. With the second weakest tax system in the world, the UK collected only $21.50 per barrel of oil in 2008, compared to Norway's $48.50 - less than half.

The nonsense about struggling oil corporations requiring tax cuts hides a reality in which the same companies use the momentous cash flow from the North Sea to subsidise drilling in other parts of the world. The issue is not just how you spend the oil money - although this is important - but, crucially, how much you get for it in the first place.

http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinio ... 84597.html

[Tarrel]

Now, now; let's not frighten the horses!

Actually, the Union is as good as saved! DC has played his trump card. The Saltire is billowing over Downing Street.