Scotland and Greece

Firetastic

Just a quick question before I go out. If Scotland ever does go independent do you think Scotland will end up like Greece?

HAMISH_MCTAVISH

No.

Scotland would likely end up worse than Greece.

Funnily enough there was a recent article on this topic, lets take a look at the key points...

Scotland would be £8.5 billion a year worse off if it seceded from the United Kingdom. If you add that to Scotland’s share of the UK’s annual deficit – which it would inherit – it’s hard to see Scotland staving off bankruptcy for very long.

So following bankruptcy and a desperate appeal to the IMF and Europe (if we were even still a member, and that is highly unlikely) there would be a heavy price to pay and austerity a hundred times worse than anything imaginable as part of the UK.

The irony is, many of the ‘Yes’ voters would have been voting for an end to ‘Tory austerity’.

If they want to know what austerity really looks like, they should take a gander at the terms of the deal currently being offered to Greece.

Supporters of the SNP should thank their lucky stars they lost.

http://blogs.spectator.co.uk/coffeehouse/2015/07/an-independent-scotland-could-easily-have-been-the-next-greece/

Scotland came far too close for comfort to disaster last year.

Thrugelmir

Firetastic wrote: »

Just a quick question before I go out. If Scotland ever does go independent do you think Scotland will end up like Greece?

Greece is independent today. Still has sovereign control over it's own affairs.

chris_m

Thrugelmir wrote: »

Greece is independent today. Still has sovereign control over it's own affairs.

It may have sovereign control over its own affairs, but it seems pretty well incapable of managing its own affairs.

Hang on, if Scotland did go independent it'd have the SNP in sole charge - no difference then.

Thrugelmir

chris_m wrote: »

It may have sovereign control over its own affairs, but it seems pretty well incapable of managing its own affairs.

Greece first defaulted in around 4 BC. So hardly surprising that the culture is so well ingrained.

Firetastic

It's just there is rumblings about another independence referendum. I said to someone "We'll have a referendum about another referendum"

Mistermeaner

Greece has nice weather, an elegant language and a movie about it starring John Travolta.

Other than that identical

chris_m

Scotland has nice weather (sometimes), an elegant language (in some parts) and a movie about it starring Mel Gibson - rats, that killed the argument

Mistermeaner

One of them has an interesting history and friendly welcoming people. One of them has some big lakes that are spelt wrong

chris_m

Yep, unpronounceable names - hardly surprising though, tis all Greek to me

princeofpounds

It depends.


What is the national debt in your scenario? Most natural assumption would be proportionate share but I've seen plenty of SNP types claim they don't have any national debt. Greece of course is hugely indebted.


What is the fiscal policy pursued by the government in your scenario? Stated SNP policy would be pretty disastrous in terms of budget deficit but they would probably stop the milk and honey once they won their goal. Greece has only a minimal budget deficit, these days.


What currency do they run? Scotland would have similar competitiveness issues to Greece under the Sterling pound at current levels. A Scottish pound would devalue and leave a more competitive economy but crush the purchasing power of the Scots people. Either scenario is possible mid-term, although a national currency would be hard to avoid in the longer term (despite the almost counter-intuitive SNP position on the issue)


Ownership of oil and oil price... of course.