Salmond and Sturgeon Want the English Fish for More Fat Subsidies

elantan

Shakethedisease wrote: »

Who are you voting for then ? Just so we all have an equal chance in terms of ripping into them if we don't like them. And mabye point out to you how deluded/foolish you are and 'how it will all come crashing down' and brainwashed with sound bites ? Fair's fair after all.

this one had me :rotfl::rotfl::rotfl::rotfl::rotfl::rotfl::rotfl::rotfl:wish i had the talent to say things like that off the cuff

ruggedtoast

Leanne1812 wrote: »

Hamish, we all know we 'get' more spend per person in Scotland. What I'd ask you to look into is how much do we really get back compared to what we put in. The way I understand it is quite creative accounting is used to make it appear we put x amount into the pot yet get substantially more back. There's quite a few billion that comes under the amount the UK spends on our behalf. No breakdown however of where & what it is spent on. Where, exactly does this money go? How do we get detailed figures to tell us Scotland is getting these billions spent here or is it elsewhere? If you can't explain this to me then I shall have no choice but to continue to believe that we are not subsidised.

You know you get more spend per person in Scotland, you just suspect the English have somehow rigged it so that you simultaneously also get less.

I give up. It was impossible to reason with you people before the referendum, when you were convinced your absurd assertions were going to win the day. Now post referendum you are still all banging he same drum and expecting to get a different sound out of it.

Leanne1812

ruggedtoast wrote: »

You know you get more spend per person in Scotland, you just suspect the English have somehow rigged it so that you simultaneously also get less.

I give up. It was impossible to reason with you people before the referendum, when you were convinced your absurd assertions were going to win the day. Now post referendum you are still all banging he same drum and expecting to get a different sound out of it.

It's easier to give up than try to supply me with a transparent document listing Scotland's revenues & expenditure that has no creative accounting perhaps

Generali

Leanne1812 wrote: »

It's easier to give up than try to supply me with a transparent document listing Scotland's revenues & expenditure that has no creative accounting perhaps

I already linked to that.

Leanne1812

Generali wrote: »

I already linked to that.

Yes you did thanks. As I said I will read it but I am not convinced it will give me the detail I would like. I think as Shake's post points out it will be nigh on impossible to get clear cut figures of how much is Scotland's revenues and how much is lumped into to the UK pot. Can you see what I mean?

Generali

Leanne1812 wrote: »

Yes you did thanks. As I said I will read it but I am not convinced it will give me the detail I would like. I think as Shake's post points out it will be nigh on impossible to get clear cut figures of how much is Scotland's revenues and how much is lumped into to the UK pot. Can you see what I mean?

For the purposes of National Accounting the revenues rasied in Scotland mostly go to the Treasury and then remitted back to be spent by the various different levels and branches of Government.

Some of the spending is prescribed, for example the council is paid by Central Government an amount to cover housing benefit claims, and some is discretionary.

For the purposes of the accounts, some money spent on UK wide things is shown to have been spent on Scotland, e.g. a share of the costs of the Foreign Office.

It is highly detailed and you could probably argue the toss about how this stuff is split up: should joint spending be split by GDP, population or something else for example? UK Government stats are generally excellent within the constraints of the political framework in which they work.

Leanne1812

Generali wrote: »

For the purposes of National Accounting the revenues rasied in Scotland mostly go to the Treasury and then remitted back to be spent by the various different levels and branches of Government.

Some of the spending is prescribed, for example the council is paid by Central Government an amount to cover housing benefit claims, and some is discretionary.

For the purposes of the accounts, some money spent on UK wide things is shown to have been spent on Scotland, e.g. a share of the costs of the Foreign Office.

It is highly detailed and you could probably argue the toss about how this stuff is split up: should joint spending be split by GDP, population or something else for example? UK Government stats are generally excellent within the constraints of the political framework in which they work.

That's just it though isn't it? We don't know, we cannot seem to get to the bottom of these figures. Being a cynic I'd have to wonder at why we cannot? You can see where I'm coming from can't you?

Your last sentence I cannot make heads nor tails of, sorry. It might have come straight from a politicians lips in order to confuse me :-)

Generali

Leanne1812 wrote: »

That's just it though isn't it? We don't know, we cannot seem to get to the bottom of these figures. Being a cynic I'd have to wonder at why we cannot? You can see where I'm coming from can't you?

Your last sentence I cannot make heads nor tails of, sorry. It might have come straight from a politicians lips in order to confuse me :-)

Have you even made any sort of effort to read or understand the figures? It's increasingly obvious that you don't like the numbers because you don't like what they're telling you. These figures are created by one of the best statistical organisations in the world.

As to my last sentence, it discusses the difficulties inherent in creating these sorts of figures. Statisticians discuss stuff like that out of professionalism, not to obfuscate. If you don't understand it, get educated! (Or ask me what it means).

the_flying_pig

i think it's really unhealthy to waste seats in parliament on a single issue party like the SNP that's far more concerned with increasing Scotland's share of the pie than the actual size of the pie.

imagine what a farce the political system would be if a yorkshire party swept the boards in yorkshire, a london party did similar in London, etc.

.string.

On oil price volatility - someone (I forget who for the moment) said that Oil prices have gone up recently. I think they did go up a bit as can be seen from the following:

Falling Oil Price slows US Fracking, but that 's not the reason I posted the link. In it you will find an analysis of ther rational for oil prices and it also argues that the current price is a result of some sort of price war. If that is the case then one could expect the price to come up a bit and then maybe level off to discourage US Fracking from "distorting" the oil price as the Saudis would see it. That ignores the fact that independence from oil imports is a strategic aim of the US.

In any case whereas oil prices may go up it is questionable as to whether they will increase to the point where North Sea Oil again becomes economical to develop.



Of course that remark is in the context of the Scottish Economy and its reliance on volatile oil wealth. There's no denying that a small amount of oil wealth is better than none but oil is not the only volatile income. There is the financial industry for example which gains something like 4 to 6bn (don't know ther true amount - anyone got a better figure) for the UK. The small matters of the currency and underwriting of risk on bank deposits etc was leading to an imminent departure south of the bulk of the Scottish branch of the UK financial sector, and is another income source that is volatile (aka may vanish); as would EU membership for a separated Scotland and as would a large part of its exports as would UK subsidies for R&D, defence contracts and defence itself not to mention the BBC (Oh I forget Scotland would still be able to pick up the BBC (at a cost I expect)). The debt would not go away however.

All those things were factors in the Referendum debate; the Referendum debate has now been done (with a rejection of Separation) but those issues have not gone away and will not go away.