Salmond and Sturgeon Want the English Fish for More Fat Subsidies

Generali

Shakethedisease wrote: »

Been through this before. I guess as an economist you have no idea what 'austerity' means. Weird. Scottish budget has been cut. Unless you're trying to say Scotland is unique. Andrew Neil got a bit of a red face for saying the Scottish budget hadn't been cut not long ago... and incidentally, he was quoting Kevin Hague.

Where is the disconnect in the numbers? AFAIAA the website I and subsequently HAMISH linked to is simply trying to present the data in a coherent way and doesn't have an axe to grind.

Shakethedisease

Generali wrote: »

Don't let's pretend that independence means anything other than grinding poverty for decades for the average Scot. A 20% cut in budget for Scotland's Government overnight isn't going to mean a little tinkering around the edges.

If the SNP can sell a vision of a independent Scotland, gloriously free of English interference that would be somehow better than being in the UK then so be it. I don't see any proposal that would make Scotland enough of a better place to give up proper healthcare for or to end the welfare state for though.

This is the Government spending pie chart for Scotland:



You need to cut 20% out of it. Getting rid of all state spending would do it as would stopping spending on basically everything other than pensions, health, education and welfare. It's up to you really but that would be the reality of the choices faced by an independent Scotland. If Scotland could grow by an extra 0.5% a year over England (highly unlikely in the face of such austerity but still) it would take about 45 years to make back the gap between the countries.

If the Scots really want shot of the English that much then so be it but be under no illusions of the size of the task at hand.

Kevin McKenna has a reply for you today. He reflects in this piece Scottish thinking at the present time. I can't quote it all, ( you can click though ).. so am quoting the parts which counter yours.

Try and get your head around the fact that hardly anyone ( unless desperate to stay in the union like Hamish ) really believes the 'Greece' scenario. It's been pushed too hard and for too long now.

Scots shouldn’t be fooled by the oil-price naysayers

...Of course, there is some capital to be gained in the theatre of party politics owing to some ill-judged oil revenue predictions in the SNP’s white paper on Scottish independence. In that document, an unlovely and unnecessarily grandiloquent testament, the SNP predicted that in 2016-17 oil revenues would be somewhere in the region of £6.8bn to £7.9bn. In fact, at current prices, revenues will be a mere fraction of that. As such, according to some, the economy of an independent Scotland would have suffered defenestration; key public services would have been imperilled and the country would have been looking for handouts from Greece. Well, it might have been if Scotland's economy rested solely on oil for both it's health and vigour.

Thankfully, it does not. Even without oil, Scotland’s GDP per head is less than 1% lower than the rest of the UK’s. Scotland is simply fortunate that it is one of only a favoured few countries that possess oil wealth, which has, at various points over the last 40-odd years, been, by turn, gargantuan, merely massive or disappointingly plentiful, as it is now. What is more, in its volatile history you can no more accurately predict the price of a barrel of oil than divine how many clean gold medals will be won at an Olympic Games...

...Scotland’s citizens are far from economically illiterate and those who are poorest know more than anyone else what a proper economic challenge looks like. What scares the bejesus out of the monetarists is that for 16 months now, these people appear to be putting their faith in something higher than personal financial gain.

We can only wonder what Scotland would have looked like if successive Labour and Tory governments hadn’t concealed the 1974 McCrone report, which stated that North Sea oil receipts would have made an independent Scotland the second richest country in Europe. Instead, Margaret Thatcher used it to pay off a viable coal industry and now her acolytes ridicule us for being naive about what remains.

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/jan/16/scotland-oil-price-slump-snp-forecasts-critics

Shakethedisease

Generali wrote: »

Where is the disconnect in the numbers? AFAIAA the website I and subsequently HAMISH linked to is simply trying to present the data in a coherent way and doesn't have an axe to grind.

The Scottish budget has been cut by about 10%.We went through it earlier in the thread when Andrew Neil pounced on an SNP MP with figures given by Kevin Hague. Since proved nonsense.

Generali

Shakethedisease wrote: »

The Scottish budget has been cut by about 10%.We went through it earlier in the thread when Andrew Neil pounced on an SNP MP with figures given by Kevin Hague. Since proved nonsense.

CPI is c.0%. How on earth can a nominal increase in spending lead to a real decrease with CPI at 0%? These figures are a fantasy.

And are you really trying to claim that 1% of the £170,000,000,000 GDP of Scotland manages to produce £7,000,000,000 in tax revenues?

Do you think that we're stupid on here? It's insulting frankly.

Shakethedisease

Are you trying to claim that there have been no cuts to the Scottish budget ? Seriously ?

http://fiscalaffairsscotland.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/Long-term-Scottish-budget-projections.pdf

Generali

Shakethedisease wrote: »

Are you trying to claim that there have been no cuts to the Scottish budget ? Seriously ?

http://fiscalaffairsscotland.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/Long-term-Scottish-budget-projections.pdf

I'm claiming that your figures are clearly bunkum.

When inflation is 0% how can an increase in nominal spending be a real fall?

How can a part of the economy that you claim is 1% of £170,000,000,000 produce taxes you claim to be of the order of £7,000,000,000?

It's rubbish.

Shakethedisease

Generali wrote: »

I'm claiming that your figures are clearly bunkum.

When inflation is 0% how can an increase in nominal spending be a real fall?

How can a part of the economy that you claim is 1% of £170,000,000,000 produce taxes you claim to be of the order of £7,000,000,000?

It's rubbish.

They're not 'my figures' though are they. The Scottish budget has been cut, just like everyone else's departmental spending has. Scotland hasn't been made a special snowflake in reserved matters. And John Swinney isn't capable of loaves and fishes miracles with what's left for him to spend.

DEL figures above are the only one's the Scottish Govt have control over. The rest are 'reserved' ie welfare/tax credits etc. Pensions in particular aren't included in DEL figs. For the obvious reason, as like welfare, it's Westminster's call.

So yes, the Scottish budget has been cut by 10% for devolved area's like education/nhs etc.

It's insulting frankly.

Amusing to see you channeling a famous parody Twitter account there. Sorry, but honestly, best not to use the word 'frankly' in Scottish based threads these days. It makes people like me laugh. Sorry... :A

Generali

Shakethedisease wrote: »

They're not 'my figures' though are they. The Scottish budget has been cut, just like everyone else's departmental spending has. Scotland hasn't been made a special snowflake in reserved matters. And John Swinney isn't capable of loaves and fishes miracles with what's left for him to spend.

DEL figures above are the only one's the Scottish Govt have control over. The rest are 'reserved' ie welfare/tax credits etc. Pensions in particular aren't included in DEL figs. For the obvious reason, as like welfare, it's Westminster's call.

So yes, the Scottish budget has been cut by 10% for devolved area's like education/nhs etc.

Amusing to see you channeling a famous parody Twitter account there. Sorry, but honestly, best not to use the word 'frankly' in Scottish based threads these days. It makes people like me laugh. Sorry... :A

They're the numbers you brought to the table.

A quiz
1. CPI is zero.
Nominal spending is up.
Therefore real spending is:
a. Up
b. Down
c. Flat

2. Oil is claimed to be 1% of the Scottish economy. Scottish GDP is £170,000,000,00. 1% of £170,000,000,000 is £1,700,000,000. Taxes on £1,700,000,000 are £7,000,000,000.
a. Eh?
b. Don't be ridiculous
c. Ms Sturgeon told me to do it.

Shakethedisease

Generali wrote: »

They're the numbers you brought to the table.

A quiz
1. CPI is zero.
Nominal spending is up.
Therefore real spending is:
a. Up
b. Down
c. Flat

2. Oil is claimed to be 1% of the Scottish economy. Scottish GDP is £170,000,000,00. 1% of £170,000,000,000 is £1,700,000,000. Taxes on £1,700,000,000 are £7,000,000,000.
a. Eh?
b. Don't be ridiculous
c. Ms Sturgeon told me to do it.

You're over complicating things massively. We were discussing cuts to the Scottish budget, in line with all other UK departmental cuts. Those have happened, and indeed, why wouldn't they ? That you're still vainly clinging on to the notion that Scotland has uniquely been 'ringfenced' is up to you. Because there's no evidence of it. And when Andrew Neil tried to claim that it was the case... he was laughed at given the official facts and figures to hand ( which of course, when it comes to other matters, can be trusted 100% when it suits you to use them ).

Injecting oil into the mix, is irrelevant. Scotland isn't independent.

As I said, in future the SNP will simply focus on who should be in charge of the Scottish budget, for good or bad, rather than get into any more long drawn out oil price and currency/where's your plan B stuff next time. And will be content to highlight Conservative 'failings'.

The Sunday Herald today seem to be out of the gates already...

Tories attacked over plan to recruit Scotland's poorest schoolchildren as 'cannon fodder' for British Army

TORY plans to create military cadet units in state schools in Scotland's most deprived areas have been attacked as an attempt to recruit vulnerable children as British Army 'cannon fodder'.
Leaked correspondence obtained by the Sunday Herald shows defence minister Julian Brazier urged the Scottish Government to embrace in-school cadet units. A senior SNP source branded the plan a "cannon fodder scheme" and said it would not go ahead.

http://www.heraldscotland.com/news/14210113.Tories_attacked_over_plan_to_recruit_Scotland_s_poorest_schoolchildren_as__cannon_fodder__for_British_Army/

Simple but effective. I'm afraid. And playing the unionist media at their own game. About time if you ask me.

Generali

Shakethedisease wrote: »

You're over complicating things massively. We were discussing cuts to the Scottish budget, in line with all other UK departmental cuts. Those have happened, and indeed, why wouldn't they ? That you're still vainly clinging on to the notion that Scotland has uniquely been 'ringfenced' is up to you. Because there's no evidence of it. And when Andrew Neil tried to claim that it was the case... he was laughed at given the official facts and figures to hand ( which of course, when it comes to other matters, can be trusted 100% when it suits you to use them ).

No I'm not. The figures you provided show a nominal increase in spending. CPI is zero therefore there must be a real increase in spending. Which part of your data table is wrong do you think? (I can give you a clue as a professional economist: when looking at where forecasts have gone wrong try to separate the assumptions that have been made from the actual data. The actual data in your table is the budget therefore the discrepancy has come from an incorrect assumption which was.....?).

You claimed that oil is 1% of Scottish GDP and that the tax take on that is c.£7,000,000,000. I showed that to be impossible. You're just getting a bit muddled. (Clue: proper economists estimate Scotland's GDP to be 16-18% oil or did when the oil price was $110/bbl, it'll be rather less now and falling of course).

It isn't very complicated, it's just sums. People get a bit intimidated when sums get labelled with words like 'economics' is all.