Salmond and Sturgeon Want the English Fish for More Fat Subsidies

Thrugelmir

Leanne1812 wrote: »

I disagree, I think Alex was open to debate & questioning about the economy.

Open to debate? Putting a neutral hat on I was none the wiser. Nor was I surprised. Politicians and their spin doctors are masters of avoiding the real issues and manipulating the media headlines. Not that I believe it to be purely a Scottish issue I should add.

Generali

Leanne1812 wrote: »

And round and round and round it goes.......

Can we please have a detailed breakdown of spending? Where it goes exactly and how much? No, of course we can't because the 'unidentified' spending is just that. You cannot say with any certainty that Scotland does not hold her own can you?

HAMISH covered that. Unidentified spending covers things like embassies which has no geographic basis.

Shakethedisease

chewmylegoff wrote: »

Not sure what the methodology used to determine how to apportion revenues has to do with the methodology used to apportion costs, or, indeed, what your point is.

Missed the entire point of the article then ?

This brings me to the second most missed point in the debate so far: the fact that all the numbers everyone uses to make the financial argument are no more than rough guesses.
The Government Expenditure and Revenue Scotland (GERS) numbers come in a long and boring document. But the good news for those of us who have to read these things is that you don’t have to spend much time looking to realise that you don’t have to spend much time looking at them.


GERS therefore uses a number of different methodologies to apportion tax revenues to Scotland. In doing so, there are often theoretical and practical challenges in determining an appropriate share to allocate to Scotland. In certain cases, a variety of alternative methodologies could be applied each leading to different estimates.” ... you can now happily ignore all the financial arguments for a separate Scotland on the basis that no one knows what they actually are.

http://moneyweek.com/one-less-thing-to-think-about-in-the-scottish-referendum-debate/

Shakethedisease

Generali wrote: »

HAMISH covered that. Unidentified spending covers things like embassies which has no geographic basis.

Hamish can 'cover' what he likes. He doesn't work at the Treasury. And he's kind of like the Daily Record these days. Everything needs to be taken with a huge pinch of salt given his perspective ( as you do with posters like myself of course ). No offence meant.. but you can't quote Hamish as a 'source' then expect everyone to go 'Ooooh that's right, because Hamish said so'.

Forget Hamish. Why don't you have a look yourself into 'unidentified expenditure' and what it means.. then mabye tell us what you think. It's all guesswork and making things 'fit'.

We talk about tax revenues in Scotland, about what the fiscal deficit in Scotland is and will be, what GDP is and what GDP per head is as though the numbers we use are real.

But they aren’t real. Take the numbers for individual tax revenue. They are no more than a proportional domestic average taken from the UK as a whole, and then adjusted for Scotland’s age profile.
Then take corporate tax revenues: these, again, are guesswork. Corporations aren’t required to define their tax liabilities in a geographically-defined way, so no one actually knows how much of the revenue or profit of a company operating in Scotland is Scottish and how much is not – particularly given that it is mostly collected on the English side of the border.


The point is that none of the numbers we use in the debate are findings in themselves – instead they are reflections of UK averages. That in turn means that the numbers we partly extrapolate from tax expenditures and revenues are also decidedly iffy.

http://moneyweek.com/merryns-blog/the-pointless-numbers-in-the-scottish-referendum-debate/

IveSeenTheLight

.string. wrote: »

You still don't give the net result. That figure isn't much help.

OK - you won't, so let me help; these are relatively recent figures:

How much does Scotland pay in tax and how much does it spend?

So . . . What would say the balance is today? And on what do you base your repeated assertion that Scotland is a net contributor.

I have never denied that Scotland is running a deficit, as is the whole of the UK.

My point above is that we are not all reliant on London as per Generali's assertion and that other areas contribute more than the UK average

IveSeenTheLight

CLAPTON wrote: »

what we can say is that Scotland get more block grant per head than Yorkshire

And again we go round and round.
How much does Yorkshire contribute?

Why have you moved on from the West Midlands, where we clarified that they got just under 50% back for what they contributed as did Scotland?

IveSeenTheLight

Generali wrote: »

HAMISH covered that. Unidentified spending covers things like embassies which has no geographic basis.

Ok, using HS2 as an example, where is that spend captured?

elantan

IveSeenTheLight wrote: »

And again we go round and round.
How much does Yorkshire contribute?

Why have you moved on from the West Midlands, where we clarified that they got just under 50% back for what they contributed as did Scotland?

cause the West Midlands didnt suit his needs so he has to move again

I'm surprised this thread is still going, has it moved on any?

anyone watched the maiden speeches ? much more fun than going round in circles on here I reckon lol

Froggitt

And I don't understand why how much each region puts in has any relevance to how much each region gets out.

Tromking

Froggitt wrote: »

And I don't understand why how much each region puts in has any relevance to how much each region gets out.

I said as much a few pages back. I don't think it was answered.